My piping game is not on point — I seriously need to spend some time practicing. It would help if my hands weren’t totally shaking any time I try to pipe something.

I could never be a surgeon or a professional Jenga player. Needless to say, the most tedious and frustrating part of this gingerbread cake was the gingerbread houses.

What I thought would be a quick, easy, adorable addition turned out to be a huge pain in the butt. Mostly due to my impatience, which is nothing new!

I always have a hard time trying to decide how I want to decorate my cakes. I usually end up on Pinterest, disillusioned and grumpy, searching for ideas.

The inspiration for this gingerbread cake came from this adorable one that I came across. SO cute, right?? Her gingerbread houses are clearly homemade, but there was no way I was doing that.

Mini Gingerbread Houses

So there I am, 10pm on a Tuesday night, and I’m searching online for mini gingerbread houses, wondering where I can get them ASAP locally.

I can’t even remember how I knew that you could buy a mini gingerbread house kit. Maybe I had seen it somewhere before? No idea.

These were easier to find than expected, but of course, I was panicked about it since I had a schedule I wanted to stick to. I was thisclose to heading to Walmart at 10:30pm to check if they had them.

Sanity kicked in and I waited until the next day and got them at Michaels. Of course, I’m seeing them everywhere now!

The fact that the gingerbread kit came with pre-made royal icing was a bonus. This was going to be so easy! (Yeah right).

I separated all the pieces and trimmed them so they were perfectly straight and the same size. You don’t need to do this, but it certainly helps with assembly and getting a cleaner look.

I piped the details of each side and roof before assembling the houses, as I figured it would be easier that way (it was, for the most part).

The issue came with the waiting time.

You had to wait like an hour (at least) for the icing to dry so you could assemble the houses. Then, once the sides were put together, you were supposed to wait like 3 more hours before putting the roof on – what?! Who has that kind of time/patience? Not I.

I did wait a good hour and was pretty proud of myself for even lasting that long. To no surprise, the houses weren’t quite set and were wobbly as I was putting them together. For the most part, it went OK, except for the ONE house I wanted to be perfect: the damn A-frame.

This one was the trickiest to put together because it doesn’t have 4 walls standing so you can just slap the roof on. It had to be assembled in one go.

Decorating these pieces in advance made it harder to put this one together. Now that I think about it, I probably should have read the instructions on how to put this one together properly. Meh. Anyhow, it was a mess.

The front and back kept sliding inwards, and I hadn’t let the decorations on the roof dry enough, so I was making nice dents in them. SIGH. Finally, it was standing on its own and I left it… for about an hour (NOT long enough).

I still had to put the finishing touches on it — the icing around the front (which I scraped off 3 times because I didn’t like it) and the icicles (which you can’t even really tell are there). Needless to say, the stupid thing collapsed on me multiple times, and I ended up having to take it apart altogether and redo it.

Why is nothing easy? Oh yeah, because I rush and don’t follow instructions.

ANYhow, after spending WAY more time than expected on these houses, I had finally finished them and left them to set properly overnight.

I wasn’t going to use the A-frame on the cake after all since I wasn’t happy with how it turned out, but it was really the only one that fit properly on this 6″ cake. Plus, I still think it’s the cutest one. So, despite it not being perfect, there it is, perched on top of this Gingerbread Cake.

I used Wilton petal tip #102 (I think? I’m also terrible at writing things down – it was either #102 or #103) to do the front of the houses, but otherwise, I used the small round tip that was provided in the kit.

I love how well the petal tip worked! This was actually the first thing I tried on the A-frame, but I decided I didn’t like it, scraped it off, tried a couple other ways, scraped those off, and redid the ruffle… again. FML.

How to Make this Gingerbread Layer Cake

House decorating issues aside, I’m pretty happy with the way this Gingerbread Cake turned out! It is a simple and delicious recipe. The key thing is to use the right molasses. Do not use blackstrap. Blackstrap molasses is way too strong and will overpower the cake.

We can get fancy molasses here in Canada, but if you can’t find that, regular unsulphured molasses will work too. If the only thing you can find is blackstrap then use half blackstrap and half golden syrup. If you can’t find molasses at all, treacle is a great substitute!

Cream Cheese Frosting

The frosting is a simple and delicious cream cheese frosting. I have since revised the recipe for the cream cheese frosting I use, but either one is equally delicious.

The little rosemary trees are my favorite part! Really, this Gingerbread Cake would look just as pretty with just a rosemary tree forest and no house at all. Maybe an idea for a cake next year.

This Gingerbread Cake is honestly one of the best things I’ve ever had. It tastes like a Starbucks gingerbread loaf, but a million times better.

The tangy cream cheese frosting pairs so well with the sweet spice cake. A perfect cake for your holiday celebrations!