Miniature gingerbread houses

Printout of Miniature Gingerbread House Template
Cereal box or other stiff easy-to-cut paper for templates
6 3/4 cups all purpose flour
5 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups vegetable shortening
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup molasses

3 tbsp meringue powder
4 cups confectioner's sugar
7 tbsp water

Day 1: Prepare dough

1. Sift flour, spices, baking soda and salt into a large bowl.
2. Beat the shortening until fluffy, scraping down the sides.
3. Add the sugar and beat to blend. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beat again.
   
4. Add eggs one at a time and beat to mix, scraping the sides after each additio.
5. Add molasses and beat on high speed until well blended.
6. My mixer is not big enough for the entire batch of dough, so at this point I pour out half the liquid into a small bowl for later.
   
7. Switch to a flat mixer attachment and add half the dry ingredients in 3 additions, beating at low speed until dough forms.
8. Pour the dough into a bowl, and repeat step 7 with the remaining ingredients.
9. Return both sections of dough to the mixer and combine the halves on slow for a minute.
10. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces, wrap individually in plastic and refrigerate overnight.
    

Day 2: Roll and bake

1. Tape the printed template onto a piece of cereal box or other stiff paper, and cut out the four pieces. (Consider making multiple templates of each in case you need backups.)
   
2. Preheat oven to 350°F.
3. Roll out 1 dough piece at a time between sheets of parchment paper to 1/8 to 1/4-inch thickness. If parchment wrinkles, peel it off, smooth the wrinkle, and reposition parchment over the dough.
4. Leave the parchment paper on the rolled dough.
5. Place a template on the parchment paper. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough in the shape of the template, slicing through the parchment paper. Leave at least 1/2 inch between the pieces. Be sure that you have two front/back walls, two sides, and two roof pieces for every base. If you're willing to sacrifice some dough, use a sharp knife or pizza cutter to cut squares of dough large enough to place a template inside instead. You'll cut out the shapes after baking.
   
6. Peel off the parchment paper outline and remove the extra dough. You can combine the extras to re-roll.
7. Place a cookie sheet, upside down, over the pieces on the bottom sheet of parchment paper, and flip the whole thing over. Remove the whole sheet of parchment paper, and spread the pieces out, leaving at least 1/2 inch between them. To make step 9 easier, consider baking small batches of about 12 pieces.
   
8. Bake the pieces for 9-11 minutes, until dry looking, firm to touch in center and just beginning to darken around edges.
9. While the pieces are still warm, place the templates back on them, and use a sharp knife to trim them to size. You'll need to work fast. There's no need to trim the circular bases.
10. Transfer to a cooling rack.
11. Once completely cooled, store in airtight containers, using parchment paper to separate layers and minimize cracking. (You may want to consider making some extra pieces as insurance against accidents.)
12. Any leftover dough can be refrigerated and used with cookie cutters. This dough makes perfect gingerbread men!
    

Day 3: Assemble houses

1. Prepare royal icing. Mix meringue powder, confectioner's sugar and water in a stand mixer on medium for 5 minutes. Add water if the icing is too thick or not sticky. Keep the icing covered with Saran wrap when not in use, with the Saran wrap touching its surface. This stuff hardens in contact with air.
2. Spoon royal icing into a disposable piping bag, shake down, and snip the tip.
3. For each house, assemble one base, two side walls, two front/back walls, and two roof pieces.
4. Apply a thin thread of icing to the bottom of a wall, and press into place.
5. Using the icing as glue, secure the other wall pieces to each other and the base.
6. Pipe icing around three edges on one side and secure a roof piece in place.
7. Pipe icing along all four remaining edges and attach the last roof piece.
8. Go back over the joints with lines of icing. You can use a wet finger to smooth away any messes, although if you'd got kids decorating these, they won't care in the least.
   

Day 4: Decorate

I decorate these houses with my kids, so I want them to be well set before I start decorating. However, you'll probably get a much neater result by doing some initial decorating on the flat pieces before you assemble the houses.

Use royal icing as glue, and attach raisins, currants and candies of all sorts. You can also brush on corn syrup to get sprinkles, nonpareils or shredded coconut to stick. Use your imagination! These houses are the perfect size for gummy bear resident. If you want Christmas trees, consider rolling super easy mints into cone shapes and dotting with coloured royal icing.

The dough recipe is shamelessly borrowed from Epicurious.com (although I added some spices). I use Wilton's royal icing recipe. The template and assembly instructions are mine.

If you decide to design your own template, take into account the additional 1/8 to 1/4 inch width of the gingerbread pieces. My initial attempt at these houses left me with roof pieces that weren't quite wide enough!