Snow Icing (for roof and yard)

I love how creamy and warm this is when it is first mixed, you will want to lick the bowl, beaters and anything else you can get your hands on! It is oh... so yummy... too bad you aren't eating your Gingerbread house!

6 egg whites – beat on high until stiff

In a Sauce pan combine:
¾ C. Water
3 C. White Sugar
1 ½ tsp. Cream of Tarter

Stir lightly, put lid on until sugar mixture boils really hard. Then take the lid off and boil to a soft ball stage. Then Pour the hot syrup in a steady stream into the egg white while the mixer beats on high. Continue beating on high for 4-5 minutes.

** Do not attempt to do more than a single batch of this icing as it will fill your mixer to the brim with a single batch! **

Royal Icing

Beat 3 egg whites until foamy
Add ½ tsp. cream of tarter
Mix in 1 lb of Powdered Sugar using dough hooks (you can use whips).

Mix until spreading consistency or firm to hold shape.

Gingerbread Hard Candy Glass Windows

This is just hard tack candy, but you can be creative and make all sorts of colors to do in your windows, but I love doing the golden yellow, and then some green so I can make the effect of a Christmas tree or a wreath in the windows, you just have to lay out the candy in the window the way you want it to look, noting that it won't be a perfect silhouette as the candy will melt the way it wants to, but you will get the general effect. This is one of the things I love about these houses, is that there are lights and windows. This year we made it so the doors were cut out and we put glass in the doors, I think that added a lot as well.

2 C. Sugar
½ C. Light Corn Syrup
½ C. Water

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook without stirring (to avoid bubbles) to a hard tack stage. Add desired food coloring and stir with a wooden spoon. Pour the hot liquid onto a cookie sheet and quickly rotate pan to spread hot candy thinly over surface of cookie sheet. Allow to cool thoroughly. Once cooled, use a hammer and crack the candy in 4-5 places to create shards of candy.

Line a cookie sheet with foil, place gingerbread house pieces with right sides up on foil. Wearing gloves so you don't leave your mark, take shards of candy and place in window openings, layering pieces to fill up the window opening. Be careful not to use the powder granules from the broken candy it will make your windows cloudy. Place the cookie sheet in an oven heated to 400-425˚. Watch this carefully!!! Do not let it boil/bubble, do not do more than one cookie sheet at a time, and place it on the top rack only to avoid burning. Your windows will be cloudy if it’s overcooked, or boils. Once it is completely cooled, you will be able to pull the foil off of the back of the gingerbread pieces.

Gingerbread House

About three years ago I met a woman Zina who had a family tradition of making homemade Gingerbread Houses each year with her family, she had done it as a child, and had carried on the tradition with her kids, when I saw how fun her houses were, I decided that I wanted to make it a tradition as well. Don't get me wrong, it's not an easy process, but the finished product is awesome, and makes all of the effort worth it in the end! So I am going to detail the process in my next few posts for anyone else out there who wants to start the tradition. This is my second year doing it, and I learn something new each time. These are a few of the houses that I have made, the decorating credit goes to my sister in laws Dani, Marybeth and myself.


Gingerbread House
1 ½ Cups Sugar
1 ½ Cups Shortening

1 ½ Cups Molasses
3 egg yolks (save whites for icing)
1 ½ tsp Salt

3 tsp Baking Powder
1 ½ tsp Baking Soda
3 tsp ground ginger
3 tsp ground cloves
2 ½ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ground nutmeg
6 Cups Sifted Flour

Cream sugar and shortening and then add all ingredients in second group. Add seasonings from last group and mix well. Switch to dough hooks and add flour; beat for 10 minutes. Place in fridge for 3 hours minimum. Roll dough to ¼” thickness on a greased cookie sheet (a rolling pin that fits inside your pan or on top of the bottom of your pan if flipped over works nicely, make sure all your pieces will fit on the rolled out dough before baking). Dough will cover 3 silver cookie sheets completely. Cut out patterns into dough before baking. Bake dough at 350˚ for 20 minutes or until dough is slightly underdone. Once dough is out of oven quickly cut out pieces for a second time then move to a cooling rack. Do not attempt to cut pieces once the dough has begun to harden, it will crack and break.**

**However if you have a piece that does crack or break, if you place the dough back in the oven for a minute or two to re-warm, the gingerbread becomes soft and pliable again and you can push the broken pieces back together and let them cool, then carefully remove the mended piece for your house. Also, when you make the windows you will re-heat the pieces which is why you want them slightly underdone, and the "glass" from the windows will help to mend broken areas as well.**

Assembly
You can either use a hot glue gun for assembly, or you can make it completely edible by heating up 1 C. Sugar in a frying pan at 400˚ to melt the sugar, then turn it down to keep it hot at 300˚. Dip the pieces into the sugar then place them together to assemble. Put the sidewalls on the inside of the house.