In my childhood a local shop had an annual gingerbread house competition, so of course I wanted to enter. The prizes were things like toys and books from the shop, and I even won the grand prize gift certificate once. Thus began an annual gingerbread baking tradition, a long with the neverending quest for the perfect gingerbread recipe. Finding a recipe that’s sturdy enough to build with, but soft enough to eat is a challenge. I started with a solid house making recipe from a childhood craft book. It was great for building, but I chipped a tooth on it one year (I don’t enter go gingerbread competitions anymore, so of course we ate it) so I started looking for softer cookie recipes. I found some, and while those cookies were a pleasure to eat, cutting them out and building even the smallest structure from them was a frustrating experience that may have caused tears on one particularly noteworthy late night of decorating. This year I kinda smashed the two recipes together, using flour molasses and butter in quantities in between the two recipes. It was soft until cooling which made it harden enough to build with. I haven’t eaten it yet…so no comments on how easy it is to chew. I made 40 tiny Gingerbread houses. I hand cut all the pieces. Each is piped with different decorations. I sold a few at a card table I set up with my kids near the town Christmas parade, and the rest we are gifting to friends and neighbors. My hand was killing me after piping all 40 houses, and I was regretting my life choices at 2am piping away, but I love the way they turned out. The tiny size is adorable and perfect for gifting.
They are awesome!
What a great idea! And I think we’ve all known that crafting induced 2am life choices introspective haha
They are so incredibly detailed! I am in awe of your decorating stamina to do all of them in such a pretty way!
So cute! Plus the tiny size decreases the need for structural strength, so it should work better with a slightly softer cookie… 
Oh, they are adorable! Definitely relate to the pain-piping at 2am, too.
What a delightful (and delicious) village! Please update us on the how they are for eating if you think of it.
So cute!
A whole town! Wow! They are fantabulous.
These look like they were a ton of work, but are SO AMAZING!!! Seeing them all wrapped up is magical. I hope they turned out the texture you were hoping for. They are so festive and seeing them gets me right into the spirit!
Your creativity is unbelievable. To be able to pipe these all differently is amazing! They turned out so cute!!!
You have amazing piping skills!! They look almost too good to eat!! (Emphasis on ALMOST)
Very cute, and so much variety! I can’t even imagine doing so many, you did a great job. I hope they taste good too 
Oh my! These are soooo awesome! I adore gingerbread and these little houses are amazing! SO MUCH WORK!
I love it.
Congratulations! Your amazing Tiny Gingerbread Town is a Featured Project this week!
Thank you all for the kind words! I never did get to eat one, they were all given away. But I did get rave reviews, and a couple of people called or texted just to tell me that they were delicious and soft/easy to eat (without any prompting for feedback whatsoever) so I’m going to call this recipe a success at last! I hope I can remember it for next year…I did just kinda make it up as I went along guessing at amounts between the 2 recipes. 
What?? There others here with this fabulous disease?
I’m not in Kansas Dorthy but I’m definitely home.
These are so cute
Your skill and patience are admirable!
After some Internet searching… this recipe looks pretty close to what I ended up using and is what I will base next year’s gingerbread on since I never did write down what exactly I did this year.