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Maria in WI
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We have decided not to exchange gifts between my siblings/ nieces and nephews, and I am thinking of ideas of something we can do together instead. One of my ideas is to make gingerbread houses, but I am not sure what the best method is.
Do you make the pieces yourself? Use graham crackers? A kit? What kind of frosting?
Thanks! 
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JodieLyn
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royal icing I believe is the one you're supposed to use.. you want something that will dry hard (so butter cream frosting as yummy as it is.. doesn't work well).
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MaryM
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Last year's thread - How to Make a Gingerbread House? has lots of good ideas and different approaches to making them.
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jenk
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For the past few years, we have gotten together with some good friends to make houses. It has become a fun tradition we look forward to every year. We use graham crackers and royal icing in ziplock bags... we usually color a couple of bags with food coloring too.
On a side note, now is a good time to find colorful candy- leftovers from Halloween- at a good price. We also set aside most of our trick-or-treat candy to use for decorating. Teddy Grahams made it into our decorating scheme last year- so very cute, especially when dressed in some icing clothing.
Also, we don't eat our houses... but our dog taste-tested them for us and found them edible 
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melanie
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I bought a kit last year to make a gingerbread nativity....we never did do it though! I want to do it this year. Anyway, it came with recipes for the gingerbread and the hard icing that you make with meringue powder.
Funny story, not long after I bought that stuff, my daughter wanted to make pancakes for everybody...she used meringue powder instead of baking powder. They were like gummy pancakes!
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MaryM
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melanie wrote:
Funny story, not long after I bought that stuff, my daughter wanted to make pancakes for everybody...she used meringue powder instead of baking powder. They were like gummy pancakes!
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I can imagine that definitely would be an interesting texture...
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KC in TX
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We used the ready made packages. It makes things much easier. This year even the icing is already made.
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Maria in WI
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Thanks for the link, Mary M. I should have thought to use the search function first.  I saw the kits at Michael's the other day, but they were just putting them out and they didn't have prices up yet. I think I might keep my eye on them. We will not be doing it until the day after Christmas, so I might wait until they go on clearance, either immediately before, or that morning after Christmas. I don't remember if they came with candies, though. Hmmm...
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Fe2h2o
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Just a note that royal icing is _really_ easy to make! And as long as you keep it in an airtight container in the fridge, it keeps for _ages_!
Gently beat an egg-white, and mix in properly sifted icing sugar (not icing mixture, for Australians) [you call this confectioner's sugar in the US?]. Keep mixing in more until you get the consistency you want—pretty much until it's all fully white, not a white layer on top of the egg. Add a drop of lemon juice or white vinegar (_scant_ drop!) and mix well. Put this in your container in the fridge.
When you're ready to use it, put a spoonful into another bowl/mug (my mum always used a mug, so that's what I do:-) ), and mix in more icing sugar until you get the right consistency. If you're doing construction, you need it to be heading towards firm (firm peak). If you're just attaching things, it can be a little softer. If you're decorating (lacework, or icicles or things) you need it to be quite firm—but not so firm you can't squeeze it out!
When doing it with little kids (my oldest is 5), I've found that small ziplock bags are _great_! I put about a dessertspoonful in the corner of a bag, remove the air and zip it up. I do a collection of these (not very frugal, but saves my stress levels _immensely_!) Just before giving it to the child, snip a _really_ small bit off the corner where the icing is. They can use this to apply the icing. If they can't push it out, snip off the merest sliver more. When they run out, they get a new bag. But mostly, that quantity is about right for their attention spans.
We do gingerbread houses for halloween... because I was never getting to them at Christmas—and I really like the idea:-) You can see last year's efforts here, I've been less consistent about blogging things this year:-(
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St. Ann
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I just bought a gingerbread house kit from Hobby Lobby.
It is made of cardboard.  We just put it together and decorate as we like. I have not had any luck with my own self baked gingerbread. and I have tried it more than once. 2 years ago I bought a prebaked kit from IKEA which turned out very nice. It was less expensive than this cardboard version, but I didn't have any plans to go to IKEA soon, therefore...cardboard. (we will still be able to eat the decorations!)
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chrisv664
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I've made gingerbread houses "from scratch" and it is lots of fun. Just be sure you give the cookies plenty of time to harden (like days... even weeks!). Last year our house needed to have a condemned sign in front because the roof was too soft and kept caving in. It was completely patched with royal icing!
This is becoming a really fun tradition in our house!
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Bookswithtea
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I like the kits that Michaels sells. These are way more convenient, especially if you have several children making houses. And with a 40% off coupon, its even that much better!  Sometimes they have a variety of options, like one year they had mini houses, 3 or 4 to a box. We used them as a craft for a 12 yr old girl slumber party and they were a *huge* hit. I've also seen big gingerbread trees that could be decorated. It might be fun to buy some extra candies for decoration, or maybe some gel paste for coloring frosting, just to personalize it a bit more.
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Fe2h2o
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chrisv664 wrote:
| Just be sure you give the cookies plenty of time to harden (like days... even weeks!). |
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I've always used my mum's recipe—which I'm thinking must be Gingerbread Biscuits (you'd say Cookies), but hardening is _not_ an issue! (When I'm organised!) I make them one day, construct them the next, and we decorate them the following day. It really isn't a 'bread' like texture (or soft at all)... it was only when I started looking at pictures that I realised why gingerbread house moulds were as thick as they are:-)
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Maria in WI
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Bookswithtea wrote:
| And with a 40% off coupon, its even that much better! |
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Good idea! I will start watching for these! 
Thanks for all the ideas, everyone!
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Veronika
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We absolutely LOVE to make gingerbread houses! My children and I made them as gifts one year...a great engineering lesson as well! I use the same basic recipes as you all and have had my share of cave-ins too. I too have learned to make them in stages, but I add just one more. After the cookies have been baked and cooled, I ice the backs for reinforcement and let them dry overnight. Sometimes as long as a week may go by before I decorate, and I find that the longer they have to dry, the better they stand. Another thing we like to do is to cut out windows and doors before baking and fill them with crushed lollipops when they're almost done baking. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to separate the windows from the baking tray, but I'm told a "silpat" baking mat takes care of that...wish I had one...maybe St.Nick  This technique makes really cute gingerbread churches suitable for gift giving among your church family. Cotton candy floss also looks great peaking out of the chimney, and if you put a small hole in the bottom of an aluminum pan that you use for your display you can even insert a battery operated light so that it makes your windows sparkle. Those clear blue candies make a really cute pond too when they're melted kind of free-form on a cookie sheet and when they're placed in front of your house and surrounded by that royal icing it looks so cute...once we even put gummy penguins that I found at a specialty candy shop on the pond. Oh, I'm so glad this thread came up...I'm inspired to get started...I wonder if I have any extra butter in the fridge? Have fun!
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Angie Mc
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We made these gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and melted white chocolate chips. They were quick to put together (the houses were formed in under an hour) once we figured out that we needed to *score* the lines for cutting the graham crackers. For perfectionists, you might want to check that all angles match for the roof peek - none of ours do but we don't care . We just added more frosting...or glued mini Nilla wafers or candy to fill gaps.
Love, your craft impaired friend,
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DominaCaeli
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Speaking of gingerbread houses, I just saw these little mug-topper houses. In my other life (in which I don't have three children under four and am not pregnant!), we would all have these on our cocoa cups for Christmas morning.
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Don't even mention the words "gingerbread house" to me! We have spent the last week planning, cooking, drying and cooking and drying, with more cooking and drying....We are in the middle of making a castle, a church, and a sort of Spanish hacienda...each boy designed their own house. They are very cool and will be fun to assemble (on Monday in VA), but WHAT WAS I THINKING????? Did I forget what a work-out it was the make a gingerbread train with boxcars and a caboose last year...HOW do I get myself into these projects? WHEN will I learn????
Making memories is so stressful.... 
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My mother buys the kits and makes it with the kids.
Lucky me.
Now I am trying to get her to do the decorated, shaped, sugar cookies. I hate that job! And, the cookies don't even taste good. And, you can't find those little silver b b's looking balls anymore.
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We just decorated 'gingerbread' houses this past weekend. I had planned on making them out of graham crackers, because it's easier to just give each child a small house of their own. I had a terrible time getting the roof to stay. So I broke out the hot glue gun, and VOILA! My houses were not falling apart. I covered over the glue with icing, and they look fine. Needless to say, we won;t be eating them....
Actually, I'm wondering, does anyone ever eat them?
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Do you make gingerbread houses?
