2018 Halloween Gingerbread Barns!

When my oldest granddaughter was five I wanted a fun holiday activity we could do together, something that was unique to us, so decided we would make a gingerbread Halloween house. I made a basic house and we decorated with candies. I had to do most of the frosting work, she added the candy. A few years later her little sister joined us and a few years after that, her cousin. My granddaughter is now 13 and will start high school next fall.  By my math, we have been decorating gingerbread houses for nine years now.

This year we decided we wanted to do a barn/farmhouse scene. I began making the dough, cutting and baking the pieces a few weeks ago. I made enough for 4 barns as I also decorated one for my 4-year old grandson.  He is too young and fidgety still to join us with all the frosting and candy! That also gave me the chance to create, too. We met recently to do our decorating. My husband, the girls' Papa, is our gingerbread contractor and he assembled all the various pieces into barns. I made sugar ponds, apple trees and made sure we had all the necessary supplies.

I love interacting with the girls, it's a casual day, lots of chatting and laughing. I enjoy seeing the cooperation they have with each other, one's skill is better than the other in an area, but they all help each other out. I especially love seeing their creativity come through.  A few days before our gingerbread day, the youngest granddaughter and I were making farm carts out of pretzel sticks and royal icing.  She thought it would be neat to make benches using the same technique. On our decorating day she made herself a bench then showed her cousin how to make one, too.

I told the girls they could make a fall gingerbread barn and farm setting or make it spooky, with the addition of ghosts, spiders, and creepy eyes. Each cardboard base had a barn and some trees; they could add apples (red candy), eyes, or leave them plain. I made various colors of icing, had lots of candy and cereal to choose from. It was fun to watch them create their own masterpiece, to see their personalities shine through.  They were all different and creative.

My gingerbread was soft this year, so we had a lot of sagging with the roofs. To compensate I frosted them with red royal icing, using a large serrated tip. They were very bright!  I wanted our barns to look age so intentionally didn't make the roofs perfect, they had a lot of imperfections. My husband was disappointed with my building skills, he said I should have piped from bottom to top, instead of top to bottom.  Picky, picky!

The ponds were made with Isomalt, a sugar product and dyed blue with food coloring paste.  To make the pond shape, I made a mold out of aluminum foil and poured the hot sugar mixture into it. They turned out great!  We played with fondant and made ducks. I got real ambitious and added a chicken to my barn. My grandson loved that!

To make the trees, using royal icing, I "glued" three candy sticks together.  I thinly rolled out fondant and then put it through an embossing folder with a wood grain design to it.  We then wrapped the fondant around the candy sticks making our tree trunks. The tree foliage was made with popcorn balls.  I wish I would have made them bigger, they weren't full enough in relation to the height of the tree trunks. But, like I told my Hubby, we weren't entering these in a gingerbread competition!

The girls were here about 3 hours.  It took me over an hour to clean up the kitchen afterwards!  Thankfully, I used a plastic tablecloth on the table.  I just rolled it up and all the debris was contained.  But the floors and island took a beating; candy, frosting, and cereal were everywhere! I had to mop the floor, wipe down cabinets, in addition to putting everything away. I was exhausted and my Hubby took me out to pizza for dinner afterwards. But, I'm eagerly looking forward to our gingerbread adventures in 2019.  I can spare the time for cleaning, making memories with my grandchildren is priceless!

Gingerbread Cupcakes

What is it about the Christmas holidays that make us want to bake and bake? I think the lights on the Christmas tree must send out signals to our brain putting us in the baking mode. I'm seeing lots of social media posts where my friends are baking away so I know I'm not the only one under the spell!

 

It was a gingerbread weekend for me. I spent one evening with my granddaughter decorating gingerbread cookies. I sent her home with most of our masterpieces and found myself craving some by Sunday. So I made some more cookies and these cupcakes. I took most of them over to my parents, my dad has a real sweet tooth.  In fact he said, "you sure know how to make a man happy". Well, I try, dad!

 

 These are full of all the great ingredients that make up gingerbread and are especially spicy with a little extra ginger. I topped them with a basic cream cheese frosting and a small gingerbread cookie cutout.

 I think this weekend satisfied my gingerbread craving.  Now I have peppermint on the brain! This little one and I have a peppermint bark project planned!

 

Gingerbread Cupcakes

 

2 ¾ C flour

3 T ground ginger

2 t baking soda

1 ½ t ground cinnamon

½ t ground cloves

½ t ground nutmeg

¼ t salt

10 T unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 C packed dark brown sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 ¼ C molasses

1 C hot water

 

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

3 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 standard cupcake tins with 24 paper baking cups.

 

Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt; set aside.

 

Cream together the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (or use a hand-held mixer) on high speed, about 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating slowly after each addition.  Add the molasses, mixing until well incorporated.

 

Add one third of the dry ingredients and one third of the water and mix thoroughly.  Repeat, stopping to scrape down bowl, as needed.  Add the last third of the dry ingredients and the water and mix thoroughly.

 

Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners (I use an ice cream scoop), filling about 2/3 full.

 

Bake for 16-18 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

 

To make the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time. After it has been incorporated turn the mixer onto the highest setting for about 10 seconds to lighten the frosting.  Add more powdered sugar, if needed, to get a thick consistency. Add in the vanilla and beat until well-blended, light and fluffy.

2017 Halloween Gingerbread Houses!

Another year has come and gone, and the calendar reminded me that it was time for the annual gingerbread house decorating with my grandchildren.  This year marked the 8th year I've done this as well as the most ambitious and exhaustive. I'm a planner, a fairly organized person.  I've been buying candy and supplies for weeks but, due to two parties and a long weekend away, I was not able to begin the baking and assembling of the houses and accessories until the week of our event. Gosh, did that make for a crazy week!  Each night I would come home from work and make dough and/or cut and bake.  Friday night my Hubbers and I put the houses together and we made the licorice trees the night before that.  I spent most of Friday decorating cookies, making fences, and doing the "glass" windows. Saturday I organized the table for the girls.  My almost-three year old grandson is too young to participate, but I made him his own house Sunday morning. By the time my three granddaughters left that afternoon and I cleaned the kitchen (I swear I will be cleaning up sprinkles and gingerbread crumbs for weeks!), it was after 5 on Sunday.  I made my Hubbers take me out to dinner AND a drink!

Oh, but I enjoy this day.  It's a day that I get to selfishly spend with my granddaughters, with no other happenings or people to take their time.  I love how their coordination and imagination grows each year. I especially saw that with the youngest girl.  In prior years she tended to copy her older cousins.  This year she had her own ideas.  My oldest granddaughter needed very little help from me this year, she had her own ideas and knew how to do it!

For whatever reason, my creative side was in full force with this year's endeavor.  I decided to do a little witch theme so spent an afternoon playing with fondant; making witches' hats, shoes and cauldrons. Each time I would shop for candy or sprinkles I would see something that I just knew would work.  Trust me, the girls had no lack of supplies to choose from! I learned how to use Isomalt, which is a liquid sugar, to make the windows. My Hubbers bought battery-powered lights and we put them inside the houses.  The girls loved this!

It was fun, I'm glad it's over, I'm glad my kitchen is no longer consumed with all things gingerbread.  But we had a few discussions yesterday about next year's houses and I'm already making notes!

This post is heavy on pics, there are so many fun elements to share!

Each girl was given an identical house, tree, fence and props.  After that it was up to their imagination and the supplies we had!

I love our cauldrons with the bubbling mixture boiling away.  Oops, looks like a witch crashed and fell into the brew!

 

Such concentration!

 

 

 

 

I'm linking up to Inspire Me Tuesday 

Cookie Fun!

My six-year old granddaughter has puttered with me in the kitchen since she was still in diapers.  She's graduated from standing on a chair at the mixing station to sitting on a bar stool. She's in kindergarten, learning to add and subtract, so she can really help with the measuring now.  We have had many memorable cookie baking sessions.

She also loves to decorate cookies so I thought it would be fun to have a few of her friends over for a gingerbread decorating party. To save on time, I cut out and baked the cookies the day before. We shopped for sprinkles and candies and set the table with a plastic tablecloth (great way to avoid the mess!) She was so excited to have her friends over!

Gingerbread boys and girls, snowman, tree, star & mitten!

Of course we needed a snack for the little decorators so we spent a Friday evening making peanut blossoms.  My Christmas season is not complete unless I've made at least one batch of these cookies for the season!  Kids love them, what is not to love about the combination of peanut butter and chocolate?

The girls had a lot of fun decorating the cookies.  The chatter and laughter of these little girls filled my heart with joy.  They were so proud to take their finished creations home to their families (and the calories went to their homes, too!)

Such concentration by my granddaughter!

Coloring books for adults is a big trend right now.  It's said that coloring relaxes people and relieves stress. I think decorating cookies is a similar therapeutic process.  All week, after the gingerbread day, I had the urge to do some cookies. I cut out and baked sugar cookies during the week.  Saturday morning I sat down and, with Christmas carols blaring, proceeded to color using royal icing. My Hubbers was gone for the day and it was a very relaxing afternoon for me.  We had a small family dinner that night so the bonus was I had our dessert covered, as well as a few for neighbors and friends.

I found the idea for these cookies on Pinterest (I love that site!)  The snowman is made with a cupcake-shaped cookie cutter.  As I currently have 8 plastic shoeboxes of cookie cutters, it's always nice to find multiple uses for a cutter.  I never would have thought to make a snowman out of a cupcake!

My Christmas gifts have been bought, made, and wrapped.  I didn't send out Christmas cards this year. But I have made a lot of cookies and frosting!

Halloween Gingerbread Houses - 2016!

In 2010 my oldest granddaughter and I spent a leisurely Saturday morning decorating a Halloween gingerbread house. Our Christmas season is so busy, our kids and grandchildren have so many things to do and places to go. I thought it would be easier to make gingerbread houses at Halloween instead of Christmas. I felt that doing a gingerbread house would be a great way to spend quality time together, learn some decorating skills, and start a tradition with Nana.  Her little sister was only 2 then so we didn't include her that first year.  Since then I've acquired another granddaughter. (I also have a grandson but, at age 20 months old, it's not time to turn him loose with candy and icing!) That first house was a breeze, with only the two of us working on it.  I don't think I quite realized what a job it would be to make multiple houses each  year!

Thankfully, their Papa is quite handy with tools and can build pretty much anything.  I make the dough, cut it out with a template, and bake it.  I make the royal icing that he uses to put the houses together. We do make quite the team! Each year we get a little smarter.  This year I made an extra copy of the template.  After the pieces were baked and dried, he trimmed them to size based on the template (they seem to spread out during baking!) Doing this meant everything fit nice and neat and it didn't take long until we had the houses assembled.

Our oldest granddaughter was at Girl Scout camp so couldn't join us on our chosen decorating day.  On my to-do list is to make one more house for her. So I just had the two younger girls.  Due to all sorts of scheduling issues, we planned this session for a Friday evening. I should have thought that through a little more. By Friday evening, after a long week of school for them and work for Nana,  we were all a little on the tired and cranky side.  We persevered but I think the morning sessions work best!

What I'm finding especially enjoyable about our annual tradition is how their decorating skills are improving and how their creativity is growing.  At first, they had to be guided along with ideas of how to decorate the roofs, walls, etc. Their Mothers and I would have to work the piping bags filled with messy frosting. Now they are thinking on their own and coming up with some really cute things! Their piping skills are getting better, too! I also enjoy the camaraderie between the girls, how they share ideas, encourage, giggle and laugh. These are times that will bind cousins and sisters for life!

My kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it during this process.  We have bowls of colored icing everywhere, including on us, open bags of candy and cookies, and candies and sprinkles on the floor.  It all cleans up, though it did take me an hour to do so!  Another reason not to do this on a Friday night, it was past Nana's bedtime, too!

We already have our marching orders for next year, the girls told Papa they want chimneys on their houses next year! 

Halloween Gingerbread Houses - 2015

2015 marks the 6th year of doing Halloween gingerbread houses. We began when my first granddaughter was five.  The other two began participating when they were three.  My grandson is only nine months old so I have a few years before we have to make four houses! The houses are truly a joint Nana and Papa collaboration.  I make the dough, cut out the pieces and bake them, as well as accumulate all the candy and other decorations.  Papa puts the houses together.  This year he also made us some spooky licorice trees. Each girl gets an identical house to start with and we let them go from there.

I finally got smart this year and got a plastic tablecloth to corral all the mess.  I put towels on the chairs so I didn't have frosting on the cushions.  Clean up was a breeze this year, I just rolled up the tablecloth and all the mess went with it! Not sure why it took my six years to figure this out!

I love this time with the girls.  We chat, laugh, eat a lot of candy, and lick frosting. They all have such busy schedules, it's getting harder and harder to get everyone together. The cousins enjoy seeing each other and the siblings get along great.  Mommies are allowed to come, though it's not mandatory. Extra hands sure do help! I see progress each year, they get more creative, have specific ideas of what they want to do, and get more proficient working with the piping bags. They are quite proud of their creations and I cherish the memories we have made!