As much as I love baking cupcakes, sometimes it's nice to try a little something different. My former roommate from medical school came for a visit, so we decided to throw a gingerbread house decorating party. I thought it would be a good idea to use a mold since I had about 16 people RSVP that they were coming. I went with a Paula Deen mold. The mold ensured that the pieces all came out the same side and had cute details that you wouldn't get by just cutting pieces. However, each time you use the mold you only bake half of the house because you have to turn the mold over to make the second half of the house. Also, you have to let the gingerbread cool in the mold for 20 minutes after you bake it! Two molds would have made things faster.
As far as recipes, I used Wilton's everything gingerbread for the house and their royal icing recipe for the "glue" to decorate. The royal icing uses meringue powder, which really makes it very easy to make the icing. Because I didn't have time to make 16 gingerbread houses, we also whipped up some ninja cookies for people to decorate!
All in all, it was a great time. Guests were asked to bring a bag of candy to decorate with an their creativity. The party was two weeks ago and I am still nibbling on the leftover sweets!
Here are a couple of the houses people made:
As wonderful as my house smelled all week.... I certainly won't feel the desire to make gingerbread anytime soon!
