How To Make Gingerbread House Cookies

Gingerbread House Cookies: a classic gingerbread cookie recipe perfect for Christmas cookie ornaments or mini houses.

Gingerbread is a real favourite around here.  My husband and my kids love it.  What could beat the warm spices of everyone's favorite traditional Christmas cookie.  These cookies are perfect for celebrating the holidays.  We made the sweetest little gingerbread house cookies for hanging on the Christmas tree or giving as gifts.  And then we couldn't resist making some tiny little miniature gingerbread houses.  This gingerbread cookie dough is delicious and easy to work with, and perfect for making little houses like we did or gingerbread men.

Gingerbread

The familiar taste of gingerbread, spiced and crisp, is a sign of Christmas.  Gingerbread gets its name from ginger, but also includes cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg to create the perfect spice combination.  Molasses also adds richness and along with the brown sugar helps to give the gingerbread its dark brown color and deep rich sweet flavor.

Gingerbread can be soft and chewy inside, or hard and crunchy.  Soft is a favourite of many for snacking and the harder version is favoured for building houses, because it is stronger and less likely to break.  Since our houses are tiny, or flat cookies we didn't have to worry too much about the strength of the hard dough.  This dough is somewhat in between hard and soft.  It's very delicious, and still strong enough for hanging flat ornaments and miniature houses.  If you want it to be softer you can roll it more thickly and bake it less time.  If you want it to be crispy roll it out slightly thinner and bake it a little bit longer.  

Regular Icing vs.Royal Icing

Regular icing is made from butter and icing sugar and is a softer creamer icing.  Royal icing dries hard.  Many people prefer to use royal icing for constructing gingerbread houses and icing gingerbread cookies.  We prefer regular icing, purely from a taste point of view.  Royal icing is made from egg whites, or meringue powder and icing sugar.  It doesn't include fat, and the taste isn't as creamy and delicious.  

If you are making a full size gingerbread house using royal icing will make a huge difference to the construction.  It will be easier to build and more study.  But for the small pieces of our miniature gingerbread houses and gingerbread house cookies a better tasting easy buttercream icing is fine.  Depending on the size of your gingerbread creating, you may prefer to use a royal icing recipe for added strength.

Decorating

We also didn't add candy to our miniature houses or gingerbread house cookies.  I love the look of the gingerbread with the classic plain white icing.  We added lots of details like hearts, and dots, and curly cues to add interest.  Use different sized plain tips to create different looks on your cookies.  We used a plain tip for the outlines of doors and windows and roofs, and used a very fine tip to add the fine details like dots, hearts, vines, and patterns.

If you prefer you can use candy to decorate.  If you're making mini houses like us, or flat gingerbread house cookies try to find candy that is smaller in scale so that it fits the small houses well and adheres easily.  Look in the baking aisle for things like different sprinkles, non-pareils, dragees, and jimmies.  Also look for miniature chocolate chips, gumdrops, and other candies for decorating.  I love looking at the bulk food store, where there's lots of different options to choose from.

Storing The Cookies

If you wanted to store the cookies for snacking, keep them in a airtight container at room temperature.If you wanted to store the cookies for snacking, keep them in a airtight container at room temperature.

Gingerbread House Ornaments

To make the house cookies we cut out different house sizes using a knife, and then made a hole for hanging with a plastic straw.  You could of course also use a gingerbread house cookie cutter. Or if you want the houses to look the same you could make a gingerbread house pattern on cardboard and then use it to cut out the dough with a knife.

Once the cookies are iced and the icing has had a chance to dry and fully set, it's time to add a string for hanging the gingerbread ornaments.  We used a little bakers twine to hang them.  Thin ribbon would also be lovely for hanging them.  Adding the hanging string to the cookies turns them into the prettiest Christmas ornaments.   They look so pretty as decorations for the holiday season on a traditional tree, or even on a branch.

Miniature Gingerbread Houses

The tiny houses are made from a miniature gingerbread house cookie cutter set.  Cut out a small gingerbread house pieces.  You need one of the front pieces, one of the back pieces, two side pieces, and two roof pieces for each mini gingerbread house.  To put the mini gingerbread houses together use some icing on the edges to put the base together and let the icing harden before trying to attach the roof pieces.  Let all the icing set fully before decorating the houses.

My girls actually decorated them all.  I think the students have exceeded the teacher now.  I was working on some last year, and then they came home from school and made some far more beautiful ones than I had.  This year I left it too them.

We arranged them on a cake plate and added in a few cookie trees to create a tiny miniature gingerbread village.

The plate is decorated with some coarse sugar, and then sprinkled with more powdered sugar to look like snow.  These make a beautiful centrepiece for the holidays.  They're also a lovely gift.  They look very sweet packaged individually in little cellophane bags and tied with ribbon on top for gift giving or as a package topper.  The cellophane bag helps keep them fresh longer.

I love how these gingerbread house cookies turned out, and they're so delicious too.  The perfect Christmas cookie.  The hanging ornament gingerbread house ornaments look so beautiful on a Christmas tree.

Recipe

Gingerbread House Cookies

Make gingerbread house cookies to decorate your tree and mini gingerbread houses.

5 from 2 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes minutes

Servings: 3

Calories: 100kcal

Author: Dannyelle Nicolle-Ramjist

Ingredients

• ▢ 3 cups all purpose flour
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• ▢ 6 tablespoon softened butter
• ▢ ¾ cup brown sugar
• ▢ ½ cup molasses
• ▢ 1 egg
• ▢ 1 cup powdered sugar
• ▢ 1 tablespoon softened butter
• ▢ 1 tablespoon milk

Instructions

• Combine flour, salt, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon in large bowl and set aside.
• Add butter and brown sugar to a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until light and fluffy. Add in the molasses, and mix well, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add in the egg, and mix well again.
• Gradually add in the dry ingredients, to the wet mixture and combine at medium speed until the dough comes together.
• Divide dough in half, and wrap half with plastic wrap. On a lightly floured surface roll dough with a rolling pin to even thickness of ¼ inch thick, and cut out with shapes using cookie cutters or a small knife. Then roll out the second piece of dough. Lastly combine the scraps of leftover dough and roll those out.
• Place the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake the cookies at 350 F for 10-15 minutes. Bake them less time for smaller cookies, and longer for larger cookies, and less for chewy cookies, longer for crunchy cookies depending on your preference. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
• To make the icing, combine powdered sugar, milk, and 1 tablespoon butter in a medium bowl and stir to fully combine. Place in a pastry bag fitted with a fine tip, and decorate the cookies. Let the icing set before hanging as Christmas ornaments with twine or ribbon.

Nutrition

Serving: 1Servings | Calories: 100kcal | Carbohydrates: 18g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 11mg | Sodium: 55mg | Sugar: 10g

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