3D Gingerbread House Cookie Cutter by Good Cook

I am so excited about this cookie cutter I found at the grocery store, yesterday!  It's the 3D Gingerbread Cookie Cutter by Good Cook.  It cuts out cookie pieces that can be assembled into miniature gingerbread houses. :)

I have been seeing all these posts about gingerbread houses, but I've been...

• trying to think of how I'm going to cut the right size "walls"...
• trying to find the right "icing/cement" that is egg-free, yet strong enough to hold up the large house walls...
• trying to think of safe candy for decorating...(I have other foods that have priority for trialing ahead of candy, etc.)

So, basically, this doo-dad takes care of all of that! :)  It comes with a recipe on the back that makes 48 "cookies", which is enough to construct 8 mini-houses (6 walls per house).

(Updated to add: The assembled houses end up being a little over 2" tall and about 2" deep and 1.5" wide.)

I had to tweak the recipe on the back, of course, even down to the spices.  My daughter tested negative to cinnamon, but it seems to make her sneezy, sometimes.  I decided to make them with a lot of vanilla powder, instead.  (You can get vanilla powder at Whole Foods, but we got ours from Authentic Foods, when we ordered our GF flour.  1/4 tsp. vanilla powder = 1 tsp. vanilla extract)

Here is my allergy-friendly tweaked recipe for a half batch:  (It made enough dough for 4 mini-houses and two big fish-shaped cookies (per my daughter's request - ha!)

Gluten-Free/Wheat-Free/Egg-Free/Milk-Free/Nut-Free Not-Quite-"Ginger"bread House Cookie Recipe

• 1/3 c. light brown sugar (Domino brand is made with pure sugar, no added caramel color...)
• 1/3 c. brown rice syrup (Lundberg's is gluten-free)...I did not have molasses on hand...
• 1 tsp. vanilla powder (or 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract, though I'm not sure how the change would affect it.)
• 1/2 c. Spectrum shortening
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. Ener-G egg replacer mixed with 1 T. hot water (makes 1/2 an "egg")
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 c. GF flour mix (I used Authentic Flour GF Classical Blend)

I am not, nor have ever claimed to be a master chef, and once again, I made a boo-boo when making this recipe, but it worked out, so I'm writing down what I actually did when making these cookies and not what I was *supposed* to do.  The cookies tasted good, to me, though... :)

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, brown rice syrup, vanilla powder and baking soda.  (See, I was supposed to bring that all to a boil, THEN add the baking soda.  I added it all at the same time, but it seemed to work out just fine.  Feel free to follow the directions on the back of the cookie cutter, of course!)
3. Remove from heat and stir in Spectrum, a little bit at a time, to thoroughly mix it in.
4. Add in the egg replacer and salt.
5. Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl and slowly add in the gluten-free flour, stirring to combine.
6. (The instructions say to knead until no longer sticky, but I found I almost had too much flour, so I don't think that will be an issue.)  Knead the dough, and split into two balls.
7. Place the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll it out to 1/8"-inch thick. (I think I made mine too thin and that's why I ended up with extra dough for the "fish cookies"...)
8. Place house pieces on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until edges are slightly browned, which is approximately 10 minutes.  Completely cool before decorating.

We "glued" a couple of houses together and decorated with Cybele Pascal's Allergy-Free Vanilla Frosting (scroll way down).  I could have gotten out the Wilton decorating tip set, to make it fancy, but we just put the frosting in a Zip Loc bag and cut a corner off, for decorating.  (It made for an easier clean up, too!)

Cut...

Bake...

Assemble & Decorate!