Gingerbread village PART 1

We are starting out annual Gingerbread Village! Every child gets a gingerbread house to decorate.The smallest children have to have help from Mama and Daddy of course.We can get pretty fancy with these lol.Especially my husband and I.:) We have been known to cut apart jelly candies to make shiny tiles.....Tootsie rolls for logs etc. We all have a blast!

You should be able to click on the graph to make it bigger.

Here is the reicipe.....

Gingerbread dough

Mix together.......

6 Cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
 4 tsp ginger
4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt

In another bowl beat together until fluffy.......

12 TB butter
1.5 cups brown sugar

Add and beat until well combined:

2 large eggs
1 cup dark molasses
1 TB water

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix with your  hands if you want to do it the messy way.Mix with a spoon if you want to do it the hard way lol

Cover dough and let sit on your counter for 2-6 hours.You can refrigerate if you want to.Just be sure to bring it to room temp before you start rolling.

You will roll the dough about 1/4 inch thick and bake the pieces at 350 for 12-18 min depending on the size of the piece.

Cool and glue together with:

ROYAL ICING

This icing dries hard like plaster and itis pure white unless colored.It is not especially delicious lol.Just tastes like sugar.The recipe does not call for vanilla/flavoring but I always flavor mine.This year I am going to color some of it with koolaide too.Koolaide makes the most BEAUTIFUL colored frosting! I have never tried it but a friend of mine did.I am not a Koolaide user but I figure hey,if children can drink hundreds of gallons of the stuff and still live,we should be able to use it in frosting once a year.:)

Be sure that you don't get *any* egg yolk or *anything* greasy in the egg whites or your frosting will not work.Don't store it in a plastic container either.

If you are paranoid about raw eggs make your icing like this.......

1 large egg white
2/3 cup powdered sugar

Heat on the stove or *gasp* microwave it ( I do it on the stove) until the mixture reaches 160.After heating,add 2/3 cup powdered sugar and beat it until it holds a stiff peak.Add flavorings and coloring if desired.

If you are like me,just mix 1 large egg white and 1 1/3 cup of powdered sugar in a bowl and beat.:) Skip the heating lol.

Ok,I will be back with part 2 (pictures of dough making) later.Off to cut out my pieces.....