Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Mini Gingerbread House Cutter Review

So I recently saw this cookie cutter online and I just had to order it immediately.  I could hardly wait for it to arrive so I could get to baking. It was just so darned cute!!

Well, the cutter came in and I got to baking. The picture to your left was my final results.  The final houses were very cute and got LOTS of attention to the parties I took them to.

If you're looking to make your own mini gingerbread houses, I do have some tips on what worked well for me.

First of all, these little suckers take a lot of time, so don't offer to make (or sell) a lot of these without making sure you have enough time.  If I were pressed into selling these, I think they would be at least $8 per house.

I used the gingerbread recipe printed on the cutter package, and I found that it worked best if you rolled the dough nice and thin.  The recipe they provide held up well, didn't spread too much, an was pretty tasty.  Once the cookies come out of the oven make sure to run knife across all the pieces while they're still hot.  It will save you some grief in the next step.

Once the cookies were baked and cooled, we found that the pieces still weren't exactly the same size and it made the houses go together a little wonky.  What we finally did was hold the 2 opposing pieces (front and back, right wall and left wall, left roof and right roof) together and then used a microplane grater to file down the 2 pieces just to make sure they were the same size.  And for the 2 wall pieces (left and right) we actually found that they were too long for the house to go together just the way we wanted.  So we filed about 3/4 of an inch off of the walls.  That allowed all the pieces to fit together and it allowed the roof to have the overhang that we liked better.

Photo of cutter from Good Cook

We used royal icing to put the houses together and we found that things worked well to fit the front/back and left/right walls together first.  We used a piping bag to pipe inside the house, but expect to get a little on the outside of the house too.  Once the walls have started to setup, then you can glue on the roof pieces.  Once they are all together, let them sit and get nice and dry before decorating.

Now I have an entire bakery full of dragees and sprinkles, but if I had it to do over I would make sure I got some mini candies lined up when decorating.  And don't forget the luster dust and the disco dust (as if you would!!).

Overall, these were fun, albeit time-consuming to make.  These little houses won't fi well on a standard cupcake, you'll need to make jumbo cupcakes if you are going to use them as toppers.  But they are cute and big enough for a snack all by themselves.

3 comments:

  1. The cookies seem very time consuming, but the results are just adorable. I love mini cookies. I also have to agree that I wouldn't sell them, I would do them for a special gift for a family or friend, but sometimes, clients do not really understand the amount of work making a little house like that involves.

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  2. These are sooooo cute! I can only imagine the time involved. Time-consuming goodies like these, make cakes seem easy!

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