Happy New Year!!

I know, I'm a bit late!!! lol I hope everyone's new year has gotten off to a good start and everyone is staying warm and out of the snow. It's crazy that we have had 11 days of snow now here in Alabama. Craziness!

Well, I have lots to catch you all up on, and I have lots to catch up on and I'm looking forward to getting back to it all! I have missed you guys!

So I'm going to back up a bit and share a fun project that I "attempted" for our Christmas celebrations. Chris and I had Christmas dinner over at our house, and it was great to finally host a party! It was nice!

I thought that I would try to put together a gingerbread house. I have never put one together before, who knew how this thing was going to play out.

Here is the recipe that I used:

♦ 1 cup butter at room temperature
♦ 1-3/4 cups brown sugar
♦ 1-1/4 cups white sugar
♦ 2 tablespoons molasses
♦ 6 eggs
♦ 6 cups all-purpose flour
♦ 2 teaspoons baking soda
♦ 1 tablespoon ground ginger
♦ 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
♦ 1 tablespoon allspice

Preheat oven to 325°F degrees. Line several cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Butter and flour the foil.

Using the dimensions in the Gingerbread House Drawing, cut out paper patterns for the walls, roof and chimney, and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Beat in the molasses and eggs. In another large bowl, sift dry ingredients. Combine mixtures and knead into a smooth ball. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

On a well-floured surface, roll out a small amount of the dough until it is 1/4 inch thick. Place one of the paper pattern pieces on the dough and cut around the edges. Gently, using the spatula, lift the dough and place it on the foil-lined, prepared cookie sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until slightly firm. Let cool on racks until firm enough to handle. Peel the foil off the sections and set the pieces aside to dry thoroughly overnight.

I got this recipe from Texas cooking and it made a decent size house and 20 very large cookies. So you can judge accordingly. This year, I might use this towards a gingerbread village! lol

Now after it was all said and done, I do have one suggestion. Instead of cutting the pieces to size before baking, I would cut the pieces afterward. Just in the process of cutting the pieces to size and then picking them up and moving them to the cookie sheet, they got all warped and I had to re-cut them. So this year I will just bake one big sheet and then cut. Just a thought.
The two of us had a blast decorating this thing! It was a fun project to tackle together.
After all of that work, it was fun to see the kiddies have so much fun digging into it!
And this is what we ended up with!
I hope that this becomes one of our family traditions!

Enjoy!