New and Improved Gingerbread House

I couldn't bare to buy one of those tasteless Gingerbread House kits at the store. But last year, when I made the gingerbread from scratch, I all but threw up from the smell of molasses and we all discovered we hated the taste of real gingerbread, even if the finished product looked and smelled good.

So I decided to improve upon the recipe I had. Instead of using molasses, I substituted it with melted chocolate chips. That's right, Chocolate Gingerbread. I can't say that it's delicious because gingerbread is, like shortbread, dry and boring (and you let it sit out to get stale anyway), hence the need to slather it up with frosting and candy. But I can say that it smelled pleasant, although not as chocolaty as I'd hoped. And the kids liked the taste. I wouldn't choose to eat it myself, but it's not offensive like it would have been with molasses.

So, in case you, like me, would rather eat ricecakes than gingerbread, here is the recipe to try:

1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1 package chocolate chips
3/4 cup water
7 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
(Yes, dough will be extremely dry.) Bake at 375 for 10 minutes for the big pieces and 5 minutes for the small pieces.

And make sure you decorate it with candy that the kids will eat. Last year, I used some that was holiday-ish and they wouldn't touch it, like peppermint and cinnamon (too spicy for them. This year used gummy bears, fruity licorice, M&Ms, Hershey kisses, smarties, jelly beans.

I ran out of the frosting so there's not much white on the house, just enough to glue everything together. Maybe that's a good thing though. Last year, I had to use a hammer and chisel to break it apart so the kids could eat it.