Gingerbread Housing

 The one food item that says holiday time is the gingerbread house. It''s warm and inviting looking, a classic treasure that's on every dessert table and under every tree. Yet times are changing and so is the gingerbread house.

You can still create an old fashioned gingerbread house complete with gumdrop wreath windows and snowy confectioner's sugar dusted roofs. You can easily find a number of scratch recipes on the internet. Gingerbread on its' own is a wonderful holiday treat. The recipe features the best of spices, the original recipe coming from Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis who later settled in Bondaroy in north central France. The recipe hasn't changed. much over the millennia .It's cinnamon , ginger nut meg and cloves mixed with molasses which gives it that lovely deep golden brown hue. Shortening ,sugar and eggs are added and then rolled out and cut according to templates. You can download these or draw your own.Get creative with the windows by cutting out circles or squares and then filling them in with crushed hard candies. They'll melt into pretty stained glass. As for decorations think everything from gum drops to unwrapped Hershey's kisses. You can also use Smarties, and candy canes too along with any kind of  Sour Patch strips.

Of course if you don't have the time or the effort to bake, then buy a kit. These have all the pieces already baked and the right amount of icing to glue them to gether along with the right amount of candy decorations, The good thing about these is that now they are varied. There is the gingerbread train and gingerbread treehouse ,both can be bought at Target, These are fun addition to any Christmas table. Five Below has even more. They have the Hershey's Chocolate Cookie House which looks easy to do and can be decorated any way you want. They also have the Oreo train, made from what else, Oreos icings and a variety of different candies. Five Below also has a very easy gingerbread reindeer and sleigh which has only four pieces for the sled and three for the reindeer. Candies also have their houses too. There are also Sour Patch Kids and Twizzlers ones too. These are regular gingerbread houses decorated with the candies. it makes for something different and fun too. Most of the Five Below kits are usually priced at around five dollars. 

it is gingerbread season. Make your own or buy a kit. Just have fun creating this festive and tasty Christmas tradition.