What’s your favorite thing about Christmas? I love family traditions. Our annual {Gingerbread House Party} has become one of my favorites. This is our 5th year having it and it keeps getting bigger and better every year! This week I’m going to share our tradition with you. I will be posting it in 2 parts. Today I will be sharing How To Host A {Gingerbread House Party} {Part I} . {Part II} will be posted on Thursday.
How To Host A {Gingerbread House Party} {Part I}
Christmas is a magical time of year. Even though all of our children are young adults now, Paul and I are still grasping to keep a little magic in their Christmas. Ok, well I am.
My favorite family tradition when I was a little girl was the big open house Christmas Party that my parents would host every year on Christmas night. Family and friends from near and far would come to celebrate every year.
The kids would hang out in the basement playing pool and ping pong. The men would share a cup of cheer in the kitchen and at one point Frank, a family friend from town would fill our home with music. He would play Christmas songs on the piano and all the women and children would gather around and sing along.
I still bump into people today that love to reminisce about the fun Christmas parties we used to have. Over the years the family has grown. Now we need to rent out halls to fit to the growing numbers. So our tradition has changed a bit. But I will always have so many found memories of our Christmas parties. For me that is what Christmas is all about. Creating memories.
Paul and I wanted to start a fun new tradition for our kids to enjoy. There were so many changes that they have had to deal with over the past few years. I hoped that I could make some of the changes they were dealing with be positive and fun.
This was our 5th year having our Gingerbread House Party and it also included many friends, boyfriends and girlfriends. A total of 12 gingerbread house designers! We cranked up the Christmas music, got busy creating and in my opinion had the best year yet!
Before all the fun can begin I have a lot of prep work in the weeks prior to the big day. Here is a list of what I do to prepare.
1 .Buy an assortment of candies, cereals, pretzels, cones and sprinkles. (Use your imagination)
2 .Make patterns for gingerbread houses.
3. Bake all of the parts for gingerbread houses.
4 .Plan a menu of what will be served to eat. (Usually a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs)
5. Pick a date and time and invite everyone. (I usually just call or text everyone but you could also make a cute invite and mail it)
6. Get your Christmas music playlist ready. (we just hook up to pandora)
7. Buy plastic drop cloth to place under the table/tables. (Things can get a bit sticky and messy)
8. Buy plastic table clothes for tables.
9. Buy clear plastic cups for putting candy in. (I use clear so it’s easy to see where everything is.)
10. Buy enough 12 inch or larger cake board for each person to build their house on. (I usually buy them at Michaels or Walmart.)
11. I cover my cake boards with florist foil but it’s not absolutely nescessary to do this.
12. Buy eggs and confectioner sugar for making the icing. (This is the glue that will hold your house together and adhere decorations. It will dry to a hard stage and keep everything solid)
13. Buy disposable plastic pastry bags and rubber icing bag ties. (We’ve used plastic bottles in the past and the bags with the ties were way easier and less messy)
Make your house pattern
Start by drawing out your design on white paper. Here are the ones I designed with measurements.
Once you are happy with your design you will need to cut them out and trace them on cardboard and cut them out with a box cutter.
Now you are ready to make your gingerbread. Here is the recipe that I used. One batch should be enough to make two houses. I doubled the recipe and it worked out well too. So if you are crazy like me and are going to make a boat load of gingerbread for your guests it can be done. I made enough for 16 houses. We only made 12 but I like to have extras in case of breakage or unexpected guests.
How To Host A {Gingerbread House Party} {Part I}
Ingredients
For the gingerbread:
- 1/2 Cup Unsalted butter
- 1/2 Cup Shortening
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1 Cup Molasses
- 2 Large eggs
- 5-5 1/2 Cups All purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Ginger
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Allspice
- 1 teaspoon Baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
For the icing
- 5 Large egg whites
- 1/4 teaspoon Cream of tartar
- 1 ,2 pound bag Confectioner sugar
Instructions
For the gingerbread
- Preheat oven to 375 Degrees F. Grease the back side of two large cookie sheets. (You will need to roll your dough directly onto your cookie sheet so you need to use the back side of it.)
- In a large mixing bowl combine flour,ginger,allspice,baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another large mixing bowl cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add molasses and mix. Add eggs one at a time mixing between each addition. Mix well. Gradually add dry ingredients to wet and mix well. Remove dough from bowl and place on a sheet of plastic wrap. Wrap and seal well. Place in fridge for 2 hours to overnight. (I always make a bunch of batches one day and wrap and store in the fridge. Then I bake them at night throughout the week.)
- Once you are ready to bake your gingerbread, break off a small amount and knead it with your hands to soften it. Then place it on the back of your prepared cookie sheet and use a rolling pin to flatten to about 1/4 inch thickness. (You may need to dust dough surface with flour to keep from sticking) Place pattern on the dough and cut around the edges with a sharp knife. (I usually can fit two pieces per cookie sheet. Just make sure you leave about a1/2 inch space between the pieces because the dough will expand when it bakes.) Carefully lift the dough around your cut out piece and remove it with a butter knife or small offset spatula. Place dough back with your remaining unused dough. Bake on center rack for 8-10 minutes. You want to make sure you bake it so that it's crisp. If you under bake your pieces your house may sag when you try to put it together.
- Loosen your baked gingerbread pieces by carefully sliding a spatula under them, immediately after you remove them from the oven to prevent them from sticking to the pan. Once they have cooled for about 5 minutes and are not soft anymore remove them to a cooling rack to completely cool. (Make sure you use a very large spatula since the pieces are so large. This will help support your cookie.)
- Continue until you have four of each pattern piece and you will have enough for 2 houses.
- Make sure you wipe off your pan and add more grease between each batch.
- I usually store my pieces in disposable aluminum baking pans, uncovered, until I'm ready to use them. Remember you don't want your pieces to soften. They need to be crisp and sturdy for building.
For the icing
- In a medium mixing bowl mix together 5 egg whites with 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar on high speed with a hand mixer until eggs become frothy. Gradually sift confectioner sugar into the eggs a little at a time. Mix and scrape edges between each addition. Keep adding until you achieve desired consistency. I use just about the entire bag. If it ends up a little to thick you can add a very small amount of lemon juice or water to thin it. I like the icing to be on the thick side for piecing the house together. It tends to be easier to hold the pieces together. You may want your decorating icing to be slightly thinner. Place icing in your pastry bags, squeeze to spread the icing down toward the tip of the bag. twist the open end to seal and add your rubber tie. Once you are ready to use it cut a very small hole at the tip of your bag at an angle.
- If you have any icing left in your mixing bowl, cover it with a damp towel to prevent it from drying out and crusting over.
Nutrition
I hope you enjoy being a part of our Gingerbread house tradition this year. Now that I have shown you our technique of How To Make A {Gingerbread House} {Part I} maybe you can start your very own tradition this year!
I will be showing you how I set everything up, how the houses are put together, everyones work in progress and of course the unveiling of their finished products in {Part II}. So make sure you stop back on Thursday to see all of the beautiful masterpieces that were created!
Here’s a little sneak peak of one of our finished creations!
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I will be sharing this recipe at the following link parties:
I have seen a few of them and can’t wait to see more on Thursday’s post. So creative ! so nice that you all get together away from iPhones, studies, the news and just let that inner child come out at Christmas Time ! The time you put into putting this party together is worth the time and camraderie that you all spent together.
Those Christmas night “Open House” parties were certainly memorable for all of us and nice to remember those who are no longer with us , Frank Girard always looked forward to coming and we looked forward to him being there. He filled the house with music. He was such a great piano player and always got us to gravitate around him and the piano singing , no matter what our voices sounded like, together the end result was beautiful. The silly , cheerful traditional songs and the beautiful holy hymns, which always put us in the Christmas Spirit. And of course Pepeire with his harmonica or fiddle, Raymond with the spoons. Their were a few times we actually had a guitar….We never wanted the night to end. Each room was filled with goodies, family , friends, young, old, in-between and new guests , growing each year. It was so nice to hear that door bell and the door open (never knowing who was going to walk in) with shouts of Merry Christmas and hugs and kisses.
I have seen a few of the completed Gingerbread houses
and can’t wait to see more on Thursday’s post. So creative ! so nice that you all get together away from iPhones, studies, the news and just let that inner child come out at Christmas Time ! The time you put into putting this party together is worth the time and camraderie that you all spent together.
This is such a neat idea!! Always looking for great party ideas. THANKS!
Thanks Marjie!
Your right, Christmas time is such a magical time of year, traditions are what makes it so wonderful. I love the sound of your gingerbread house party, I’m looking forward to your next post. Thanks for linking up to Sweet and Savoury Sunday, stop by and link up again. Have a great day!!
can I make the gingerbread ahead of time and freeze it? Can I make the icing the day before and store?
Hi Nancy, Yes you can make the gingerbread ahead of time and freeze it. To be honest though unless you live in a warm muggy climate or you are making it months in advance you probably don’t even need to freeze it. If it’s just going to be used for making a gingerbread house I make mine a few weeks ahead and just leave it out. That way it’s nice and crispy which is what you want when you’re building a house. I make my icing a day ahead all the time and store it in the disposable piping bag. just make sure you seal the open end and wait until the following day to cut the tip off of the bag.