Mini Gingerbread House: Getting in the Christmas Spirit

While browsing the internet a few months ago i stumbled upon http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2009/12/18/a-gingerbread-house-that-perches-on-the-rim-of-your-mug/ and bookmarked the page to save for a Christmas treat!

A few days before Christmas I decided to take on the project.

Here is the recipe i used for the gingerbread:

Ingredients

• 6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon finely ground pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup unsulfured molasses

Directions

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Put butter and brown sugar in the bowl and use an electric beater and mix on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in spices and salt, then eggs and molasses. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Divide dough into thirds; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface to 0,6 cm thick.
4. Use the stencils provided by http://www.notmartha.org/images/other/2009dec/gingerbreadhouses/pattern.pdf.
5. Bake cookies until crisp but not dark, 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.
6. To make the icing to “glue” the gingerbread sides together, use icing sugar with whipped egg whites, which makes the icing hard and cement like.
7. Start by gluing the 4 sides together with the icing in a piping bag. Let dry and then use the icing to glue the roof on.
8. Let completely dry before you decorate.

Now for the fun part! I mostly used red and green gel icing to decorate the roofs, but decided to get creative by crushing candy cane to sprinkle on top of one of the houses. Alternatively you could just sprinkle icing sugar for a “snow topped” effect.

The final product!

Here are a few examples of how I used them to decorate our table on Christmas day.

Put them on a cake stand and create a little village, or perch them on the side of your mug!

Enjoy!