Some of my fondest memories of Christmas traditions that I no longer take the time to do are of building gingerbread houses. I didn't just build houses with my kids—we built a castle and a St. Basil's cathedral and a carousel and a train and even a tree!It's so fun to find the perfect candies to create a shingled roof and a picket fence, stained glass windows and stepping stones, shutters and doorknobs! We also enjoyed piping colorful icing onto gingerbread to make elaborate Victorian or Russian designs, dripping white frosting icicles from roof eaves, building snowmen out of marshmallows, and spreading a nice layer of fluffy white frosting snow on the cardboard base.
Today is Gingerbread House Day! If you can't find the time to make one today, you can make your plans for later during the holiday season—or at least take a peek at some of these great gingerbread concoctions:
- 20 Gingerbread Houses that Are Too Amazing to Eat (hey, with that gluey royal icing, please don't eat ANY gingerbread houses!)
- Gingerbread Ninja's Carousel (This "crafty kitchen warrior" has such a cute name for her blog, I have give her props!)
Hereare step-by-step instructions on how to build a gingerbread house...
... and here is a how-to video for basic house construction,
...and here is a how-to video for house decoration.
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| A quicky way to build small "gingerbread" houses—one per kid, theirs to decorate on their own—is to use graham crackers to create the houses instead of baking your own gingerbread. |
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