Gingerbread Houses Built Like Fortresses But Eaten Like Regret

KEY POINTS

•Haley Hunt Davis shared a fortified gingerbread dough recipe designed to build sturdy holiday houses.
•The recipe yields about 2 to 2½ pounds of dough for houses roughly 8 to 10 inches wide and 9 inches tall.
•The gingerbread contains molasses, shortening, sugar, spices, and a splash of miso, with no baking powder or soda included.

Here’s the holiday hand grenade no one dares eat: a gingerbread house recipe engineered for war, not digestion. Haley Hunt Davis’s dough calls for a fortress-worthy 3¾ cups of flour to birth cookie walls up to 9 inches high, enough to withstand candy sieges but not to satisfy hunger. No baking soda or powder allowed — because puffiness equals collapse — and spices mostly just trick your nose with cinnamon, cardamom, and something resembling pumpkin spice as flavor extras. Vegetables? Just in shortening form. The molasses and sugar cling like overachieving glue, and a dash of miso for that 'mystery umami' to confuse your palate and protect these brittle walls through December. If you’re craving edible gingerbread, you better eat it fresh or risk snappable edges that transform into rock-hard bulletproof walls worthy of a candy kingdom in Atlanta or LA, styled by food stylist Ryan Norton, macaron maker and possibly a gingerbread tyrant. For those who live life dangerously with dough, there’s a bigger 12x10x10 inch version waiting if you double down. Warning: If warping occurs, re-cut your cookie fortress like a gingerbread surgeon while still warm — because apparently gingerbread is the new DIY project for people who think stress baking is too subtle.