Gingerbread House Tutorial; Part 2

Okay, back to making our gingerbread houses today! You have your gingerbread. It has been cut and baked and now it is ready. (Please ignore whatever it is that keeps turning my pictures.)

Here we have the pieces laid out and ready to go. I like to use a sturdy piece of cardboard for the bottom. I cover it with foil and I'm good to go. I like to lay the pieces out like this so I can lay the frosting down where I need it.

Pour a thick layer of frosting for the foundation, and along the sides that will be touching. Then slap that bad boy together and hold it for a few minutes till the glue... er, frosting dries enough. This part may take more than 2 hands. The directions say to wait an hour before adding on the roof, but please, who actually follows directions?!! When in doubt, add more frosting. Fill up the nooks and crannies and places where the pieces don't quite meet because I am an impresice person and I don't cut a straight line!

Now me, I had to lay out 8 settings here. It was Activity Days, ya know! I actually had 9 girls come, so its a good thing I had baked up 12 of these things! They also brought more candy to decorate with. Once the girls arrived, we put the roofs on and they went to town. Here is the table before the girls arrived.

Here is the table after they left. Sprinkles, smarties, and pixie stix were everywhere! They had a good time though, and all I had to do was sweep everything off the table and into a trash can. Easy clean up!

And here is the creative process in progress. There was a lot of great stuff going on! I was impressed with some of the things they did. I hope they had fun, because I did!

Gingerbread House Tutorial; Part 1

I may have mentioned that I am the Activity Days Leader in our ward. For one of our December activities, I thought it would be fun to make gingerbread houses. That really means that I get do all the work to actually MAKE them and the girls will decorate them. If you are lucky, I'll remember to post the recipe I use later. This is not an eating recipe. You certainly CAN eat it, but only if you are orally fixated and like to gnaw on things. It makes rock solid gingerbread, which happens to be perfect for this project!

Once you have your dough made and cooled, you will need to clear off a lovely bit of space. For me, the only space big enough is the kitchen table. Flour the surface heavily and roll out some dough! It is suppose to be 1/4 inch thick, but I probably roll it a lot less than that! Hey, I made small houses, they don't need to be as structurally sound.

This picture was turned the correct way when I uploaded it and I do not know what happened. I'm sure you can see what to do without even cranking your head 90 degrees to the right.

Lay out your template and gently trace around it with your knife. The trick here is to have a sharp enough knife to smoothly trim the dough, but no so sharp it slices through the tablecloth. (I say tablecloth, when in fact, I merely have a sheet of plastic to protect the tabletop. And I like it!) I did switch to using a pizza cutter later. It cuts smoothly and its easy to trace along the template with it.

If you are like me, you may have to shoo away a baby who is suppose to be upstairs with Daddy getting bedtime stories read to her. She is not a helper, she just thinks she is.

After you cut out a bunch, your table may look like this. Just to sound helpful, let me remind you that you should have at least 3 templates- one for the roof, one for the sides, one for the front and back. You'll trim out 2 of each to make one complete house. I doubled my recipe and made really small houses, so I got 8 full sets cut out. Yeah, it took a while.

And yep, I had to chase the girls back up to bed too. I lured them away from my culinary masterpieces with the promise that they could roll out their own dough the next day. I followed through too.... all the scraps went into the fridge and I let the kiddies roll and cut out some rock hard cookies for tree ornaments. So there! I still needed a few more houses, so I had to make another batch.

Here you can see the cut out parts waiting to be put on the pan and cooked. And Delaney is enjoying her breakfast in the background. I'm into casual here.

Now, FYI, I only have 2 pans that fit into the oven here. Sad, but true. So I imporvise, and it just takes a bit longer. So..... slide the lovely cut-outs onto your pan, and straighten any edges that might have gotten gronked in the process. Then toss that pan in the oven.

Here's what they look like when they are done. Well, slightly overly done. We're not going to eat this stuff people, we don't care if its overly done! Its a good thing, actually, it means that they won't crumble. Chip, maybe, but not crumble.



Again, with the rotating the picture for me! Still, you can tell that you need to cool your gingerbread when it comes out of the oven. You want to let this stuff sit a few minutes first to firm up before you move it to the cooling racks.

Then I like to stack them as units so I can make sure I have enough pieces to make a complete house. I miscounted on this batch and I have 2 extra side pieces, which is much better than being 2 short.

Okay, and here is the recipe. I'll be showing the finished results later. (PS- the icing dries to a very solid finish, like glue.)

Gingerbread Dough:
Stir together into a bowl
6 c all purpose flour
1 Tb cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ginger
½ tsp salt

In 2 qt sauce pan mix until blended, then stir over medium heat until margarine is melted:
1 ½ cups Corn syrup
1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
1C margarine or butter

Add liquids to flour mixture and mix until well blended. Then chill in refrigerator until dough is easy to handle.

For easy rolling, place damp dish towel under cookie sheet to prevent sheet from slipping. Line 15 ½ by 12” or 17”by 14” cookie sheet with foil, moistening first with water to prevent f oil from moving. Remove about 2-3 cups dough from refrigerator and roll about ¼” thick. (As you saw, I just rolled it out on the table and moved the pieces. Whatever works for you!) Cut pattern pieces from light weight cardboard, place pattern piece on dough and cut with sharp knife. Remove scraps of dough for re-rolling.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned and firm when lightly touched. When cooled, check against pattern. They can be trimmed with a knife or sanded to fit. Return all pieces to oven and rebake for 20 minutes at 300 degrees so they will harden and handle easier. (I don’t think I ever did that.)

ICING
1 lb confectioner’s sugar
3 egg white at room temperature
½ tsp cream of tartar
In large bow with mixer at low speed, beat all ingredients until well blended. Beat at high speed 7-10 minutes or until a knife drawn through it leaves a path. Makes about 2 cups.

Note: because the frosting dries quickly, make each batch just before you are ready to use it. If you must store for a few hours or overnight, cover tightly with plastic wrap. When using, keep container covered with a damp towel. You can add food colors as needed. If icing is too thick when using the decorator tubes, add a few drops of water at a time. For thicker icing, add confectioner’s sugar.

Assembly: When assembling gingerbread pieces with icing, work with pastry bag with medium tube. Color small amounts of icing with cocoa to use as glue. To attach walls of houses pipe icing along the edge of one wall. Press it against adjoining wall and hold in place for several minutes before icing sets. Let dry thoroughly, propping attached pieces with a small sturdy object. When dry, smooth seams with a damp cloth. Fill in any spaces with more icing. For extra stability when building a house, pipe icing inside along seams as well. Allow to stand for at least an hour until icing has dried before putting on the roof. (They say to decorate each wall, and then assemble… ah, we didn’t do that.)

Follow up

Sorry, so many things happened to distract me from the end of the story.

.... So, the firemen came and said we had carbon monoxide in the house. I had to call the gas company and a guy came out with his magic wand and looked for the source. Fortunately, it was not a gas leak, just improperly burning appliances which were putting off the high levels of carbon monoxide. He said there was an issue with the water heater and with the stove- mostly the stove (but just while it was on, not while it wasn't in use). He put red tags on them, and shut off the gas to them. So I was hot waterless and stoveless till someone came to fix them. Eeep!

I had a little trouble getting a call back from the management company. (Which really means that I wanted to hear from them at 8am sharp and they didn't call till 10:30, by which time I was gone.) I also went ahead and went to the doctor. Both the firemen and gas company guy said I should get checked out. Apparently, I didn't really need to. Thankfully, I was able to drop the girls off at Playgroup and go alone to see the doc. He said that if I was walking, talking and functioning normally, then I was fine and any residual carbon monoxide would leave my body on its own eventually. He could have done a blood test to see what the levels were, but there really was no point, since they would not do anything, and as long as the source was stopped, there was no problem. Plus, they'd need arterial blood for it. So I didn't get poked, I went to the last 30 minutes of Playgroup!

I did have to wait at home all afternoon and the water heater guy came and cleaned it out and labled it functional. The stove guy came and chatted with me as he cleaned it out. It had gunk clogging the holes where the gas comes out and that had been causing it to burn improperly. So he cleaned out all those tiny holes and the stove actually works properly for the first time since we got here! Even better, it cooks stuff faster than it use to! Yay. So, by 4pm, all was well with the house. The alarms have not gone off again, and I had the stove on for an hour last night (I had to finish the last of my 10 Shepherd's Pies!).

Oh, and I have my eye exam resheduled for the monstrously inconvenient time of 1pm today.

So, life is back to normal and Everyone's getting a carbon monoxide detector for Christmas!!!

And now I have to mention this.... Andy actually got me a Mononxide detector for Christmas a few years ago because I was worried about the car in the garage killing us on accident. So, we moved in with one to this house. After we'd shut off all the other ones on Tuesday, I was still hearing a beep beep. It took me a while, but I tracked it down- in the middle of one of the boxes in the basement that I had never gotten around to unpacking! The darn thing worked all the way in there!

In Case of Emergency...

Guess who came to our house today?!

No fair, you cheated. Okay, I guess I did post the picture so you have every right to peek ahead. And now that I've told you the middle of the story, why don't I start at the start!



I think I mentioned my 30 potatoes, in the last post.... well, I was cooking the meat and whatnot to put together my 10 Shepherd's Pies. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with 10 lbs of meat, browning on the stove. Add 10 zucchini and 10 carrots, and a plethera of other delights and I was slaving away in there. I was nearly done when the alarm began to beep- very loudly. Then it said, "Caution, Carbon Monoxide." I ignored it.



Hey, don't blame me! We moved the smoke detector out of the kitchen because every time I turned on the stove, it went off. So, I didn't pay attention to it. Then the upstairs one went off as well. 2 CO2 Detectors, both beeping quite loudly and announcing the presence of Carbon Monoxide got me a bit worried. I turnd off my stove, and called the police department, because that's the only number I could find. 10 minutes later, with sirens screaming, the fire truck pulled up in front of the house. How exciting!

There's the house and the lit up truck. 4 Burly firemen came in and walked around with their gieger counter. Right, it was counting gas, not giegers. Aparently zero is where you should be at, over 10 and they want you out, and we were at 40 in the kitchen. Very bad. So the girls went accross the street to play with the nieghbor kids and I called the property management company. 5 calls later, I finally talked to who I needed to and they said someone from the gas company would be out soon to see where the leak might be coming from.

The problem with all this (other than the possibility of very bad things, like death) is that I had a 4:30 eye apointment. Dan was going to meet me at the eye place at 4:15, and it was currently 3:45. Aargh. No way to reach Dan, so I cancelled the appointment and crossed my fingers that Dan would get home okay. The Gas company guy came just before 5pm and Dan came home 10 minutes later.

Fabulous ME!

I must first mention that you need to go visit the Normal Mormon Husband blog. I have a link on this blog so I can get there immediately. He is so funny and if you have not visited his blog, you really need to. If you have not visited his blog and read his Twilight Spoof (he wrote it right before the last book came out, so search accordingly), you REALLY need to!

Now, on to me. Some of you may know that I am part of a "Make Ahead Meals" group. That means that once, every 2-3 weeks, I make 10 meals. The same 10 meals. Then I meet with my friends and we trade our meals so we each go home with 10 different meals. Its fabulous. It would be easier if I could get into the freezer in the garage, but Dan likes to park his car in there and that effectively keeps me out of the freezer, unless I have planned ahead. This time, I am making a Shepherd's Pie. And today, I peeled and cubed 30 potatoes. Yes I did. 10 of those potatoes were sweet potatoes. See, its going to be ahealthy Shepherd's Pie! My wrist hurts, and the dirt from the taters is hitting my allergies. Scuse me, I need a Kleenex!

I am going to abruptly change the topic. I have a sewing machine. I like to sew. My talents however, are very limited. I can sew a straight line. I can follow very simple directions. I can make a great quilt. I cannot sew or alter clothing, which would be a helful thing to be able to do. Even with my severe limitations, I managed to do some pretty spiffy things!

It has gotten cold here. I hear that's what happens as winter approaches. Still, it was getting a bit chilly for me to be comfortable taking the girls out in the stroller for a run. The problem is that I need to run. I eat too much junk not to. So I decided to make a stroller blanket to keep their tootsies warm.

I know, it came out pretty cute! I got some fleece at Walmart and attached some velcro and straps to it and a wee bit of elastic down the front, and viola! It works really well at keeping the baby dolls from falling out too. There is no problem of blanket dragging on the ground or getting run over by the wheels, and the girls don't get so cold. I thought I was pretty cool.

When the temp dropped below 30 in the morning, I didn't think this was warm enough. I actually took a week of from running with the stroller. (Thank goodness for the elliptical machine!) Then I had another thought. I could make a plastic cover- like the rain covers. This would keep the warmth in, and keep the wind out, and the girls could still see out. So I went back to walmart and got some plastic, and I got to work.

This is my almost-finished product. I know, I am darn impressed to. You would be a little less impressed if you saw the stitches. I can't figure out why the tension is off, but it is, and the stitches are pretty awful on one side. I don't care, its for my stroller! Let me mention also how much I love this stroller. I got it about 4 years ago and I still love it and use it all the time. Its what we take on our trips and I've used it enough that the tires are nearly bald. I LOVE the swivel wheen in front. It does lock also, and I lock it to run. But the swivel makes it easy to get through doors, and on and off the Metro. I love it! And now back to my lovely stroller cover...

Here is the side view. I still need to trim and add an attaching thing to the bottom there, but I think it is pretty good. I didn't need it this morning, so I haven't tried it out yet, but I will.... oh yes, I will!