We know people who roll out dough and bake sheets of gingerbread to make quaint little cottages. But when we were little, we used cup- or pint-sized milk cartons as the base, with graham crackers stuck on the outside. So much easier. And who actually eats the finished product after a few weeks anyway?
Our version used two small milk cartons cleaned out and then glued together to make a house. We then used icing to stick graham crackers on the sides and top slopes to make walls and a roof. We have a near-Christmas birthday, and this method made for not one but two very popular birthday parties...
We bought pointed, sugar ice cream cones and placed them upside down in the "yard" as evergreen trees, and of course gummy rings were wreaths, etc. But we love the pretzel windows on the house above (which is, obviously, made from scratch and not from graham crackers).
If you do want to attempt a house from scratch, try Faith's Gingerbread Houses: The Apartment Therapy Versions templates from a couple of years ago. And we recommend starting small; it's easier to keep a structure standing if there's less empty room in the middle.
Or, try the milk carton trick.
Here are a couple of from-scratch recipes:
- How to Make a Gingerbread House, from Elise at Simply Recipes
- Gingerbread House Kit, from Martha Stewart
Have you ever made a gingerbread house? What's your technique?
Related: Sara Kate's Tussle with Royal Icing (You'll need quite a bit of this for decorating.)
(Image: Flickr member terren in Virginia, licensed under Creative Commons)
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My mother used to get us the gingerbread house kits growing up, which had pre-made gingerbread pieces. All I remember is that I was always unsatisfied with my final product, and that I used straight pins to hold together the gingerbread because I could never get the icing to set properly. But it was still a lot of fun, and I'm toying with the idea of making one myself this year.
Also, I just saw some great gingerbread houses at Gingerbread House contest at Swedish Embassy in DC. I have pictures on my blog here (I especially like the Empire State Building): http://moderndomestic.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/gingerbread-houses-at-the-house-of-sweden/
My cousins and I made gingerbread houses every year, the Friday after Thanksgiving, with my Grandmother. Who had her own house templates and made her own gingerbread from scratch.
This year, as a ploy to get herself a new gingerbread house to use as part of her Christmas decorations, Grandmother had us (all now in our mid-late 20s) make houses again on Thanksgiving Day. She, again, made homemade gingerbread, but did use molds instead of the old templates. I was in charge of the icing, and was amazed that we made 3 houses with just 2 rounds of icing (vs. the fact that growing up, I think my Grandmother would make about 10 recipes of the icing, because for every smear of icing on the house, my cousins and I had to lick the knives as well!).
I was just part of a gingerbread-making extravaganza that put together a village for the lobby of a large hotel in CA and all I can say is I don't even want to think about gingerbread houses until next year. We agreed to do it as sort of a PR thing for us but the hotel hardly mentioned us in their press release. It was a good experience and I learned a lot, but I don't think I'd do it again (at least not for them)
We used to do gingerbread houses. My mom had a pattern that required you to make the gingerbread dough and roll it into a cookie sheet, then the pattern pieces were cut out of the finished gingerbread. It was really easy and they always looked great (and the houses were much more stable than the graham cracker version).
I thought about hosting a gingerbread-house-construction party this year for my friends this year but I'm too busy at work to find the time. Soo sad.
The "girls" (grandma, aunts, cousins, sisters) in my family have been doing gingerbread houses from scratch every year since before my birth. It is one of my favorite holiday traditions. They aren't always fancy, but the getting together is the best part anyway.
Growing up we always made a gingerbread house (similar to caw261's experience: a from-scratch recipe with cut-out patterns for all the house pieces!) My mom was a genius with getting the walls and roof to hold up long enough for the icing to dry. Then us kids were unleashed with little bowls of different candies and tonnes of icing. Always super fun, and they looked beautiful.
As my siblings and I got older, we tried new variations on the theme, one year making a gingerbread castle and ... a gingerbread pirate ship! Alas, the ship only lasted about 4 hours before the undried icing holding it together gave way and the whole thing crumbled in a delicious heap. Yeah, clearly none of us grew up to be engineers (or bakers). It was awesome while it lasted though.
Growing up Jewish, making a gingerbread house was one of our Christmas traditions. We used a cookie cutter set to make the gingerbread and this icing that must have been weaponized because it was insanely hard once solidified.
Our other Christmas tradition was delivering Christmas dinner with a local charity. My home town didn't have a huge Jewish population but down in the basement of the church where the meals were served and prepared for delivery, it would seem like the entire synagogue was there.
It wasn't until I left home that I found out about the movies and Chinese food traditions.
Making gingerbread houses is so much fun.
I did this once with my daughter when she was 6. I cleaned up Royal icing for days on end. It was everywhere including the windows. I have never been tempted to repeat.
We have made lots of sugar cube igloos and gumdrop trees and wreaths. Lots of fun - less messy.
My husband and I did a gingerbread house this year, though we cheated and picked up a kit.
http://www.dale-murray.com/oakpark/uploaded_images/IMG_2245-701445.JPG
I was quite proud of our work all the same.
I made a gingerbread house once and am thinking about making one again this year.
I grew up loving miniatures and dollhouses and making tiny things, so it was awesome to be able to build my own dollhouse out of such inexpensive and malleable materials. I first sketched what I'd like the finished house to look like and then sketched out some templates on wax paper, using my not-so-impressive math skills. I rolled out the gingerbread and then, having cut out the templates, traced around the templates with a knife. Then baked! I really wanted real-looking windows, too, and so I made some candy in a pot on the stove and poured it in to the window-cut outs in the baked walls.
When everything was baked and cooled (and a day stale), I connected it all with royal icing, using typical accoutrements of peppermint and gumdrops and those little mint meltaways that look like chocolate chips. (I have to say, better math skills would have made a less frustrating project. The angle of a part of the roof pieces was off, but all I had to do was cut the gingerbread.)
I also made a bare deciduous tree out of a pretzel and some melted chocolate and a tiny Christmas tree to put inside the house. (To make this, I drew circles of continually diminishing size on a sheet of wax paper. Then I piped melted chocolate in pattern of evergreen branches radiating out from the center trunk. I sprinkled green sugar on all that for the needles. When it had set in the fridge, I piled the pieces on top of each other, diminishing in diameter towards the top, affixing along the way with melted chocolate and setting in the fridge. The tree was pretty delicate, but so darned cute.)
At the same time, I made a tiny one-room cottage for a friend. He had joked about wanting a sad gingerbread house, with a man drinking beer alone, sitting in a recliner in his house. This little man also got a chocolate Christmas tree. Of course, it was destroyed in the shipping, but my friend appreciated the effort.
We've been making kits for several years. We just finished a train...http://weshallmountupwithwings.blogspot.com/2008/12/making-gingerbread-train.html and http://weshallmountupwithwings.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-gingerbread-train-pictures.html ... and it was used as a centerpiece at our church social last night.
Kimberlina, I had the exact same experience. Well, without the six-year-old.
Royal icing is the dessert equivalent of cement and is about as easy to clean up. Never, ever again will I attempt a gingerbread house.