Gingerbread Cupcakes

Gingerbread Showdown Viewing Party 

When your friend is competing on the Food Network Gingerbread Showdown, you throw a viewing party.  Complete with gingerbread houses and cupcakes. I watch Food Networks holiday food challenges all the time so I was SUPER excited to watch my friend compete.  Only the best of the best get to compete on these shows.  And my friend Tikkido has some serious gingerbread skills. 

I invited a few friends over to watch with me and you know I had to decorate for the theme.  I picked up a Wilton boxed ready to make gingerbread house kit.  I thought about making my own gingerbread to build a house but since I've never done that before and it was a busy holiday weekend, I saved myself some time and bought a kit.

I had a few issues in frosting the houses.  The kit comes with icing, piping bags and tips.  I had no problems piping out the frosting for the 'glue' to hold the pieces together.  When I went to pipe the doors and windows I was starting to have a little trouble.  By the time I got to the roofs the icing did not want to come out of the bag.  I squeezed hard and no icing would come out.  I didn't want to squeeze too hard though because icing could have exploded every where.  So I grabbed a new bag and tip and tried again.  Again, it started piping ok and then froze.  Sigh.  I had some sugar cookie icing on hand so I started spreading it with a knife to get snow on the houses and on the ground around the houses.

Oh my goodness the cupcakes. Our house smelled so good while they were baking.  I frosted them with cream cheese frosting and also filled the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.   I do love a cream cheese frosting.  The recipe I used was from  Live for Cakes. 

You may not be hosting your own viewing party but these cupcakes and gingerbread houses are perfect for a holiday movie watching party, a Christmas open house, gift wrapping party or just cause you want to hang out with your girlfriends.

Get the best gingerbread house recipe and Tikkido's Gingerbread for Beginners book.