Miniature Ginger Bread Houses

I have been completely inspired by the challenge our church has laid out, which is, to find ways to spend time as a family doing things
instead of spending so much money
this Holiday Season.

One of the projects we decided to take on was making homemade Ginger Bread Houses, and it seemed perfect to do them miniature size, when we found out Gracie and Cymon were coming over.

I have to say they turned out absolutely FABULOUS!!

The kids had such a great time putting these together, and because of the short cuts we figured out, it was a very simple craft!!

So, here's what we did. We used the template below, but we cut the measurements in half, and truly I must admit I was a bit afraid they might be too small. They were fine! One of the shortcuts we learned was, you can actually roll out your ginger bread dough onto a "well floured" baking pan (I used my Pampered Chef Stoneware Baking Pan), and bake it as one large rectangular cookie. This allows you to cut out the 2 hours of refrigerator time that most ginger bread house recipes call for. Then you can cut the shapes right out of that, which gives you more uniform sizes. Simply lay your template on top of the cookie sheet, after it has cooled, and cut, while it is still in the pan!

Also, we used the Easy Frost, which has become my new best friend for fun and simple decorating of cakes, cupcakes, etc. This really allows the kids to be able to decorate and have a blast. One thing we did learn however, make sure you let the constructional frosting sit for about ten minutes. For example, when you put the bottom pieces of the house together, let the frosting sit before you put on the roof. Then when you put the roof on, YOU MUST LET THE FROSTING SIT!!! We did it too soon, because the kids were so excited to decorate. Sure enough, soon after we took these pictures, the roofs fell off. Luckily, the kids didn't care, since they were more concerned with the fact that they were going to get to eat these at some point!