The holiday season can be recognized by its unique smells: fresh cut Christmas trees, peppermint candy canes and freshly baked gingerbread.
December 12th is Gingerbread House Day. With its icing snow covered roof to its peppermint trimmed windows, the gingerbread house is one of the most festive ways to showcase the holiday.
Making a gingerbread house may seem like an impossible task but it is surprisingly easy. Basically, to begin constructing a gingerbread house, glue a few pieces of gingerbread together with royal icing.
The materials necessary to build a gingerbread house are few: a gingerbread dough and royal icing. Both of which can be easily made in your kitchen. Food Network offers recipes and step-by-step instructions on how to construct your very own cookie cottage.
In addition, the build team at Bob Vila’s website has put together a guide on building a gingerbread house. There are building instructions with four different gingerbread house templates, from a simple A-frame design to the more intricate Colonial.
To get a better idea of what the actual process for making a gingerbread house looks like, you can watch a professional gingerbread house builder put one together on video featured at Food Network Gingerbread Houses.