Xmas time! Decorate your house with a gingerbread house. Here is how I made it.
NOTE: this is my first gingerbread house so be good with me :)

Ingredients:
For the dough

* 3 cups flour (400 g)
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 3/4 tsp baking soda
* 2 tsp ground ginger
* 1 tsp cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp nutmeg
* 1/4 tsp ground cloves
* 1/2 cup butter (110 g)
* 1/2 cup granulated white sugar (100 g)
* 1 large egg
* 2/3 cup molasses (160 ml)

For the Frosting

* 4 cups powdered sugar
* 2 egg whites

For the house

* House models (you can draw your own or you can download some samples online)

For the men

* Gingerbread man cookie cutter

Step 1: Make the Dough!

In a bowl add butter and sugar

Beat until fluffy, then add the egg.

Pour in the molasses. Mix until well combined - Note: to avoid the molasses to stick on you cup, first spray the cup with non stick vegetable spray.

Next up, add the spices. Among the ingredients I have also listed ground clove, well I didn't have any at home so I haven't used it...and I'll tell you what...you can't even tell!

Slowly add the flour and mix with an electric mixer

until you get a smooth and very soft dough.

Divide the dough into two parts and wrap each piece in plastic wrap. Throw the 2 balls of dough for about 15-20 min in the freezer.

Step 2: Shape Your House

Take the dough out of the freezer. However while you are working with one ball, keep the other in your refrigerator!

Floured your working surface

Roll out the dough into a 1/4 inch thick circle. Place your house model on top of the dough and cut the different shapes.

With a offset spatula lift the cut out shapes and place them on a baking sheet
I basically draw the front house and the side house and used the front for the back house and the side for the roof as well. IT WAS WRONG!

I should have drawn a bigger rectangular for the roof...I'll show you why in a moment

Now bake your house at 180 C for about 12- 15 min. Longer if you are going to make a bigger house.

Step 3: Make the Frosting and Build Your House

It's time to assemble the house now baby! And this is when you go call your bf, husband, friend, roommate or doughter to help you. You definitely need 4 hands now...even more if you want to take pictures...which Im sure you don't, so forget about that!

Here come the hard part!

The recipe said to stick the different parts of the house using the frosting, well...it didn't work for me!

The recipe also said to use 2 cups of powdered sugar and 2 egg white. I did and the frosting I got was way too liquid and pourable

I added 2 more cups and I finally got the right consistency!

But still the house wasn't really sticking together...or better say, it would have if I had the patience to wait holding the pieces together for a couple of minutes. But patience is not one of my quality...I opted for using hot glue...

well...let me tell you something...It worked fantastic and at the end of the day no one is ever going to eat my gingerbread house! But yeah, if you have kids that might grab and eat a piece of the house when you are not looking..using glue might not be a good idea...

Now you can see why before I was saying that cutting the roof the same size of the sides was a mistake. You want the edges of the roof to stick out a bit

Step 4: Decorate!

Said that now go ahead and decorate your house. This is the fun part! Just give free space to your imagination and creativity. Use anything you have or anything you want.

I used finger chocolate cookie and smarties to make the door.

and the roof

Then I spread some frosting on top of the roof and around the edges of the house, to resemble snow

and my bf insisted for adding two sugar candies on the back of the house.

Then I spread the remaining frosting all around the house (as snow)

and stick 2 gingerbread men on the side of my house entrance...

the one of the left is me...can you tell?

For recipes check out my cooking blog: www.expatcucina.com