The Gingerbread Project

Apparently our school makes gingerbread houses in the fourth grade. I received a paper with a recipe and instructions as well as a time line of when things should be brought to school and when they should be baked and cut and dried.

I never new that gingerbread had to dry for at least 2 weeks before you could make the house! Where on earth am I going to keep all this gingerbread!? And of course I doubled the recipe so I would have a house to make with the little ones while we are at the school, and maybe one to make with Grandma while she's here…. That's a lot of gingerbread!

Here is the recipe that school sent home.

I doubled the recipe and ran out of molasses!
Adventure Man saved the day by bringing me some
from the Lodge Kitchen

The Little Town School's Gingerbread

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 1/2 cup dark molasses
2/3 cup cold water
7 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix molasses, shortening and sugar thoroughly. Stir in water. Measure flour by dipping method or by sifting. Blend all ingredients, stir in. Chill. Divide dough in half.

(Mama's Notes: Measure the flour in a separate bowl and mix all the dry ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients a little at a time until it is too hard to mix with a mixer. Then turn it out to kneed in. Divide dough before chilling and wrap in plastic wrap. It's also helpful if you flatten each section before chilling so it's ready to roll once it's chilled.)

Heat oven to 350 F. Roll dough 1/4 inch think on 2 lightly greased cookie sheets. (15 1/2" x 12" is a good size for the cookie sheet to get the most use of the gingerbread.

Lulu, Bean, and Bear. Making their house at home.
It turned out scrumptious looking! 

Bake 10-12 minutes, or until no imprint remains when touched lightly. Cut the shapes while gingerbread is still warm. Cut as many rectangles and triangles as possible. Carefully remove from pan and place on a cooling rack. Keep as flat as possible while cooling to prevent pieces from curling. Gingerbread should get very hard.

1 batch should make 1 1/2 to 2 houses depending on sized of cookie sheets used.

(Mama's Notes: The templates that the school uses are for an A-frame house. They wanted just two triangles and two rectangles for each kid. That's fine, but for the house we did at home, I made four rectangles, the same length as the roof. They were only two inches tall, but it gave the feel of a regular house.)

They asked us to cut the pieces 6x6x7" for the triangle and 6x7" for the rectangles roof.

The Little Town School's Icing

1 lb. confectioners sugar
3 egg whites
3/4 tsp. cream of tarter

Beat with a mixer until smooth

Bunny and I were there too.
But I never got a picture of Grandma!
What was I thinking!

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