Tiny Sugar Cookie Houses

I have a post-Christmas cold which means I don't feel like baking. Instead of something new, here is what I intended to post a few days ago.

Every year for Christmas I make a cake. I was going to just make a Santa face this year, but the whole gingerbread house making spree made me want to make tiny houses. I've also been curious if houses could be made out of sugar cookies. I had the brilliant notion to combine these two things into one. And so I made a cake with a small village on top!

Below I present the recipe for the sugar cookies and a step-by-step guide to making the tiny houses (and a tree!). The sugar cookie recipe is very good, it doesn't need frosting or sugar or sprinkles. So feel free to just make some sugar cookies instead. (I cut the recipe in half because I didn't need a lot of cookies, the images reflect this!)

Sugar Cookies (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 C butter (softened & salted)
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
2 1/2 C flour
1 t baking powder

Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix until creamy.

Add the eggs and vanilla. Mix until well blended.

Add the flour and mix well.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 2 hours (can be chilled overnight as well).

If you plan on making tiny houses, draw the template pieces while the dough is chilling. I made houses that were 2 inches high, 1 1/2 inches across the front, and 1 3/4 inches long.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

After the dough is chilled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface. Since I needed the house pieces to be perfect, I rolled out the dough on parchment paper. Cut out the pieces of the house (or of cookies) and place the parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. Let cool completely on the parchment paper (which may be removed to a cooling rack).

After the cookies are completely cooled (they were small, so this took around an hour), make the royal icing glue for the houses.

Each house  needs a front & back, two sides, and two roof pieces. Take the front piece and draw a frosting line down each side. Attach the side pieces to the frosting strips. Draw two more frosting lines on the back piece and attach that to the side pieces. This frosting is sticky and dries kind of quickly, so the little houses shouldn't need much support. I took a large marshmallow and place it inside of the house just in case.

Trace the top of the house with frosting. Place one roof piece on. Draw a line of frosting across the edge of the roof piece and attach the remaining roof piece. Tada, you have a tiny house.

Repeat until all houses are assembled.

If you desire a 3D tree for your little town, you should have cut out tree pieces during the rolling & cutting phase. A few of these trees should have been cut vertically down the center.

Color a glob of the frosting glue green. Obtain a full tree cookie and two tree halves.

Smear the green icing on the front of the full tree cookie. Now smear some icing on both sides of a tree half. Smush the tree half into the full tree. Hold it for a minute until the icing has dried enough to hold the tree half in place. Repeat with the other side of the full tree and the other tree half. Add some optional decorations. Tada, a Christmas tree.

The tree might need to be propped up during the drying phase. I used a small round cookie cutter to hold it up.

Here is a picture of the cake & town I made.