Art My Blanket: Mini Gingerbread Mug Houses DIY

Traditions are a great thing! They can put you instantly in a right mood, especially if it's Christmas and it's approaching fast. This year I got brave and decided to put my non-existent baking skills in to work :) You have to start at some point, right?! After quick search on Pinterest, I fell in love with cute little mug gingerbread houses, they were so magical and put side by side looked like a perfect Christmas Village, ready to celebrate! The whole project was done from scratch and took couple hours to complete, again I am a novice and shaking hands were no much help, but the result and fun we had were so worthy!
Stages: 1.Dough preparation 2. Cutting parts with cookie cutters 3.Baking 4. Royal Icing preparation (edible glue) 5. Assembly 6. Decorating with icing pens and fondant.

Supplies (tools):
1. Cookie Cutters for Mini Gingerbread Houses. Originally I bought mine on Amazon but last time I checked they were sold out. These are same size and still available on Etsy. Click here.
2. Pastel Fondant pack can be bought at your local craft store or on Amazon. Click here.
White for Snowflakes. Click here.
3. Cutters and tools pack for fondant. Click here. Since we didn't have any prior. I went with this large selection, they worked nicely and come with small rolling pin which was used by my daughter.
4. Icing decorating pens. Click here.
5. See {Dough Preparation} and {Royal Icing Preparation} below for recipes and ingredients.

{Part 1} Dough Preparation.
I strictly followed this recipe from Caketime (click for link). Its enough for about 8 houses and couple cookies. But I believe the amount of ginger spice is way too much. I would use only 1/4 of that. Otherwise the instructions are clear and after the dough rested in a fridge for 10 minutes it was ready to be rolled out.

After we've cut all the parts (2fronts with door opening, 2 longer ones for roof, 2 shorter for walls), i put it all in the oven to bake at 350F for 10min, periodically checking, you don't want it to go too dark and hard, just a nice goldish color.

{Part 2} Royal Icing Preparation.
I made a mistake in the beginning and bought something called Cookie Icing. Royal Icing is different, it hardens and holds the parts all due to egg whites. I dont have a baking mixer (I told you I am a novice), so I searched if I could do it by hand. I followed this recipe (click here). The only thing I used probably twice as much sugar, than the recipe calls, to reach a good thick consistency, constantly mixing it by hand. You will see, if its too runny add sugar ! One egg white is enough for this project.

{Part3} Assembly
Voila! We now have our parts, we have edible glue (icing) , its time to assemble. Nothing was easier than just sticking it all together. It took about 40 min for icing to become hard.

{Part 4} Decorating. Favorite Part.
Working with fondant is fun. You just roll it out to the 1.5mm thickness and make shapes pressing the cutters in it. We used small hearts, snowflakes, stars. All from the pack in supply list. We've put it on houses with royal icing and waited for it to harden. Especially loved making pink roof by putting fondant around it and making the stars. You can also cut piece of cookie on top to make a chimney. Glue it with icing.