Homemade Whimsical Woodland Gingerbread House With Mushroom and Hedgehog Cookies

After years of enjoyment (or great frustration) making store bought gingerbread kits, I one day thought "how hard can it be to make my own from scratch?" And this is where the vision started: a whimsical magical greenhouse, with woodland creatures and fairy lights. Of course, it did initially seem simple in concept, but little did I know the great amount of time and love that I would put into this! From scratch, this recipe is both delicious and beautiful, it would make a great dessert or centerpiece to sit on your table for a few months...

For the Gingerbread Cookie Structure and Creatures:

1. 13 tablespoons butter
2. 2 cups of brown sugar
3. 3/4 cup molasses
4. 2 eggs
5. 2 tablespoons ground ginger
6. 1 tablespoon cinnamon
7. 1 teaspoon allspice
8. 1 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
9. 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

For the Greenhouse Glass:

1. About 3/4 cup hard candy
2. 1 1/4 cup isomalt crystals

For the Mushroom Decoration:

1. 1/2 cup white chocolate divided
2. red food coloring

For the Hedgehog Decoration

1. 1/4 cup dark or semisweet chocolate
2. 1-2 tablespoons chopped pecans

For the White/ Yellow Tree Icing:

1. 2 tablespoons butter
2. 1/2 cup powdered sugar
3. 1/2 tablespoon milk
4. Sprinkles (optional)

For Red/Pink Decoration Icing:

1. 1/2 cup powdered sugar
2. 2 teaspoons milk
3. desired amount of red food coloring (I used ten drops)

For Green Decoration Icing:

1. 1/2 cup powdered sugar
2. 2 teaspoons milk
3. desired amount of green food coloring

For Assembling the Greenhouse:

1. 3/4 cup cane sugar
2. 1 egg white
3. 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
4. 1 teaspoon lemon juice

The first step of this mountain of a task, it to make the gingerbread dough! Beat softened butter and the brown sugar together until it becomes lighter in color and fluffier in texture. Then, add the eggs in one at a time, and slowly pour the molasses in.

Sift all the dry ingredients (flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and baking soda) into the mixture. Mix to combine, and it will form a very thick dough! Then divide the dough into two discs and refrigerate for about three hours.

Take out the dough discs and allow them to temper until they are room temperature. Then roll them out, each on a separate baking sheet lined with parchment paper until they are about 4mm thick. These will be the sides to the gingerbread house, so it is important to keep in mind that you want it thin enough to be like a cookie, but thick enough to hold up when constructing! Put them back in the fridge for about thirty minutes.

Now is the fun and difficult part - designing the gingerbread house! First preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. You can either draw a picture on some paper and cut out where the windows and such will be, or find templates online. The measurements on the two large sides are 25.5cm long and 17.5 cm high. Then match this with the ends, so that they are 17.5 cm high and 15cm long on the bottom, while the top is 9cm if slanted. This makes the roof sides 9cm wide to fit on the top, and 25.5cm long to be as long as the sides. The most important part is to make sure that you have two of everything! 2 sides, 2 ends, 2 roof panels. I made some doors with the extra dough that were 16.5cm tall and 7cm wide. The windows in the sides that I cut out ended up being 11.5cm tall and 5cm wide! These took up quite a bit of baking sheets and oven space, so I would cut some and put them in the oven for 17 minutes, and while they were in the oven would roll and cut out other parts! The gingerbread hardens as it cools.

For the hedgehogs I used roughly 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough in total for each. You can use any creative tactic, but what I did was roll them into balls, then pinched the ends to make the snout. I then rolled three small balls to use as their eyes and noses.

For the mushrooms, I used differing amounts of dough because I wanted them to be different sizes. To make the caps, you can roll them into a ball and then push your finger into the middle to make space for the stem. Roll out the same amount of stems in differing heights to the same amount of mushrooms you make; I made five.

Put the mushrooms and hedgehogs in the oven for about seventeen minutes.

After the gingerbread house pieces are out of the oven and the hedgehogs/mushrooms are in, you can start shaping the star tree! I did not have cookie cutters for this so used a knife to cut out about six star shapes from big to small. With the additional dough, cut out circles from big to small that can fit in between these stars for when you stack them later. Put them in the oven for about fifteen minutes.

An important part of the tree building is to take a long skewer and poke holes through all of the cookies immediately after they come out of the oven. Essentially, build the tree while it is still warm and soft out of the oven, and before it hardens. I accidentally was too slow and did not get my top stars on, so secured them on later with frosting.

With the rest of my dough, I used a knife to cut out some flower shapes, and then went crazy with my cookie cutters for the rest of it! I put these in the oven for fifteen minutes.

Once the gingerbread and all the cookies have come out, lower the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Now is the time to make stained glass! Use a hard candy (such as Jolly Ranchers) and put them in a plastic bag. Then, putting this bag filled with candies on a cutting board, use a hammer to smash them. You do not want to smash them so much that it is all powder, but so that there are a few chunks that will make a distinguishable color when melted. If you would like, you can also separate the different colored candies and make your own design, I did this on the roof with alternating panels.

After unwrapping and emptying the crushed hard candy into a bowl, spoon it into all of the window panels that you would like to be stained glass. I did the end pieces and alternating on the roof top, but left the side pieces to have clear glass. Be especially sure to get the candy pieces in the corners. Then, put the candy filled gingerbread back in the oven for about seven minutes, or until melted.

While the stained glass is in the oven, you can make your mushrooms! Melt the white chocolate and dip the stems into it then place in the fridge to harden. With the rest of the white chocolate, add the desired amount of food coloring to it. I preferred mine to be more of a pinkish color so added less. If the white chocolate starts to seize with the addition of food coloring, add about a teaspoon of canola oil in. Then, spoon or dip the caps into the chocolate and place in the fridge for a few minutes to harden. After, you can melt a bit more white chocolate to create the spots (or chopped pecans), I used the end of a spoon to dollop on there, and it should set quite quickly if the caps are still cold. Once set, flip the cap upside down and put another dollop of chocolate in the middle and secure your stem to it, placing in the fridge to harden sooner.

When the hedgehogs are room temperature, melt the chocolate in thirty second intervals in the microwave and then dip the back of the hedgehog into it! Try and use something deep rather than wide. While the chocolate is still melted, sprinkle chopped pecans on. You can also use coconut flakes and cocoa powder as an alternative. Dip a toothpick or something small into the chocolate and then onto the eye and nose bumps!

To make the clear window panels, melt the isomalt crystals on medium heat. If it is not melting, a sprinkle of water can help. Stir until clear. This hardens quite quickly, so I would suggest having the window panels ready on a parchment lined baking sheet. No need to worry though, as it will heat back up quickly! Pour into the panels that you would like to be clear, I did the sides and alternating roof window panes. Before the isomalt was fully set, I added some sprinkles in for fun. I was thinking snowflake sprinkles would look especially cute!

For the white buttercream base (that later will have yellow food dye added to it) cream the softened butter and gradually add powdered sugar and milk to it. Scoop into a frosting bag or equivalent. For the pink/red icing, add milk and powdered sugar. When combined add the food dye to what color you would like! If it is too thin, gradually add more powdered sugar. Do this same process with the green dye as the red icing, and spoon into frosting bags.

With the star tree cooled, you can now remove the skewers! I lightly spread the white base on each star, and did an alternating ring of red and green. After frosting each star, stack the circle on top of the skewer and star (or just frost it to attach) and add the second largest star. Repeat this process until you get to the final star, where I frosted to stand up horizontally. Additionally, at this last star, add a few drops of yellow to the buttercream frosting and use it to color the star. The rest will now be used as decoration!

To make the white icing beat the egg white and powdered sugar together until stiff peaks form. Then put a little bit of lemon juice to help make it sticky. Then put it in a plastic bag with the corner cut off. You can now use this to dot around the greenhouse windows or any decoration!

Using the remainder of the icing, it is time to decorate! I chose to make flowers with some, and use leftover chocolate for others. For fine details, I would suggest using a toothpick.

During this time, you can also decorate the gingerbread house itself! This is where you can let your artistic vision go wild!

Going with the greenhouse theme, I decided to make pink flowers along the bottom and tops of my side walls, with green vines attaching them. With leftover construction icing, I also did little dots along the windows.

Piping some of the white frosting into a separate bag, I added more red food coloring to make a darker shade of pink which is completely optional! I then mirrored the side design on the roof, but with dots between the flowers and vines between the windows.

For the ends, I sketched out a design on paper prior to committing to it. They both had one flower at the peak, with three on the end of one and the middle of the other. One method that I found useful for making the flowers was piping the top petal first, the right then left one, and then the bottom right and bottom left one. I then dotted the remaining icing around in different colors, and added some green vines.

This part is a fine line between exciting and terrifying: putting the greenhouse together. Because the cookies are all homemade, they are likely to be uneven and not stick perfectly well together. You may need to compensate for this by either shaving bits of the cookie off with a large knife, or by having an influx of icing!

Start by melting sugar in a nonstick wide pan, as you will be dipping parts of the greenhouse into it. Sugar hardens faster and is more sticky, which helps with initial construction. I would suggest having a friend or family member (or some cans) to be on standby for holding up the walls.

Take one end and dip each side in sugar, then quickly press it against the two sides, holding onto it until it hardens. Do the same on the other end. If you would like to put anything in the greenhouse, I would suggest now is a good time!

Take the construction/decoration icing that you made earlier and use it to reinforce the inside corners, filling in any gaps that may appear from unevenness.

Then figure out which roof panel fits which side better. Unfortunately, when I tried using sugar for this part, it hardened too fast for me to get it in the correct position. Use the icing on the structure itself and then stick the panel on. Wait for it to dry and do the same on the other side. Mine fit in a place where it was balancing well on the side. Attach the optional doors with a line of sugar on the bottom of each door.

Congratulations!!!! You have finished the gingerbread greenhouse! Now all that's left to do is put all your other cookies and decorations with it (I secured my mushrooms with the remainder of melted sugar), and look at how pretty it is! I decided to put some fairy lights in it, as I wanted to see the full affect of the glass, and it indeed does look like a magical greenhouse that may appear randomly in an enchanted woodland forest! (Wow, that was specific, wasn't it?!)

Though this project seems quite a bit of work, the end result is so completely rewarding! Though it is fully edible, I have a feeling this will be on my table for quite a few weeks :)

If you decide to try it, I hope you have as much fun as I did!

Thank you!