My Favorite Handmade Holiday Tradition, and a Downloadable Recipe for the best Gingerbread Ever
This post of part of Etsy Greetings Team’s blog hop for the holidays. SO….to find out more about other creative people’s handmade holiday traditions, click the arrows at the bottom of the post to hop to the next one!
But now, about gingerbread architecture.
My son, who is nearly 30, can reckon the history of his life in gingerbread years. “Remember when we did the castle with the moat?” “Remember when we made the little village, with the skating rink?” “How about when we made our house, complete with the dogs in the back yard?”
1990
When he was about five, we made our first gingerbread house. A friend had the Austria cookbook from the Time/Life series of cooking of different countries–remember that?–and it had a recipe and pattern for a classic gingerbread house.
Well, hey. I’m an architect. We could do this, even though he was only five. What we did was amass all the candy we could come up with and start baking. I learned quickly that you have to let the gingerbread cure for a day or two before you assemble the house; otherwise it can bend.
Our first few houses followed the pattern, with different iterations. But an early requirement was that Necco wafers were essential for roofing material. Nothing else would do, it seems.
1993
Pretty soon, we graduated to castles. At first it was a simple wall with a keep inside, and a moat of some kind. But eventually we make a replica of Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig’s castle in Bavaria. It’s pretty much a classic of “gingerbread” architecture, and we did pretty handily, using ice cream cones as turrets and Vanilla Wafers for round towers. This was necessitated because we decided somewhere along the way that a second requirement is that everything has to be edible.
1998
Having gotten out my old architectural history tomes for that one, it seemed a small leap to move on to other architectural monuments. So when my son went off to Italy for a year as an exchange student, it made perfect sense to me that we should have the Tower of Pisa (oh and, by the way, the cathedral too) gracing the sideboard. And so it happened, even though he wasn’t home to help. The tower was a challenge, but I learned to make the circular form by wrapping the gingerbread around a canister when it was piping hot from the oven and let it cool.
Which reminds me: at some point, I switched from the Time/Life recipe to a recipe from a friend which makes divine gingerbread that decidedly does NOT taste like cardboard. I’m giving you this recipe; it’s at the end of the post here.
The next year, when he was back in the U S of A, we decided to do the Empire State Building. The challenge here was the height, which was tricky because a cookie sheet is only 17″ long but the finished building was about three feet tall. the stepped shape of the building helped us out, though, and we made it in layers. The easiest and most entertaining part was making King Kong out of marzipan. Sorry, no good photos from that escapade, but it was sure fun.
2005
Now that creative, adventurous boy lives in Russia. So of course, St. Basil’s was a requirement one year.
I know it’s lumpy and lopsided, but we loved it. Luckily, Caz was home from Russia to help with this. There was gingerbread all over the kitchen for days on end. Working out the elevations was really tricky and we had to cheat on the onion domes by using aluminum foil to help them stand up. It’s not edible, but at least we were honest about it. Decorating the domes was a blast, and, if you check, you’ll see that we did colors that are true to the real building.
I don’t make gingerbread architecture every year now. One day Caz will have kids of his own and I’m pretty sure we’ll revive the tradition, because it’s important to him. But I do have a few step-grandchildren lurking around here and there, and we occasionally do the basic house, which is awfully nice, though even a simple house is way more complicated when you have to do several of them. And it takes a lot more Necco wafers.
And now: you can download the gingerbread recipe here. Happy holidays ahead! AND hop on to the next blog!!!
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Wow, Katy. This is a brilliant post. Thanks so much for the walk down your memory lane. I actually got a little teary at the end. *sigh* I’m so impressed by all of these structures! I’ve never made gingerbread *anything*, but I now know I will head to your recipe first. Thank you!
Cheers,
Susan
Wow, you’re so sweet. Thanks for the compliments, and cheers back!
Truly incredible. Absolutely breathtaking!
Beautiful gingerbread houses. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Wow Katy! Those gingerbread houses are pure genius! What a crazy amount of work, but a fabulous tradition for your son. I haven’t even tackled the gingerbread houses that come in a box yet!
I have to admit that, once you get into it, building gingerbread stuff is pretty addictive. So I either go all out or don’t do one! Thanks for your compliment.
Architectural gingerbread wonders! I love gingerbread, but never attempted anything as extravagant as your creations!
I love gingerbread houses! What a great thing to be able to do with your son. They are all wonderful! I have only made one with my dd and it was from a kit and nothing as elaborate as these.. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Thanks, Terri.
Those are absolutely wonderful! What a neat tradition, I’d love to try it someday. Thanks for sharing.
I love your photos. I wanted to see even more houses. This is a great tradition!
WOW……. You amazed me! I love your tradition, going back to when your son was only 5. Like Susan, I got a little tearful, thank you for sharing your family tradition. I really enjoyed looking at each of your amazing buildings.
Well, gosh, I didn’t mean to make people weepy! Thanks so much for your sweet words.
Wow! Very impressive!
so creative!!! they look fantastic!
thanks for the link, i love gingerbread…i should attempt to make one of these, well a small one first hehee…
Amazing!!!
WOW! WOW! WOW! truly amazing!
OMG, THIS IS AMAZING!!! I can’t believe my eyes at the pictures! I think I attempted a gingerbread house and it was the most pathetic thing ever. Too messy. Kudos to you and your son for going beyond the usual house. Thanks for sharing, I totally forgot about the gingerbread houses!
The trick is this: EMBRACE THE MESS! Then it gets really fun! Thanks for the compliment.
I can help you out..I make at least 5 gingerbread hsoeus for orphanages every Christmas Here’s my recipe.. =P• Cut the basic structure templates for your house from posterboard and test first by taping the pieces together. If it will stand as made out of posterboard, then most likely it will be structurally safe for your gingerbread house.• Don’t limit yourself to a plain box house. You can make virtually any shape, from igloo to Victorian to farmhouse. Or, use a loaf mold in the shape of a house to eliminate the construction steps.• Prepare a base for your house. Use a piece of plywood covered with foil, a large heavy platter or baking tray. You will want to be able to move the entire structure easily. You can use a sheet of gingerbread on top of the base if you wish, but it’s not necessary.• Keep in mind that the dimensions of your gingerbread house will be restricted to the size of a 12-by 15-inch baking sheet, and cut your templates accordingly.• Maximum thickness for dough should be 3/8-inch. For hsoeus larger than 6 inches square, use 1/4-inch thickness and for smaller hsoeus, use 1/8-inch. Weight-bearing walls should be just slightly thicker.• If you want the walls covered in icing, you may need to thin the icing with a few drops of water and then spread gently on the sides before assembling. Let sit for the icing to dry.• When assembling, apply the glue icing using a pastry bag, and let sit for 30 minutes to set before actually assembling. This will help the pieces adhere better, resulting in a more stable structure.• When assembling, apply a generous (but not dripping) amount of icing glue to one side of the joint. Press un-iced piece to the iced edge and hold briefly until the icing sets. If you want more stability, you can also icing-glue the walls to the base.• For the icing decoration, use a pastry bag with various decorating tips or a knife. You can easily fill in gaps and smooth construction errors with icing and candy decorations. Wipe off smudges or drips with a clean, damp paper towel.• To apply candy decorations, dab a small amount of icing to the underside of the candy and hold in place until set.• You can use dough scraps to roll out added decorative cut-outs to be applied with icing glue. These cutouts can be impressed with designs before baking.• If you don’t have time to do the baking, you can use cardboard or graham crackers and still show off your decorating skills.
Great pointers! My friend whose gingerbread recipe I use makes dozens of tiny houses every year, each one customized for the recipient. It’s all about the decorating!
I am amazed! What a great tradition and awesome houses!