A Gingerbread Cityscape

Weeks ago, I found a cute Christmas idea in Better Homes & Gardens. It was a tutorial to make a gingerbread cityscape in a jar. I tore out the page to use later, and I asked Andrew for a glass jar for my birthday. When Aminta and I got together to bake Christmas cookies (as we do every year), we got to work on our cities.

We didn't end up following the tutorial. I used the gingerbread recipe from allrecipes.com that served me so well for our gingerbread house. Then, Aminta and I cut out the buildings freehand. We cut out houses, churches, skyscrapers, capitol buildings... even a Taj Mahal! We used a wooden skewer to carve in the details. After the cookies were baked and cooled slightly, we rubbed powdered sugar in the carvings. Once they were completely cool, I poured sugar into my jar and stuck the cookies in to create a cityscape. Ta da!

Our Gingerbread House

Oliver and I made a gingerbread house together! Well, I did most of the house. He decorated Christmas trees for it all by himself, though!

A few years ago, I tried to make a gingerbread house, but it didn't go very well. I wasn't expecting much this time, but I was pleasantly surprised. I used the children's gingerbread house recipe from allrecipes.com. I needed to add more flour than the recipe called for, but it otherwise worked out perfectly. All of the pieces I cut out kept their shape and didn't need to be trimmed. The frosting from that recipe held like glue! The house ended up being really easy. I used a template from Martha Stewart's website, which is also where I got the idea of using cinnamon sticks as a bundle of logs.

I wanted to add "stained glass" windows to our gingerbread house. Apparently, there are two ways to do it, one is before you bake your cookie pieces, and one method can be done after baking. To make stained glass windows before baking, you first put your cookie pieces on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Break some Lifesaver candies, and put the broken pieces where the windows are cut out. As the cookies bake, the candy melts. When you pull them out of the oven, the hot candy should cool and solidify to form the "glass." I would have done that method if I'd read about it before I baked my cookie pieces. So, I did the window method for after baking. I used a Pyrex liquid measuring cup (since it can take high heat), and I melted some yellow and orange Lifesavers together in the microwave. It actually didn't take that long to melt them. I think I zapped them in 15-second intervals, and it took just 2 or 3 cycles to melt the candy. Be careful if you do this method because melted candy is very hot and sticky. Once mine was melted, I poured it into the window holes of my pieces, on top of parchment paper. Once it cooled, it looked like stained glass. I piped frosting for shingles on the roof as well as for trim on the windows and doors.

I gave Oliver some ice cream cones to decorate like Christmas trees. He squeezed and spread green frosting on the "trees," and then he shook some sprinkles on top. He had a ton of fun with the first one! He was bored with the project by the second tree. Oh, well!

I pieced the gingerbread house together as Oliver decorated the trees. The frosting held like glue! I did the four walls first and let them dry completely before putting the roof on. I placed some flickering LED candles inside the house before putting the roof on, too, so it is lit up from inside!

Gingerbread Cookies

Would the holidays be complete without some gingerbread cookie decorating with the kids? I don't think so!

Oliver loves baking and using the mixer, but I could not fathom making dough, letting it refrigerate, rolling it out, and decorating a million cookies with a two year-old. So, I took the kids out to the grocery store for refrigerated dough. I had the choice between a giant package of Pillsbury or a smaller package of all-natural cookies by Immaculate Baking Company. They were the same price, but I didn't want to be overloaded with cookies anyway. I went with the natural cookie dough. As a bonus, it came with a packet of decorating sugar, which we sprinkled on the icing later.

I worried the cookies wouldn't work because they were pre-formed into drop cookies for easy baking. I just took the lot of them and mashed them together into a ball for rolling. It wasn't a problem at all! Here's my helper rolling out the dough. Take note that my other helper is snoozing in the chair behind him:

Then came the fun part: the cookie cutters! We picked these up from Hobby Lobby yesterday. Their Christmas stuff was on sale for 50% off, so we bought a package of two gingerbread men cutters for $2.

Oliver thought the cookie cutter part was OK. He does it a lot with Play-Doh, so it's kind of lost its luster. As I punched out most of the cookies, Oliver stole little tastes.

The cookies swelled a lot during baking, and their shapes were pretty unrecognizable. I've had that happen with rolled cookies before, but it might have happened with the refrigerated dough because they were made to be drop cookies. No matter! I went back over them with the cookie cutters. It worked like a charm!

Once the cookies were cool, Oliver and I got busy decorating. I took the shortcut again and bought pre-made icing in a decorating bag. It was a little pricey at $3, but, sometimes, it's worth it to pay for conveniences. This was one of those times!

Oliver paused to sample a cookie:

The bag was difficult for him to squeeze, so I squirted a small amount into a bowl for him to use to decorate.

Decorating with one hand and eating a cookie with another:

Back to the squeeze bag:

Oliver decided to sample the icing, too. No wonder this kid wouldn't nap again today! I'm pretty sure 80% of his diet today was sugar.

Our finished cookies:

I have to take a moment to rave about these cookies. Their flavor was out of this world. I could taste the molasses. They really, truly tasted homemade. I don't think we would have made a better finished product if we went through the effort of making them ourselves. I decided they were good enough for gifts! We made tags for four of them to give to each of Oliver's grandparents. I let Oliver color the tags. He's pretty good at that stuff.

The final product:

Parents of toddlers, if you have loads of patience and deal well with messes, I highly recommend taking a few hours for some cookie makin' and bakin'. We had loads of fun!