Gingerbread Recipe

Dec
17

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Gingerbread

4 1/2 – 5 cups of plain four

1 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking soda

Sift together dry ingredients; set aside.

In microwave bowl or on the stove, melt 2 sticks of butter.

Add:

1 cup sugar

1 cup molasses

Mix sugar and molasses together with butter. Make a "well" in the dry ingredients; pour in butter mixture and mix well. Dough will be sticky… if it’s too sticky to roll out add more flour.

After cutting out your desired image on a heavily floured surface and placing on a baking pan, bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes.

 

Royal Decorating Icing:

Beat together until fluffy:

2 egg whites

4 cups of sifted powdered sugar

1/8 tsp. cream of tartar

Add 1 TBSP lemon juice… mix and if it’s too stiff to decorate, add more lemon juice.

Have fun! =)

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Gingerbread Competition!

Dec
16

WARNING: This post contains lots of pictures. Just click on one if you want to see more detail.

Competition always adds a little spice to life, right? (No pun intended – *grin*) Our good friends, the Fortune family, and us have a running game of whose family can beat who. First, we had the “who can build the biggest snowman” contest, which WE legally won. Next, our family automatically took the prize for the largest pile of raked leaves, because…they didn’t have any leaves to rake around their house. :) Then, we came up with the brilliant idea of having a “who can make the best gingerbread house” competition! We picked the same day to make our creations with midnight as the deadline. Everything had to be edible, and no looking at any pictures of other gingerbread houses to get ideas!

With much anticipation, excitement, and wondering what each others families were building, we meticulously drew house plans, gathered creative supplies, and went to work. Throughout the day, we sent taunting emails and pictures of everything BUT our prized projects back and forth!

Candy

The Fortunes shocked us with this picture of all their candy!!! Looks like they’re planning to get really creative.

Mess

By the end of the day, they had made 11 batches of gingerbread and over 20 batches of royal icing, compared to our 3 batches of gingerbread and around 9 batches of icing. Wow.

First floor

One story of the “structure” almost done…_____ to go.

Let’s check out how the Burnetts are doing…

Porch crew

The porch construction crew – it was a big plus to have a real construction worker helping us out. Thanks, Caleb! :)

Eating

Guess what we had for supper?

Just kidding. ;)

Benj and Char in front

Of course, we took great pains to make sure the pictures we sent to our rivals didn’t give anything away!

Our MESS

“Aerial view” of our family table. :) We pretty much took over the kitchen.

Making trees

Waffle cones make exceptional additions to your scene. Carinna developed a great method for creating very realistic trees.

After HOURS and HOURS of work, we finally finished our masterpieces soon after midnight and sent pictures of our works of art to each other.

Okay, are you ready for the final results?? Here we go.

Announcing the Fortunes’…

WALT DISNEY CASTLE!!

Fortune's Disney castle

TOTALLY impressive! This castle reaches 40 inches high!!

Castle doorway

They built a walkway all the way through the castle with a mural on each inner wall.

Mickey Mouse

Here you can see the making of the 9-inch Mickey Mouse mural.

Tinkerbell

Tinker bell, made out of candy clay – very creative.

Side view

Well done, Fortune family!! You get the prize for the most elaborately decorated and impressive structure. =)

And now for the Burnetts’…

CABIN IN THE NORTH WOODS!

Cabin

Welcome to our cabin! Abbie wound all the “Christmas lights” on the entry way and porch posts.

Nativity

This is what Christmas is all about, folks! Maggie made the nativity figures out of candy and gingerbread dough.

Mailbox

Would you believe the mailbox is made out of a marshmallow?? Carinna did a great job on this.

Porch

The porch is one of our favorite aspects of the scene. Notice the details! Abbie made the pretzel rocking chair and Charity created the holly hedges. *So cute*

snowman

Meet Mr. Frosty…is he winking at you? ;)

Now, we’ll take you ‘round back.

back of house

Every nostalgic cabin needs an outhouse and a woodpile. :)

Outhouse

Here’s Ole Nose nappin’ in front – another product of Maggie’s gingerbread dough artwork.

Pond

Credit for this part of the scene goes to Carinna! She put a lot of effort into the jello pond that is set in a basin of icing, surrounded by evergreens, with a sled in front. That’s exactly how we sled around here…down Grandpa’s pond dam. :)

Truck

I have a “thing” for old trucks, so I built this one out of graham crackers. This is our other favorite element of the scene! Can’t have a country cabin without a truck…

Rebel

…and a FORD, at that! No other comment needed. ;)

Whole scene

We gave ourselves a ribbon :) for the most realistically detailed gingerbread house that tells a meaningful story.

Well, we hope you enjoyed that summary of our contest from “Fortunett Competitions”! (Did you get that?) We already came up with a r-e-a-l-l-y good idea for next time, so watch out, guys!!

Now, go have fun on a yummy project with YOUR family. :)

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