Gingerbread House ~ Blogger's Christmas Series #4

Gingerbread House

Gingerbread houses originated in Germany in the 1600's.  They became even more popular after the story of Hansel and Gretel written by the Brothers Grimm.  No one knows for sure if gingerbread houses came first or if the story came first.

Building a gingerbread house is a tradition in many houses.  Although these houses are not always made of gingerbread anymore.  You can make them using graham crackers, shredded wheat and even make a house out of non-edible materials like cardboard and sticks.

There are many recipes for gingerbread that you can use, over the years that I have made my own gingerbread I have used a couple of recipes.  The recipe that I used to make the above gingerbread houses was this one - as I didn't use molasses in this recipe, the houses were lighter.

My plans for the gingerbread houses that I made this year was to make a small houses that can sit on a side of a cup but I made them too big, and I also didn't cut the door big enough so they wouldn't sit on the side of a cup.  So it is back to the drawing board for me... Hopefully next year they will work out the way I wanted them too.

I am not a decorator and I do not profess that I know what I am doing, but I do like to make these houses.  I like to use royal icing when I made my gingerbread house as I find it hardens fast.  I also do my houses in stages.  First "gluing" the pieces together and then doing the decorating.

I made this house above a couple of years ago.  I did a post and showed how I decorated it.  Do you make gingerbread houses?

This post is the last of Blogger's Christmas Series.  Along with myself there are many other awesome bloggers that have written blogs for this series.  I hope that they have given you some inspiration to help you with your Christmas preparations.

An InLinkz
Link-up

Gingerbread House Competition at the Daily Dish

Have you ever made a Gingerbread House?

Is it part of your Christmas Tradition to make one and display it?

picture taken from the web.

Did you know that Gingerbread was brought to Europe in 992 by an Armenian monk?

He lived in France for 7 years where he taught Gingerbread cooking.

Sweden first saw Gingerbread in the 13th century when it was brought by the German immigrants.

Swedish nuns baked gingerbread to ease indigestion.

Nuremberg, Germany is the gingerbread capitol of the world

The story of Hansel and Gretel written by the The Brothers Grimm made

 gingerbread houses even more popular.

In Bergen, Norway, a city of gingerbread houses has been made since 1991 before Christmas.

It is free for any child under the age of 12 to make a house with the help of their parents.

This is a great tradition.  

Gingerbread houses are usually made of a harder German gingerbread,

and is often made before Christmas by constructing the house and covering it with candies and icing.

The Daily Dish is starting an 
annual Gingerbread House Competition.

You will be able to submit your gingerbread houses
 from November 21st through December 31st.

You do not have to be a blogger to submit.  

If you are not a blogger, ignore the URL on the link.
You only need to fill out the boxes with your name or the name of your gingerbread house
and  your email address
Link up at the bottom of the page where you see the blue frog...
Have fun and I can't wait to see what your gingerbread house looks like....
I am thinking I am going to make one this year.
information for this post came from: Gingerbread - Wikipedia