Monday night we did another fun Christmas tradition: making gingerbread houses. Many years ago I would bake real gingerbread. It was an ordeal for me. Finally I decided it was just not worth all the stress, time, and effort. Especially after the time where I sneezed for an hour straight because I got some flour dust in my nose. So now we use graham crackers.
My husband constructs the houses. He takes 3 full-size graham crackers and cuts them in half using a knife. Then he takes 4 halves and uses a glue gun to make the base of the house. Then he glues the other two halves together to make a roof. He then glues the roof onto the house and then glues the whole house on to a paper plate. Obviously they aren't edible houses with the glue on them but are any gingerbread houses edible after they've sat out and gotten rock hard? Plus using hot glue means we don't have to come up with little milk cartons to construct the houses around.
The beauty of the graham crackers is that it requires so little effort on my part at an extremely busy time of year and they are sturdy enough that there shouldn't be any crumbling like real gingerbread is sometimes prone to do.
While he makes the houses, I'm making the frosting. This time I used 4 egg whites and about 6 cups of powdered sugar which I added gradually while I beat the frosting at high speed on the mixer. I added a little bit of cream of tartar (1/2 tsp or so) but I'm not sure if this is really necessary or not. It turned out to be just about the right amount with no left over. We might have been able to use a little more.
After I whipped up the frosting, I put about half of it in a quart-size Ziploc bag and then snipped off a tiny piece of one corner so I could use it like a frosting bag. The rest we put in a bowl for customized decorating. Then the decorating began.
We had Christmas-colored jelly beans, Dots, M&M's, round peppermint candies, other Christmas rock candies, and different pretzel shapes. The kids had a good time decorating their houses (and eating the candy) and the activity was just the right length of time for a Monday evening--less than an hour total. My one regret is that I didn't tell my married son and daughter-in-law that we were doing it so they missed out. But maybe they can do it at our house this next week. I'll even whip up more frosting for them.
My husband constructs the houses. He takes 3 full-size graham crackers and cuts them in half using a knife. Then he takes 4 halves and uses a glue gun to make the base of the house. Then he glues the other two halves together to make a roof. He then glues the roof onto the house and then glues the whole house on to a paper plate. Obviously they aren't edible houses with the glue on them but are any gingerbread houses edible after they've sat out and gotten rock hard? Plus using hot glue means we don't have to come up with little milk cartons to construct the houses around.
The beauty of the graham crackers is that it requires so little effort on my part at an extremely busy time of year and they are sturdy enough that there shouldn't be any crumbling like real gingerbread is sometimes prone to do.
While he makes the houses, I'm making the frosting. This time I used 4 egg whites and about 6 cups of powdered sugar which I added gradually while I beat the frosting at high speed on the mixer. I added a little bit of cream of tartar (1/2 tsp or so) but I'm not sure if this is really necessary or not. It turned out to be just about the right amount with no left over. We might have been able to use a little more.
After I whipped up the frosting, I put about half of it in a quart-size Ziploc bag and then snipped off a tiny piece of one corner so I could use it like a frosting bag. The rest we put in a bowl for customized decorating. Then the decorating began.
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| The weird-looking house is my 15-year-old's creation. He was going for the rocket-ship look. This is a good activity for encouraging creativity. I also liked my daughter's pine tree (middle back) that she created out of green jelly beans and frosting. The holes in the roof allowed my 11-year-old to store some peppermint candies in his house that he could fish out later. Resourceful! |
We had Christmas-colored jelly beans, Dots, M&M's, round peppermint candies, other Christmas rock candies, and different pretzel shapes. The kids had a good time decorating their houses (and eating the candy) and the activity was just the right length of time for a Monday evening--less than an hour total. My one regret is that I didn't tell my married son and daughter-in-law that we were doing it so they missed out. But maybe they can do it at our house this next week. I'll even whip up more frosting for them.
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