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Gingerbread village snow globe

Gingerbread houses dusted with powdered sugar in a glass jar. A fun holiday bake and craft project with the kids.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 8 minutes
Resting time 30 minutes
Total Time 58 minutes
Course Cookies, How-to
Servings 15 cookies
Calories 90 kcal

Ingredients
  

Gingerbread houses:

  • 1 batch speculaas cookie dough* (see Notes for recipe link)(or use your own gingerbread house/cookie recipe and make sure to have enough dough to make 4-6 houses)
  • ¼ cup confectioner's sugar (for dusting the cookies) or keep it healthier and use powdered Xylitol)

Snow on the ground:

  • 1-2 cups oat flour (or use other type of white flour or just only use powdered sugar)
  • ¼ cup confectioner's sugar (or only use (oat) flour)

Instructions
 

Make and roll out the dough

  • Make the dough following the instructions*. Let it rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to stiffen up enough for you to be able to easily roll out the dough to ⅓-½ inch thickness. Do so between parchment paper or on a (silicon) baking mat so you don't have to transfer the individual gingerbread houses later.

Carve out the gingerbread houses

  • Preheat the oven to 175C/350F while you are carving out the houses.
  • Measure the height of your glass jar (the snow globe). Now measure that out on a piece of paper. Then place the paper on the dough to mark off the maximum height of the gingerbread houses and draw a thin line on the bottom part of the dough. That will be the part that disappears in the 'snow' and not be visible.
  • Draw several vertical lines to mark the different houses. You can draw examples of houses on paper first to practice.
    Use a sharp knife wherever the dough has to be cut and separated and a plastic dull knife for the decoration.

Bake the cookies

  • Once all the houses are carved and cut out, it is time to bake them. Since the dough is rolled out thin, they only have to bake for 8-10 minutes.

Decorate the cookies

  • The houses are dusted with powdered sugar or Xylitol. To give the cookies a 'snowed upon' look powdered sugar is rubbed on the cookies until all crevasses are filled white.

Building the snow globe

  • Fill up the glass jar with 2 inches of mostly oat flour and just a thin layer of powdered sugar, but you can use just (powdered) sugar or (oat) flour as long as it is white so it resembles snow.
    How much you fill up your glass jar depends a bit on the shape of it as well. Just keep in mind that the more you fill it up the smaller your houses need to be. Having said that, you need enough for your gingerbread houses to not fall over.
  • Now build your village by placing several houses (and trees and a street light or whatever else you came up with... a snow man?) in the glass jar.
  • Close the jar by putting the lit on it and your gingerbread village snow globe is ready!

Notes

recipe for speculaas cookies
recipe for gingerbread spice
Nutritional information:
the information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist's advice.
Keyword Christmas