Musings of a Serious Pig: Gingerbread house

A few notes on the gingerbread house for the future, since this is the first time I made it from scratch:

I made a template for an A frame house, no section bigger than 8x10.5”. This is the style of the house we made last year (using a kit from Trader Joe’s – who no longer carries it!), and I like how the style doesn’t use much dough, but the roof provides a nice big template for each boy to decorate. The template was made on regular paper, then taped to cardboard (Nikita kindly donated the Power Miner box to the cause). In the future, I should tape parchment paper to the cardboard to prevent it from sticking to the dough.
Dough recipe is from the Cook’s Illustrated Nov/Dec 1997 issue. Half the recipe is sufficient to make a house, plus six 4” gingerbread men and a few trees and hearts. I actually made the full amount this time, so froze the rest for next Christmas.
Icing recipe was also from CI Nov/Dec 97, but using only 1/2 lb. of confectioner’s sugar (and adjusting recipe accordingly). I read here that I can pasteurize the icing by whisking the egg whites with half of the sugar until smooth, then microwaving it 30-40 seconds until the temperature is 160-175 degrees; recipe is then resumed, beating mixture with rest of the sugar. The icing is quite liquidy and takes at least an hour to solidify (depending on how much was applied), so the next time, I will try decorating the panels before assembling the house. However, it was nice that the icing stayed liquid as long as I minimized contact with air (icing was in a make-shift pastry bag: Ziploc bag, with a corner cut off).
Decorations included Jelly Bellies, M&M’s (about 3 oz.), Twizzlers (2 oz?), and Lego pieces. The Twizzlers were particularly useful in filling in the gap between the roof panels (perhaps a sign of poor skills in baking rather than in engineering). In the future, I may replace the Jelly Bellies with crushed candy canes to be more seasonal, even though they maintained their color better than the M&M’s (but this could be because the cup that held the M&M’s was a bit wet). Gumdrops would also be good, and of course, any leftover candy from Halloween. Nikita’s Power Miners really helped complete the gingerbread house, although Nikita insisted on including his huge rock monster, who keeps dropping his crystal and knocking down a tree in the process.

While attaching the roof, I wondered why I didn’t get an engineering degree, but perhaps eggnog would’ve been better instead, as suggested by the BobVila site. It was also a challenge keeping the boys (especially Ivan) from eating the candy rather than using them to decorate. Anyway, here are photos of the final result.

Side angle, with Ivan's roof: