Cut out your house design in advance. Use thick paper thick paper (business card thickness) for roof and walls. Don’t forget to cut out windows and doors. Label each piece. For beginners, make the house symmetrical (If not take care not to mirror/flip paper pieces when tracing in dough)

Determine how many batches of dough are required.

Don’t forget to buy decorations! 

Double batch recipe:

• 2 cups shortning (Crisco)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups molasses (organic or blackstap)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 10 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 4 tsp cinnamon
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground cloves

With Kitchen Aid, cream the sugar and shortning.

Beat in eggs.

Add molasses, vinegar.

Add dry ingredients.

Cover with damp cloth.

Refridgerate for 1-2 days.

• 1 egg white (or 3tbsp+2tsp “Simply Eggwhite”)
• 1 2/3 icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp tartar cream powder

NO GOOD- too runny.

GOOD!!!

Cover if waiting.

tip: make plastic wrap liner before inserting in piping bag.

tip: use tall glass as “bag holder”. prevents air bubbles as well

Roll out a chunk of dough on the BACK of a baking sheet with wooden rolling pin. Sprinkle a bit of all purpose flour on baking sheet, if dough is too sticky to roll.

For House: Put these paper cut-outs on top of rolled 7-8mm dough and use a knife to trim/trace away shapes from paper cut out. Papers will get greasy.
Preheat oven ~350F around now.

Option: you may use “baking parchment” which make the gingerbread slide off baking sheet really easy after baking, but do NOT use wax paper (it’s a fire hazard in oven)

cookies (raw dough thickness) should be about 5-6mm. Have fun with the cookie cutters.

Bake at ~350F for ~15mins, but this depends on your oven and also how thick/think pieces are.
House pieces may take 20 minutes since they should be rolled thicker and are also larger pieces than cookies.

Keep an eye on it and don’t let it burn!! 
Edges tend to get burned if rolling is not even.

Have a clean table cloth ready on the table, to let the hot pieces cool down. Hot gingerbread is quite delicate.
Walls and roof pieces tend to get deformed and need to be “squared” after baking. When they are warm out of the oven and on a flat surface, slice edges with a large knife CAREFULLY! 

Let cool an hour before decorating begins!

Solid board covered in tin foil (with tape)

Score foundation line with butter knife as guide.

Tape down lights if desired. Cord should exit at a wall corner. 

Pipe icing in scored guideline.

Get as many hands as you can find.

Sometimes cookie gets warped during baking. Shave carefully with knife to “square edges”.

More patience

Advanced trick: Stained glass Crush yellow lifesavers candy in advance. (put candy in ziplock and sm

add liquid icing to glue back

Patience – wait 30 mins

1. Crush yellow lifesavers candy in advance. (put candy in ziplock and smash it with hammer)
2. Roll dough on bakers parchment paper
3. Cut out windows
4. Bake for “half time”
5. carefully spoon crushed candy in window holes
6. Bake for remainder.