Mom’s Review: Making Gingerbread Houses
‘Tis the season for all the holiday family activities. Touring holiday lights. Caroling. Baking delicious treats. Decorating “ugly sweater” cookies. And building Gingerbread Houses!
I think most of us have built a gingerbread house or two. These are often commercially prepared, pre-cut, solid slabs of so-called “gingerbread,” packaged with tiny bags of stale candies to decorate them.
While our past attempts at creating a gingerbread village have been mostly successful, they’ve ALWAYS been fun!
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Loads of Gingerbread House Making Tips Packed into 34 Pages!
I wish I had found the book Making Gingerbread Houses by Rhonda Massingham Hart sooner! While it’s a small book, it’s chock full of information.
It has great, easy-to-follow recipes for:
- Gingerbread—the kind for structures (make a day or two ahead!)*
- Royal Icing for assembly
- “Almost” Buttercream for decorating
- Homemade Fondant for crafting whimsical details.
*Rhonda’s recipe for gingerbread smells lovely and is great for building gingerbread houses….but it doesn’t actually contain any ginger! LOL! (For a tasty spiced gingerbread cookie recipe check out The Sacred Herbs of Yule and Christmas by Ellen Evert Hopman.)
Making Gingerbread Houses provides tips for adding texture to your gingerbread, making disposable piping bags, and even creating stained glass windows!
Rhonda has included “blueprint” templates for a variety of structures including:
- a classic log cabin,
- an old-timey grocery store,
- a little country chapel,
- a Victorian home,
- a barn and silo, and
- a castle.
This book has templates for every structure you need in a Gingerbread Village of your own!
You’ll also find suggestions for additional creative touches like a frozen pond, garden pathways, fences, and snow.
Plus Rhonda provides tips for creating 3-dimentional gingerbread trees and decorative dormer windows and realistic chimneys.
I can’t wait to get to crafting and decorating gingerbread houses with my family once everyone is out of school and home for the holidays!
More About Gingerbread
- Gingerbread History – A Short Sweet Look
- Yuletide Sugar and Spice Sprinkle
- Warm Ginger Cookies Essential Oil Blend
While Making Gingerbread Houses is now out of print, I found a Kindle version on Amazon. You might even be able to find a copy at your local library.
Rhonda Massingham Hart is a Master Gardener and prolific author of books on organic gardening, plants, and crafting. She’s also written several other “Bulletins,” like Making Gingerbread Houses, for Storey County Wisdom.
Also by Rhonda Massingham Hart
- You Can Carve Fantastic Jack-o-Lanterns (1990)
- Using Beneficial Insects (1991)
- Trellising: How to Grow Climbing Vegetables, Fruits, Flowers, Vines & Trees (1992)
- North Coast Roses (1993)
- Easter Eggs by the Dozens (1993)
- Bugs, Slugs, & Other Thugs: Controlling Garden Pests Organically (1994)
- Bird Food Recipes (1995)
- Dirt-Cheap Gardening (1995)
- Tips for Dirt-Cheap Gardening (1996)
- Long-Lasting Hanging Plants (1996)
- Deerproofing Your Yard & Garden (1997)
- Squirrel Proofing Your Home & Garden (1999)
- Deerproofing Your Yard & Garden, 2nd Ed (2005)
- Trail Riding: Train, Prepare, Pack Up & Hit the Trail (2005)
- The Dirt-Cheap Green Thumb: 400 Thrifty Tips for Saving Money, Time, and Resources as you Garden (2009)
- Vertical Vegetables & Fruit: Creative Gardening Techniques for Growing Up in Small Spaces (2011)
- Title: Making Gingerbread Houses
- Author: Rhonda Massingham Hart
- Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (January 8, 1996)
- Language: English
- Paperback: ‎34 pages
- ISBN-10: 088266493X
- ISBN-13: 978-0882664934
Chris P | Author, Certified Aromatherapist, Natural Skin Care Formulator
Chris (“Mom”) enjoys formulating bespoke aromatherapy, skin care, and herbal products to support her family, pets, friends, and clients. She also loves experimenting with recipes in the kitchen. An avid reader, writer, and lifetime learner, Chris enthusiastically explores research rabbit holes and then writes about her discoveries.💚 (Learn more >>)
