Adorable AND Tasty Mini Gingerbread Houses DIY

These DIY mini gingerbread houses are edible and so cute!  Making them in a mini size is much easier to handle, especially, for little or clumsy hands.  Decorate the homes however you like.  Add food coloring to the frosting, cover it in chocolate or use some salty elements like pretzels or plain potato chips (try it!)  Thanks to Globetrotter Diaries for the terrific idea.

This week’s dish is really part cooking, part crafting, but completely edible.  Which is why I was glad to have the nimble hands of Erica from Honestly…WTF, an honestly awesome fashion and DIY blog.  Both of us were gingerbread house novices but this was surprisingly easy to make.  We used a recipe from Martha Stewart (with the addition of a few of our own changes) and within a few hours we had a charming little lebkuchenhaus that made everyone go “awwwwwww.”

Baking the Gingerbread

– 1 1/4 cups packed dark-brown sugar
– 3/4 cup unsulfured molasses
– 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
– 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
– 1 tablespoon ground ginger
– 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
– 1 1/4 cups milk
– 1 tablespoon baking powder
– 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Combine brown sugar, molasses, butter, spices, and salt in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved, about 10 minutes. Stir in the milk and remove the mixture from the heat.

Pour the mixture into a large mixing bowl and add the baking powder and flour. With an electric mixer, and beginning on low speed and increasing to medium, beat until well combined. Divide dough in even fourths and shape into disks. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate overnight. Dough can be frozen up to 1 month and thaw in the refrigerator before using.

When you are ready to bake the gingerbread, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and roll out each dough disk on a lightly floured surface.  The dough will be somewhat tough so you will really have to put some elbow grease into making it thin.  Keep rolling in a back and forth motion, turning the disk of dough and flouring the pin and surface in between.  Roll until the dough is about 1/8 of an inch thick.  If the dough becomes warm from handling place it back into the refrigerator before cutting the stencils to cool the dough.

Images from Globetrotter Diaries.

For the entire recipe visit Globetrotter Diaries.