Last night we attempted a new Christmas tradition…gingerbread houses. We’ve never made them before, but thought it would be something fun for us to do since the kids are a bit older. We had this great idea, thanks to Martha Stewart, to make them out of graham crackers. I figured we would copy her model and do a small house, one for each kid, but Adam apparently had something else in mind. He attempted to build a large house. In our defense we decided to do it so early in the season as a trial run. We figured we would do it again. Well I sure hope we do because our first attempt was less than stellar. Not that the house was bad by any means, but we learned gram crackers are not the medium for making these houses. Too crumbly, too soft, and too delicate. Slow free cialis without prescription down aging activity: it is a rich antioxidant fruit which slow-down the process of aging and keeps you away from sun damage: this fruit helps to protect from free radical damage caused sunburn. There is additionally some proof to propose that cheapest viagra in australia is more effective than generic ones, it is completely incorrect. It is one of the first significant oral form of medication for erectile canadian cheap viagra dysfunction. sildenafil best price Kamagra has turned into a great medical assistance for men’s penile erection. Every time I looked over at his creation I laughed. He was even laughing. We decided it wasn’t structurally sound for candy and left it bare for now. The girls and I started to make the small houses from the magazine. Not quite what the original looked like, but good enough for us. Megan enjoyed putting candy on the roof so much she just ate it. Tess finished hers and was so proud of it. Bella’s fell apart so she sat on the couch and started to read. I suppose even though the end result was not what we thought, we sure had a lot of fun trying to make them.
For all of you with this tradition do you have any advice for us? We want to try it again.
My advice is to buy a kit!
hi amy! i did this exact same thing when christian was 2…we had a gingerbread house decorationg party with dave’s college/high school friends and their kids and everyone pretty much walked away with ramblers that had the roofs caving in. it was pretty pathetic. i did it again last year but this time i made the houses before everyone got here so they were ready to go. i still used graham crackers, but i think the trick is to make the houses long before the decorating so the frosting can dry. that way the houses are strong enough to hold the candy and they don’t cave in or fall apart. also, make sure you have a frosting recipe that is designed to harden. i’m sure if you’re using martha stewart then it is the right kind. if you’re in need of one i’ve got one that worked last year. good luck! it’s so much fun. christian loves it because he eats over half the candy before it ever even makes it to the house.
Oh great- we are making those at our ward Christmas party. What didn’t work- please share. Do you think you need a different kind of frosting. Do you think making them the night before would help the frosting harden? Please share.
I ditto Jill–even though yours was probably much more TASTY. The kits tend to be non-editable.
I’ve tried graham cracker houses before too, and the roofs always wanted to fall in. So no good advice here. They are yummy, though! We did get a kit from Costco last year and the boys loved decorating it. Foolproof.
We are going to start this tradition this year and were thinking of actually making the gingerbread from scratch. I did it in highschool for a culinary class and it was pretty fun. I have heard to form the house ahead of time and then let your kids add the decorations the next day. I have also been told that using melted white chocolate is a better glue than the frosting, but that just doesn’t seem like it would hold up at room temp if you ask me.
Your family is so cute Amy.