Honey Gingerbread (for colored dough)
Gingerbread houses are way more fun when you give the dough some color, but it is tough to do that with the dark brown gingerbread cookie dough you traditionally use. I substitute honey and granulated white sugar for the molasses and brown sugar in this recipe so you have a lighter gingerbread that you can add food coloring to. For the roof (or anything else you'd like to make brown), make a traditional gingerbread by substituting molasses and brown sugar. I also use shortening rather than butter so the cookies don't spread as much in the oven. By the way, this is NOT that rock-hard construction gingerbread that you often see used for gingerbread houses. This is a traditional recipe, which works for houses BUT also tastes (and smells) good as well. After all, what's the point of making a house out of cookies if you're not going to eat it? This also recipe makes great gingerbread cookies. I made green gingerbread trees out of the extra dough I used for the house I made...