Enjoying Gingerbread Cookies all Year Round

The holidays are a time for indulging in delicious treats, and gingerbread cookies are no exception. But why should the fun stop when the holiday season does? Gingerbread cookies can be enjoyed throughout the year and make for a special treat any time. Here’s why you should still indulge in these tasty treats once Christmas is over.


A Timeless Classic
Gingerbread cookies have been around since medieval times, with historians tracing their origins to 11th century Germany. That’s over 1000 years of baking! And with good reason—these sugary treats provide a sweet burst of flavor that can be enjoyed by anyone at any time. Whether it’s for a snack or as part of a festive occasion, these cookies are always sure to please.

The Perfect Holiday Gift
Gingerbread cookies make a great gift anytime of year and come in all shapes and sizes. From houses to hearts to your favorite animal, you can find a gingerbread cookie design that looks just like you want it to. For an extra special touch, consider personalizing your gingerbread creation by adding an individualized message on top or writing some icing words across the side. It’s sure to be appreciated by anyone who receives it!

Make Them Your Own
In addition to giving them away as gifts, you can also enjoy gingerbread cookies yourself by customizing the recipe with different mixes of spices and flavors. Make them spicy or sweet—it’s up to you! You can also get creative with how you decorate them; mix up your color palette, use royal icing swirls, or add some decorative sprinkles for that extra pop of color. With so many possibilities, there’s no limit to how much fun you can have making (and eating!) these yummy creations!

Gingerbread cookies are timeless and delicious treats that are perfect for any occasion–even after Christmas has passed! Whether you’re giving them away as gifts or enjoying them yourself with friends and family, these tasty creations will bring joy into any home throughout the year. So don’t let the holidays pass without indulging in this classic treat; grab some dough, preheat the oven, and start baking those delicious gingerbread cookies today

Using the iPad to create a whole Gingerbread Paper Village

We are on a roll… as soon as we started folding paper versions of our favorite Gingerbread things like Gingerbread Men and Gingerbread Houses, we keep finding more options. This one is an inexpensive iPad app called Foldify. The app lets you paint onto flattened creative areas, then print, cut out, and fold. The tabs need to be glued or taped, but the cutting is simple so the whole family can join in the fun.

Each shape starts as a blank template which can be twisted and zoomed in to get maximum creative area to work in. Choose a drawing tool, then pick a color from either the color circle or the quick picker, then start drawing! On the left, you can see a 3D version of what your design will look like when printed and folded. Foldify lets you turn the 3D image too so you can see how things are going from every angle. Then, print in three different sizes, email a PDF version or even post to a few social network options.

Foldify provides a nice selection of shape templates included. Each family member can create their own Gingerbread house, put a few trees around (remember, each item can be printed in 3 different sizes), have Gingerbread family members walking around and even a snowman! The shapes are not multi-cubes having to be put together like one of our earlier posts so things like arm are drawn on the sides of the ‘people’ templates. There is plenty of eyes, noses, candy cane and other ‘stamps’ to apply so don’t worry about having limited drawing skills. Personalize to make each one truly your own. There is no limit to how many Gingerbread Houses and things you can create and print so everyone can keep expanding their Village beyond the fireplace mantel to all around the house (and offices).

Make way for the Gingerbread Train coming through – Step by Step make your own!

Gingerbread isn’t ‘just’ for houses and little people! Our favorite cookie can be cut to make just about anything. And today, we bring you a great step-by-step set of instruction to build a whole train.

The instructions on the site include the parts/shapes you need to cut out, how to frosting them together and what the many train parts may look like. Even downloadable PDF templates to really make the shape cutting easy! You can customize as you like… just add a couple little highlights using bits of candy and colored frosting and a caboose could become a Santa Caboose or a engine is run by little figures of all of the family. It’s simple projects like these that lets everyone create Gingerbread Holiday fun then add their personal touches.

     

Create a Gingerbread house online… drag and drop family fun for all ages

Years ago, we found a site that let us have fun building Gingerbread Houses online. The site has gotten a bit outdated, which has resulted in email from our many visitors asking about new options. Luckily, this week we found another page that is helping us put together all kinds of ideas for new Gingerbread houses.

Starting with a clean house with a bit of frosting, just click and drag one of the many candy choices from the lower part of the screen up the house. The candies can be moved around as you like, they aren’t stuck where they are placed originally. When the virtual Gingerbread House is they way you like it, share with others by taking a screen shot or printing the page. Jump over to the Home Sweet Home page to start pasting candies onto your Gingerbread house.

Felt Gingerbread House Plans… no oven needed for house building fun

Looking around for new Gingerbread House plans, we came across a few that needed no cooking. Gingerbread Houses made from felt. The plans are delivered via email as a PDF so they are in your hands right away and only 6 dollar US (pricing we saw on 12/19/2011). Of course, you need to have the felt. The nice thing about felt Gingerbread Houses though is they are quick to make, no cooking is required and felt lasts forever… though, it doesn’t taste as good as their Gingerbread cookie versions.

 

Folks are creative with their Gingerbread House Design

We mentioned there is a lot of fun stuff for the Gingerbread Fan over on Etsy. When we came across this one, we just had to share. It reminds us that there is a lot of fun to be had in putting together a Gingerbread House. It isn’t just four walls, a roof and some icing. You can add things that personalize it to your family or to theme that everyone knows. In this case, the creation is around the love of Hello Kitty. You can have a Gingerbread person to represent each person in the family. Or maybe let everyone make their face in a window using a icing tube to draw with. Different colors of icing not he walls of the house can take a brown house to a colorful one that resembles a building everyone had a good time at over the last vacation. There is fun in making a Gingerbread House that is like the ones over the years and there is fun in customizing the look to something unique to your family. Most important, it’s family fun!

 

The Giant Gingerbread Men of Costco

Walking through Costco this weekend, we saw they still had a few Gingerbread House kits in stock… we posted pics of those before. But, a new addition, where these giant Gingerbread Men. Sorry for the quick snap being a bit blurry, it’s frantic there with so many people and everyone grabbing anything that doesn’t move. These guys aren’t found on the Costco Web site so they may also be limited to which stores they are in. Question, does each kid and parent get their own to work on all day or do we do one per family and have everyone take a part? Either way, they will be a lot of fun at this weekend’s get together.

 

Gingerbread – year round recipes and fun to make items

Gingerbread doesn’t have to be only for the holiday time of the year. It can be enjoyed year round. We’re with you though, it does seem to taste better when the holidays and cool weather roll in.

A fun ‘Gingerbread’ book we happened upon looks like it might have use looking to summer and winter dishes to enjoy our love of Gingerbread. We found this over on the Kobo site, if you have a Kobo Reader or have installed the free Kobo app on your desktop or iPad/iPhone this is a great way to enjoy the book anytime.

“Gingerbread: By Jennifer Lindner McGlinn Beatrice Peltre – Who says gingerbread is just for the holidays? This unique cookbook shows how gingerbread can be enjoyed for breakfast or dessert year-round. Reflecting the wisdom and creativity of a professional pastry chef and dedicated home cook Gingerbread collects 60 traditional and modern recipes. Start with simple yummy treats like Gingerbread Rum Cake and Sticky Toffee Gingerbread then graduate to building your own gingerbread house for the holidays. Any way you slice it these gingery goodies are sure to be a hit on any day of the year!”

The print version of the book is available on Amazon. This might be a book that is best enjoyed by the whole family gathered around the paper pages.

 

Snap together Gingerbread Cookie Toys for Kids

Not all Gingerbread Cookies are editable. We are not talking about poorly cooked cookies, but rather Gingerbread Men and Women decorations, and now… kids toys!

We found these fun little toy set (small, so not for kids under 3) of all kinds of Gingerbread Men and Gingerbread Women. “Learning Resources – Smart Snacks Gingerbread Sort & Snap” Each painted up colorfully and unique to each other. An added bit of fun for kids is that the hands snap together so they can make Gingerbread ‘people’ chains. Since each figurine is different from the next, it could be fun to make a chain of grouping two next to each other with the same color hair then the same color pants, etc… Hmmm… maybe we need to get a set for the adults here to play with.

Making Gingerbread Men Cookies on the iPad and iPhone

No, don’t use your iPad as a serving tray or a plate for your cookies in the oven. This is more about having fun making ‘digital’ cookies on your iPad or iPhone. The application available through the iTunes app store is ‘Cookie Doodle‘.

With the app, you choose your dough, roll it out, choose the cookie cutter, bake and then decorate to make them ‘your’ creations. Your cookies can be saved as an image or sent out with an email right from your iPad and iPhone. One cookie doesn’t say what you want to say? You can create a plate of cookies to share, giving you more oportunities to show your Gingerbread decorating creative side. Grab your copy of Cookie Doodle for a bit of family fun too, there is no charge to make endless number of cookies after the initial 99 cents for the app.

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