Tiny gingerbread houses on a pillow of vanilla bean ice cream. These make ahead edible snow globes are the cutest, easy Christmas dessert in the land OR you can just make the mini Gingerbread houses because that's the fun part anyway.
Today I have for you a winter dessert that's so much fun and so easy to make that I've taken the liberty of including the link to the Nobel Prize website so you can take the next obvious step and nominate me. Might I suggest your nominations be either in Physics or the Peace Prize. Dealer's choice. I expect to be very busy fielding calls from them shortly so let me quickly run you through how to make your own edible snow globes.
Table of Contents
Mini Gingerbread Houses (eep so cute)
These little holiday desserts are easy to make even though they look mind bogglingly impressive. I make these for my annual Christmas Eve party, but they'd be a perfect Christmas Day dessert if your family isn't into plum pudding.
And if you aren't confident in your tiny house making abilities (which is ridiculous because I KNOW you can do this), then you can make regular gingerbread cookies and serve them so they look extra special on a cookie stand like the one I made a few years ago. You can read the full cookie stand tutorial here.
Make your favourite gingerbread dough (or use the recipe I've included lower down in the post.) Press the dough out into a large rectangle and then roll it it until it's very thin. Around ⅛th of an inch or even less. I like to roll mine out on Parchment paper. Then you can just slide the entire hunk of rolled out dough, along with the Parchment paper onto your baking sheet.
Bake a little less than according to the recipe directions.
For cookies, I like the gingerbread to be hard and crunchy. But for these snow globes, you need them to be a bit softer so you can cut into them with a spoon when you're eating them.
After the gingerbread has cooked, immediately start cutting it.
** You're cutting the shapes after the big, whack of dough has cooked. Not before.**
The finished houses are TINY. Teeny tiny. So cut some strips that are 1" or less wide. These will be the sides of your house.
You can use a pizza cutter or a paring knife for cutting. Because the gingerbread is quite soft when you take it out of the oven you can do fairly precise cutting with it, like cutting out doors and windows.
For a basic house shape you'll always use these shapes: two square pieces for each side of the house & a pointed square piece for the front and back of the house.
You can make the houses as big or as small as you like. And you can make any shaped house you want.
To make the roof cut 2 pieces that are slightly larger than the sides of the house. You can also wait to cut the roof until you've "glued" the house sides together.
The glue you use is Royal icing. It works great. If you're doing a great BIG gingerbread house you can also melt toffee to use as glue.
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
Make sure you glue the sides like you see me doing it here. With the sides behind the front piece, not on either side of it. Otherwise your house will look unfinished from the front and be very wide. Maybe even double wide.
The left photo shows the depth of the house: almost 1.5". The right photo shows the front of the house, which is only 1" wide.
Cut, trim and shave your pieces as you need to. If your roof seems too thick for example, you can slice the thickness right in half to make the roof a bit more delicate. In the photo above, the right side of the roof has been thinned and the left side has not.
A paring knife works best for this. If your gingerbread starts to harden WORK MORE QUICKLY. Also you can use a breadknife to cut gingerbread that's getting hard and brittle.
Once your house sides are sturdy and the royal icing has dried a bit you can add the roof and a chimney.
Then you can finish decorating the house or adding tidbits like a steeple to make it seem like a tiny chapel. Use long, needlenose tweezers for delicate work like applying the razor thin steeple.
Hey! Did you hear I'm going to be nominated for a Nobel Prize? Yeah, it's kindda all over the news by now I think. So embarrassing.
You can spend as much or as little time on these houses as you want. I'm sure you're happy I've given you that kind of freedom. Normally we Nobel Prize winners are kindda dictatorey. Not me though. I'm more of an "of the people" kind of Nobel Prize winner.
You also don't have to make conventional gingerbread house shapes. Like midcentury modern? Make a midcentury modern gingerbread house.
Make in Advance
The houses can be made days in advance. If you use an icing recipe with raw egg whites you just have to keep them in the fridge. If you use one that uses meringue powder you can store the gingerbread houses in an airtight container. The night you're going to serve them just plop a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream in a glass.
Let it melt a tiny bit before you put the gingerbread house on top. Serve as is, or top with some chopped pistachios like I did in the photo above. For Royal Icing I don't really use a recipe. I just add 1.5 cups of powdered sugar to my Kitchen Aid with one egg white and ½ teaspoon of vanilla and mix. If it needs a bit more thinning I add tiny bits of water at a time until it's the consistency I like.
It should be thin enough to pipe but not so thin it's runny when you pipe it. Then I add 1 tsp. of artificial, clear vanilla. If you use real vanilla which is dark brown, your icing won't be pure white.
Edible Snow globes
Ingredients
Gingerbread
- ½ cup shortening
- ½ cup butter softened
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- ½ cup molasses
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 3 cups flour all-purpose
- chopped pistachios
Royal Icing
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 1 egg white
- ½ teaspoon clear vanilla If you use regular vanilla extract which is brown, your white icing won't be pure white.
Instructions
- Beat the shortening and butter on medium for 30 seconds. (whether you're using a hand mixer or a stand mixer) Add the sugar, baking powder, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Beat until combined. Beat in the egg, molasses, and vinegar. Finally, beat in the flour little by little. Divide the dough in half, form into 2 discs, cover and refrigerate for an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, (190 C). Roll out one disc of dough to ⅛" on parchment paper into a rectangular shape. Bake the first batch for 5 minutes and the second batch for 4 minutes. (the second batch will cook more quickly) If the edges start to brown remove the gingerbread from the oven. You want the gingerbread to be a bit soft once it has cooled, not hard.
- Cut the gingerbread rectangles into several 1" strips. Cut those strips into the sides, front and back of your tiny gingerbread houses. Glue together with royal icing.
- Cut gingerbread rectangles for the roof pieces. They should be slightly deeper than the house itself so they overhang. If the roof seems too thick, shave off some of the thickness of the gingerbread. You can carefully cut the roof piece in half to make it half as thick.
- Once the royal icing has set on the house, you can glue the roof on with royal icing as well.
- Finish the houses with chimneys, steeples, or you can even create little mid century modern houses. Just let your imagination run wild.
- Store the houses in an airtight container in the fridge.
- When serving day arrives, spoon a good amount of vanilla ice cream into the bottom of a glass and let it melt a tiny bit. Add your gingerbread house on top of the ice cream, and sprinkle with chopped pistachios. Serve with a spoon.
This really is the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. Ever. Not just making while making gingerbread, I mean it's the most fun I have ever experienced in my life. Well, this and winning all of the Nobel prizes of course.
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Kim
When my kids are bigger I'm going to make these. And by kids I mean the smallest kid. He is 18 months and a destroyer of all. So next year. These are totally awesome. And SO SUPRISED you cut after they are cooked.
Also you blog is so awesome and funny I don't care what it is about. I just like to read it. You remind me of me when I blogged: only funnier.
:-)
Nancy Blue Moon
Awesome project as always Karen...But the icing on the cake...or gingerbread...is the great name given to it by Jamieson...
Melissa Leach
Karen, I want to pin this post but can't find the Pin on your website. I also looked on Pinterest for your pin...am I blind??? You should win a prize for this post!!!
Karen
Hi Melissa! The "Pin it" button is at the bottom of the post. It's little! I keep meaning to get around to getting a "P" put on every photo. Maybe that'll be this weekend's project! ~ karen
Karen
K. I decided there's no time like the present. I've upgraded my Pin it button so it shows up over ever image when you hover over it. Thanks for the unintentional ass kicking Melissa. ~ karen!
Julie
What a great idea! I was thinking maybe i could top the ice cream with whipped cream, so it wouldn't have to melt...not a big fan of melty ice cream. Then put the tiny gingerbread house in.
Janet Kateusz
I have been reading your blog for some time and your nails always look marvelous! Just wanted to let you know that.
One of the many things I have learned from you is 'How do chickens lay eggs?'
I have passed on your wisdom to many people.
Thanks,
Janet Kateusz
Karen
Thanks Janet! They're looking a little worse for wear today which is how they'll probably stay for the next week or so. ~ karen! p.s my nails, not the chickens.
Wisconsin Gal
Great idea and very funny post, as usual! But I will NOT call the Nobel Prize people until I see the dirty gingerbread men.
Suzanne
You dont have to use the artficial stuff if you have stored a vanilla bean in your icing sugar. ? Can you believe that I have never made a gingerbread house , I have always been a buche de Noel kind of girl but i may very well try it this year. You took the fear out of it. Love it!
Brian Cessna
Hey Karen
Merry Xmas. All the best and say hi to your mom for me. Hope 2106 is the best year ever for you! You deserve it. Looks like you work hard.
Great posts.
Brian
Lez
Just wondering if anyone else noticed the year you wished for Karen...2106! :) Haha!
maarilyn
Of course I meant READING your blog.
maarilyn
Thanks so much for the fun you provide. Just love ready your blog. :)
Gretchen Sexton
O.M.G.
too cute!
too hard! too much work for me, so I gladly live vicariously through you.
especially the nobel prize part.
love.
Eileen
almost snorted my lemon-ginger water across my computer screen...so funny (the post, not the water)! And so adorable. Almost makes me want to bake. Almost. I'd rather you just send me about a dozen though. That way I could impress everyone without any screaming or other assorted baking disaster tantrum-ish behaviour.
maggie van sickle
Wow now I like that kind of dessert. Fun, pretty and good to eat.. Good job again!!!
Sakura S.
I was gonna give you some serious trash-talk about hating chestnuts (Seriously??? You hate them? That comment was like a knife in my roasted-chestnut-loving heart). But, since you were kind enough to provide a gingerbread recipe, I'll let it slide. This time. Merry Christmas!
Trish
Where are the dirty gingerbread men? I read the whole post just to see them!
Laura Bee
These really are adorable. Take full credit & that Nobel Prize. My sister & I always bake cookies & make fudge (damn good fudge) as gifts. Twice we made gingerbread boxes to put them in. Those were fun.
No baking this year yet. I moved, last year we only were able to get together once :(
SuzyMcQ
Well, Karen, I did some research on houses like this, because I saw them premade last week. They weren't exactly like yours, but were the ones with slats that fit onto the side of your coffee or cocoa-filled mug. The cost was astronomical for them, so, being the good artofdoingstuff reader/fan I started to look online for cutters to make them. I found a number of them on Etsy when I searched mini gingerbread houses. I think your idea of baking them first is earth-shattering, so I'm going to try that, but, will use the cutters instead. I don't have your knife-wielding skills. But, I do have a new knife sharpener from Lee Valley, thanks so much for the tip!
Karen
Are you kidding me??!! Teensy tiny houses like this already exist?! I should have known. There is no such thing as an original idea. ACKGHAGIHADG$%%8&###! ~ karen!
SuzyMcQ
I think the ones that are premade are in the Anthropologie catalogue.
Agnes
It's true. I made these like 3 years ago, used a template from Not Martha, and even made my own cookie cutters from sheet metal. However, mine were not as free spirited as yours! Love the quirkiness of each individual house. I was thinking of 3D printing some cookie cutters this year, I've seen a couple free designs on Thingiverse for the mug perching houses.
Kayle
No need! You can get the cutter on amazon. It works perfectly and is very inexpensive.
Karin
here I sit smugly patting myself on the back for writing some Christmas cards to my families and closest friends (that’s a first for me)
gazing at my newly aquired Christmas figurines I snagged from Goodwill and
nodding my head in approval at my dollar store battery operated candles for the windows and my led string lights (heck, they ARE wicked bright).
i even put up a wreath on the outside door…..
and i dragged home some birch stumps and branches….
and then you come along with yet another stunning, inspirational and oh so cute idea…. just when i thought i had this Christmas business figured out and wrapped up…..
congrats on the Nobel prizes. you my dear, are truly deserving of it. in fact, i think you should get all 6 of them
off I go, checking out the gingerbread recipe…
:0B
Jamieson
So creative and beautiful, Karen! I meant the gingerbread, but applies to you too.
I hope to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for my small part in this amazing invention! It may be the first time someone has actually accepted my creative name suggestion for their baby. Usually it's a flesh and blood baby so the stakes are a little higher, but you gotta start somewhere.
Jan in Waterdown
Well, first, ya gotta stop suggesting "Jamieson" for the babies' names!! Sorry, just could not resist . . . ?
Jamieson
Actually, "Jamieson" becoming a popular baby name is one of my greatest fears! I dread the day I am walking through the supermarket with multiple parents yelling "JAMIESON YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT THIS MINUTE!"
So yeah, I'm cool with babies not getting my name.
PS My husband and his family are from Carlisle and he and his sisters went to Waterdown HS...
Jan in Waterdown
Moved here back in '83... things sure have changed a lot. I do think Jamieson would be a very cool name for a kid but what do I know? Never had any, never wanted any so that does make me an authority on all child related stuff right? LOL!
Lynne
Annnnnnddddd check out those gorgeous nails! 3 posts a week, means red nail polished nails. So very festive of you. You rock the Christmas polish. You go girl.
Lynne xx
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