Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread houses are easy and fun to make out of graham crackers. Kids love both making and eating this craft, and it is a wonderful craft to make before Christmas break (at school) or during the Christmas holidays as a special family tradition.

The graham cracker "gingerbread" houses are easy to make and can be very inexpensive. Needed items may be found at your local dollar store. Feel free to use what you have on hand.

Ingredients for houses:

• graham crackers
• royal icing (recipe to follow)
• vanilla icing for decorating
• assorted candies
• assorted cookies
• colored mini marshmallows
• sprinkles

Royal icing is like an edible "glue" for gingerbread houses! It holds the houses together much better than regular vanilla icing. If you don't want to make royal icing, the kids can put their houses together with vanilla icing (not whipped). Just be sure you have plenty of time to help with construction and expect a few cave-ins. If you want to use vanilla icing for the construction, you might have the kids put their house together first and then let it sit for a while to set up before they try to decorate it.

Royal icing recipe:

• 4 cups (approximately 1 lb) powdered sugar
• 3 T. Wilton meringue powder (check the cake decorating section of your local Jo-Ann or Walmart store)
• 6 T. water
• 1 t. vanilla extract (optional)

Mix the powdered sugar and meringue together first in your bowl. Then slowly add the vanilla extract and water a little at a time as you continue beating. You really can't overbeat royal icing. Keep going for a minimum of 7 to 8 minutes. If everything globs together in your bowl and your beaters are having a hard time, add a tiny bit of water as needed. When the icing is done, it's easiest to use if you put it directly into sturdy plastic baggies. You can then zip the bags of icing closed and leave them at room temperature for a day or two (do not refrigerate). Simply snip a small hole in the bottom corner of the bag when you are ready to use the icing.

This year I made 22 houses ahead of time with royal icing. I made them 2 days ahead of time, and they were fine. You could make them a day ahead or even the same day. The royal icing dries very quickly. I made them ahead of time because my group contained a lot of young children (K-2nd grade mostly), and we had a time constraint. Having the houses ready to go allowed the children to slather on vanilla icing to their hearts content and have great fun decorating with assorted candies, cookies, and marshmallows without the worry of the houses falling apart.

Assembling the houses:
You will need 6 graham cracker sheets for each house. Four of the sheets will have approximately 1/4 of the sheet cut off on one end. The other 2 sheets will have the top edges cut at an angle to form a peaked roof (as shown).

You will use the 2 peaked sheets and 2 of the 3/4 sized sheets for the 4 walls of the house. The remaining 2 sheets will be used for the roof.

Here is an example of an assembled house. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a picture before my ruffians descended and started decorating! I used a generous amount of royal icing piped along all of the edges to hold the house together and even added some to the bottom to attach it to the plate.

Tips:
Use a serrated knife (I used a butter knife; a plastic knife will work just fine too) and "saw" back and forth gently to cut the graham crackers. Broken pieces can always be used to make fences or chimneys. More ideas include:

• Use candies or sprinkles to create pathways in the snow
• Snow can be made with icing or powdered sugar
• Make snowmen out of mini marshmallows
• Make fences out of mini twist pretzels
• Sugar wafer cookies make great doors
• Vanilla wafers look great on the roof as shingles

If you have time for a story, continue the gingerbread theme with one of the following books.

• Gingerbread Baby - Jan Brett
• Gingerbread Friends - Jan Brett
• Gingerbread Man - Jim Aylesworth