Gingerbread Houses

Before Christmas this year, I purchased a Nordic Ware Gingerbread House Bundt Pan from Amazon and a huge box (100) of gold, scalloped cake boards from E-Bay.  To purchase the boards from the internet would have cost me $56 and I got them from E-Bay for $26, saving me a whopping $30. Happy Dance……….

On Christmas Eve day, I went to work making gingerbread houses for a few friends and the families that my husband and I visit teach/home teach.  They are a bit time consuming but well worth the effort.  I could have taken the easy route and just used the boxed bundt cake mixes but I used the recipe that came with the bundt pan.  I don’t know how a gingerbread boxed mix tastes but I’m telling you, the recipe that came with the bundt pan tastes great.  When each house came out of the oven and the bottom of the houses were a bit rounded, I cut if off and my daughter and I ate the scrap pieces.  Mmmm, good!  I put some frosting on the bottom of each house before placing it on the gold foil board to help keep it from sliding around.  You could go to all the work of decorating the houses but I just opted to dust mine with powdered sugar and I think they turned out wonderful.  I’m thinking this just might be the start of a new Christmas tradition……making gingerbread houses.

 

I also made some gift tags that I attached to the houses.  I had them made in a bright red color but when my daughter was here, we played with the colors and changed it to green, which tamed it down a bit so it wasn’t quite so bright and brought out the green colors on the house.