Like many culinary treasures, there are many recipes for gingerbread. This is my own, born of trial and error, but if you have an old family recipe, by all means dust it off.
GINGERBREAD
1 cup butter, margarine, or shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup molasses
5 cups flour (all purpose, bleached, or unbleached)
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ to ½ cup water
In a large mixing bowl beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until fluffy — at least three minutes. Add molasses and beat well. Combine dry ingredients and add to the batter a little at a time, mixing in each addition. You will have to use your hands to work in the last additions.
Divide dough into thirds and shape into balls. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for several hours, preferably overnight.
Roll out one ball to approximately 
-inch thick on a piece of aluminum foil. Dough must be sufficiently chilled before rolling to prevent stickiness. Lightly flour the foil, your hands, and the rolling pin, before rolling to prevent pulling. Or roll between a sheet of foil on the bottom and a sheet of wax paper on top.
Position the pattern templates on top of the dough at least 1 inch apart to allow for a little spreading of dough during baking. Carefully cut out the pieces, using a pastry wheel or paring knife, and gingerly lift the scraps away from the cutout shapes, and return them to the refrigerator. If your house calls for texturized woodgrain, panels, brick, etc., score these effects into the gingerbread before baking (see tips on page 8).
Carefully slide the foil (with the cutouts on it) onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 375°F for 9 to 11 minutes. Bake until just firm, never browned. In ovens that do not produce even heat, bake one sheet at a time, centered in the oven. Once all of the dough has been used, form the scraps into another ball and roll out again. Avoid rolling the dough out more than twice if you plan to eat your gingerbread — this extra handling makes it tough.
When the pieces have finished baking, remove from the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheets. As soon as the pieces come out of the oven, check the edges and, if necessary, trim with a sharp knife so that the pieces will fit together. Lay the corresponding templates over each piece and check to be sure the sides are square with those of the template. The dough will have spread somewhat, but the basic shape should be the same. The dough hardens as it cools, making it more difficult to trim later.
Allow the gingerbread plenty of time to cool on racks before you begin construction. If you can’t start right away, slide the fully cooled pieces onto foil-covered cardboard or back onto the baking sheets, wrap with foil or plastic wrap, and store flat. Gingerbread will stay reasonably fresh for several days.
Forming and Baking Tips
Be sure the cookie sheets are cool — no warmer than room temperature — for each batch of gingerbread. Hot cookie sheets cause the dough to soften and spread before it can set up.
Not all parts of a gingerbread house should be cut from the same thickness of dough. Cut the major structural components (main supporting walls) of the thickest dough, - to ¼-inch thick, and chimneys, trim, and other decorative pieces from dough rolled thinner, but not less than ⅛-inch thick. This makes the finished house more stable and it is easier to fit together small pieces, such as dormers and chimneys, if they are made of thinner gingerbread.
Baking time will vary according to the thickness of the dough. Thicker pieces of gingerbread need to bake slightly longer than thinner pieces. Bake different thicknesses of dough on separate cookie sheets.
Windows and doors can be cut out of the pattern pieces before baking or simply iced onto the walls. You can make “glass” for cutout windows (see page 16), or you can paint or draw a little scene on paper to be placed in a cutout window. Attach the scene as you would the “glass,” with a bit of icing “glue” on the inside of the window opening.
When cutting out doors and windows, don’t worry if they don’t hold their shape perfectly when lifted out. You can always cut an extra door or window from rerolled scraps. Or substitute a graham cracker or candy bar with sections for an elegant, molded door or window.
Frost and pipe icing over a solid wall to achieve the effect of ornate doorways and fancy windows (frost in with yellow or light orange to look as though they are lit from the inside or grey, blue, or violet for an unlit window). You can also use icing to color a scene into the window, such as curtains and a Christmas tree, but this requires skill with the piping bag.
Make castle towers, turrets, and barn silos by cutting a rectangle of dough to fit around an empty tin can. Lay the can on the dough and gently roll, picking up the dough to cover the can as you go. Seal the edges by moistening the ends and lightly pressing the seam together. Set the can on a baking sheet on its side, and bake, turning slightly every two minutes or so. Leave the can in place and hide any edges that show with frosting. If you use the open end of the can as the top of the cylinder, you can fill the tower with surprises, or with weights to help keep it stable.
To create gingerbread logs or fenceposts, roll small balls of dough with your palms to form “snakes” about ½-inch thick. These are thicker than rolled-out dough and must bake longer. The exact time will vary, so keep an eye on them while baking.
Construct a chimney or tower by first building the basic shape from gingerbread. Give it that “made-of-stone” look by applying a base of frosting and either pressing (candy or nut) stones into the mortar or creating stones with icing.
