Gingerbread House Pieces

Since my freshman year of high school, I have been making gingerbread houses almost yearly. In German class, we received bonus points for baking, assembling, and bringing in a gingerbread house the week before winter break. I participated every year. I made a normal gingerbread house the first year. The second year I made a gingerbread disco. For the third year I made a small gingerbread village. And finally, I made a gingerbread ski lodge my senior year.

Unfortunately, I can't find the recipe that I received in German class all those years ago. The past few years I've looked for different recipes and haven't liked any of them. The dough made from this recipe seems to be nice. The basis of the recipe is from the 1996 Joy of Cooking cookbook. I changed it a bit for the flavor. More accurately, I changed it for the smell. I don't really like to eat gingerbread! The house smells like gingerbread and it is delicious. If anything, make a gingerbread house instead of buying an air freshener. The scent will linger for days.

I've made gingerbread houses with friends the past few years. This year I needed to make 5 gingerbread houses. I ended up with enough pieces for 6 by making this recipe twice. This recipe will make 3 small gingerbread houses or 1 large gingerbread house. It all depends on the size you want to make. This is a bit time consuming as well, so keep that in mind.

Gingerbread House Dough
5 1/2 to 6 C flour
1/2 t baking powder
2 1/2 t ground ginger
2 1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1 1/2 stick butter softened (12 T)
1 1/2 C packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 C molasses
1 T water

Place the flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg into a bowl. Stir together to combine.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. It won't be creamy, it will just be well blended.

Add the eggs, molasses, and water. Mix at medium speed until well blended.

Add half of the flour mixture. Stir until combined.

Add the other half of the flour mixture. Stir until combined. It will be a bit crumbly at this point. I placed the dough in a larger bowl and mixed it by hand. It may still seem a bit dry, but that is fine. If the dough seems too sticky, add a bit more flour. If it seems really dry, add molasses until it isn't extremely crumbly.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours in the refrigerator. It can chill for up to 3 days.

While the dough is chilling, make the pattern pieces. The pieces I made have the following dimensions: Front/back: 5 5/8" high, 4 3/8" wide. Sides: 5" wide, 4" high. Roof: 3 1/8" high, 5 1/2" wide. I always seem to make the roof pieces too narrow. Feel free to play with a ruler, paper, and pencil to create your own pattern. I think that making your own pattern results in a better house! I used a heavier card-stock to create the patterns this time. Any thickness of paper would work fine.

Once chilled, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Let it warm a bit while gathering all of your tools. Preheat the oven to 350.

You will need: parchment paper, rolling pin, knife, gingerbread house pieces pattern, cookie sheets, small cookie cutters for windows. I have a fondant/dough cutter that I used to cut out the pieces. A sharp knife works just fine.

Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit flat on the cookie sheet. If the paper isn't flat, your pieces will be bent. Work a chunk of dough in your hands, sprinkle some flour on the parchment paper, and roll out the dough on the parchment paper. Place the house patterns on the dough and cut out.

Peel away the extra dough from around the house pieces. Cut out any windows or doors you want at this point. Carefully transfer the parchment paper to a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes. It depends on the size of your pieces. Once they start to brown and aren't smushy when you poke them with your finger, they are done.

Let cool until firm on the cookie sheet. Transfer the parchment paper to a cooling rack to cool completely. Cool overnight before assembling the house.

I'll post the royal icing recipe tomorrow and possibly a basic "how to" for assembling... but that is a pretty easy & obvious thing.

Danish Horns

There are a few recipes that my grandma had that she would use as just guidelines. The ingredients are usually the same, but the method varies from what the recipe instructs. This is one of those recipes. I wasn't even sure if this was the correct recipe when I found it. The recipe says to roll out the dough like pie dough and do other silly things. I'll post the way I've always known to make this and not what the recipe claims should be done.

I don't like these cookies and the only time I will make them is around Christmas. They are full of walnuts. Lots and lots of walnuts. If you like butter cookies, walnuts, and cinnamon, you should like these cookies. People have requested that I put this recipe up, but not liking it combined with the slightly painful process didn't do anything to motivate me.

On a somewhat odd side-note, my family refers to these cookies as "funeral cookies". I'm told they received that nickname because my grandma made them for families when someone died. They were quickly associated with funerals.

Danish Horns (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
4 C flour
4 sticks butter (softened)
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 C sour cream
1 1/2 C chopped walnuts
1 1/2 C sugar
2 t cinnamon

The amount of walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon can vary according to your own taste. You can use other types of nuts as well.

Place the flour and butter in a large mixing bowl. Cut together the two ingredients. I recently obtained a pastry blender which is amazing. If you lack that, use a fork.

Mix together the egg yolks and sour cream in a separate bowl.

Pour the creamy egg mixture on top of the buttery flour crumbles. Mix together with your hands until just combined. Cover and chill at least 3 hours. This can be refrigerated for a few days before baking.

Once the dough is chilled, combine the nuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl.

Roll the chilled dough into 1 inch balls. Pour some of the nut mixture onto a clean, flat surface.

Place the dough balls into the nut mixture. Smash the dough down with the palm of your hand. Flip the dough and repeat until the dough is flat and full of nuts.

Roll the flat dough up and pinch into a horn shape. Place on a baking sheet. These don't spread much at all, so you can place them pretty close together.

Repeat until all of the dough is used up and your hand starts to hurt. Your hand will most likely start to hurt... you are smashing it repeatedly into a chunky and somewhat pointy mixture.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. They will be slightly browned. They also can quickly over-bake, so keep an eye on them.

Remove from pan and place on cooling racks. Cool completely.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Christmas Cookie Baking Reprise

As promised, there was a reprise to the Christmas cookie baking on Sunday. Only two types of cookies were made, but they are delicious types of cookies and absolutely worth the reprise.

First to be baked (and decorated!) were the butter cookies.

The second and final type were the always delicious chocolate crinkles!

The remainder of the day was dedicated to making peanut brittle and fudge. I'll have those recipes up soon!

Christmas Cookie Baking Day!

The yearly tradition of spending a day baking cookies occurred today. Unfortunately, two or so types of cookies  were not baked today. Don't you worry about that because there will be a reprise on Sunday!

I can't remember a December without a day or two dedicated to cookie baking. This is the reason why I think a single batch of cookies is such a small and sad amount. Even the amount of cookies we made this year seems so insignificant compared to the piles of cookies we used to make when I was little. I don't know if any pictures of that exist, I'll have to investigate that at some point...

Here is how the baking spree happened today:

First we made the compromise cookies. Sugar cookie dough and mini snickers.

Next up were the kolachky. These were filled with cherry, poppy seed, and apricot.

We bought a new spritz cookie press. It's the Wilton Pro Ultra. It works great! We used the recipe that came in the box.

Only a single batch of the peanut butter kisses were made. We have enough kisses for three batches, but I'm sure there is a good reason for not making more.

A day spent baking cookies is never complete without chocolate chip cookies. We followed the recipe on the back of the Nestle bag, but added 1/4 C flour extra. Want super soft chocolate chip cookies? Use this recipe!

Oatmeal cookies, while not a standard cookie to make during such a baking spree, are always welcome!

And, finally, we made the Danish Nut Horns.

While baking, Lucky insisted on staying in the kitchen. He would look at us with a hopeful and sad look. He also was missing his nap-times and kept looking at us with sleepy, slow blinking eyes. I tried to convince him to sleep by giving his pillow to him. That didn't work out.

Ready to go bake now? It's lots of fun! Plus, most people will be absolutely happy with a gift of cookies.

Kolacky

These cookies seem to be a favorite for a lot of people. We usually make them filled with cherry, apricot, and poppy seed filling. The cookie dough created by this recipe is light and flaky, very much like pie crust but more moist. The recipe is also very easy to make!

Kolacky (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
4 C flour
1 pound butter (softened)
1 packet dry active yeast (or 1 cake yeast)
8 oz sour cream
3 egg yolks
2 jars of pie filling

Cut together the flour and butter as if you are making pie dough. If you aren't sure what that means, take a fork and cut through the butter and flour repeatedly until you feel your arm will fall off. The final form of the mixture will be crumbly.

Sprinkle the yeast over the flour mixture.Mix together the sour cream and the egg yolks.

Pour over the flour mixture. Mix together completely with hands. I'm told that you don't mix it at this point, but I usually do and it turns out great.

Cover with a towel and let set for 1 hour.

Mix again completely. If you forget to mix completely  here, no worries. It will still turn out fine.

Chill the dough completely (or overnight).

Roll out dough to desired thinness. This will vary depending on the cookie-to-filling ratio you prefer. Cut the dough into squares.

Place some filling in the middle of each square. Fold opposite edges over the filling and pinch together.

Bake at 375 for 15 to 20 minutes. This depends on the thickness of the dough, so keep an eye on them after 14 minutes.

Remove from pan and cool completely on cooling rack. Do let the cookies cool before eating one, the filling gets very hot.

Peanut Butter Kisses

These cookies are terribly addicting. Every time that Christmas baking comes around, I have to make two batches of these cookies. The first one tends to disappear too quickly! At least these are easy to make. 

Peanut Butter Kisses (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C brown sugar (packed)

1/2 C peanut butter

1/4 C butter (softened)

1/4 C shortening

1 egg

1 1/2 C flour

3/4 t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

sugar for rolling

Approximately 3 dozen unwrapped chocolate kisses

Unwrap all of the kisses and place them in a bowl or on a plate.

Place the sugars, peanut butter, butter, and shortening into a mixing bowl. Cream these ingredients together.

Add the egg and mix it in well.

Add the flour, soda, and powder. Stir these in until just blended.

Place some extra sugar into a small bowl. Roll the cookie dough into 1 inch balls. Roll the balls in the sugar. Place evenly spaced on a cookie sheet. These will spread some, but not a lot.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, or until the edges turn slightly brown. Remove from oven and place the kisses on top of each cookie. Let set on the cookie sheet for a minute or so. Remove to a cooling rack and cool completely.

The kisses will take a long time to harden after they are placed on the cookies. To speed up this process, place the cookies in the refrigerator for a while.

The Compromise Cookies

There are times when you must choose between eating cookies and eating a candy bar. (I'm not sure when this would happen, but I'm sure it does.) This is a difficult decision to make. Fortunately, with the help of these cookies, you no longer have to make that decision. You see, these aren't just cookies. They are cookies with a piece of candy bar inside! These cookies are even sneaky in their disguise and look like plain cookies. So you can easily eat them and people will think you are just eating a cookie. Everyone wins!

The version of this cookie presented below is made with Pilsbury pre-cut, ready to bake sugar cookie dough and mini Snickers. These can be made with any type of mini candy bar and probably any sort of pre-made dough.

(Printer-friendly PDF Version)

Needed:

• ready to bake cookie dough (store bought or homemade)
• mini candy bars

Zeroth step, preheat oven to the temperature the cookie dough desires.

First step, unwrap all the candy pieces. Place them on a plate or in a bowl.

Second step, place the unwrapped candy pieces next to the cookie dough. The dough is easier to work with when softened, so leave the ingredients alone on the counter to get acquainted if needed.

Third step, place a piece of cookie dough on your palm and smash it with your other palm. Don't worry, the cookie dough cannot feel pain.

Fourth step, place an unwrapped piece of candy in the middle of the smashed dough. Wrap the candy piece with the dough.

Fifth step, repeat the third and fourth steps until a pan is full of dough balls.

Sixth step, place the filled pan in the oven for the designated bake time (the cookies will tell you how long this is).

Seventh step, remove the cookies from the oven. Let cool a minute or so on the pan before removing to the cooling rack.

Snowballs

These are also known as Russian teacakes, butter balls, and Spanish (Mexican) wedding cookies. Whatever you want to call them, just know they are mainly butter. Sounds healthy, right? To be honest, if you are eating cookies you probably aren't worried about the healthiness of the cookies.

These are a more recent addition to the Christmas baking frenzy. I think we found this recipe on a bag of Nestle Holiday Morsels. Where ever the recipe came from, it is delicious. The cookies are kind of dry but also melt in your mouth as you eat them. I recommend having a glass of milk on hand while consuming these.

Snowballs (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 1/2 C butter (softened)
3/4 C powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
1/4 t salt (only if butter is unsalted)
3 C flour
10 oz chocolate chips (more or less, up to you)
1/2 C finely chopped nuts (extremely optional)

Toss the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Cream together very well.

Add the flour one cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed. At this point, also add the nuts if you want to ruin the cookies. The dough will be heavy, thick, and not sticky.

Roll the dough into 1 inch balls. Place on a cookie sheet. These won't spread or change shape very much, so you can place them close together if you want. I, however, have the terrible habit of allowing no more than 12 cookies on a sheet.

Bake at 375 for 10 to 12 minutes. Don't over bake or they will be hard and dry. Under baking just makes them soft and crumbly. Let cool on a cooling rack.

Once the cookies are mostly cooled, place a few cookies into a container with 1/2 C powdered sugar. Close the container and gently shake. Tada! Powdered sugar covered cookies that look just like real snowballs. Maybe not, but we can pretend. Repeat this until all cookies are coated with powdered sugar.