Posted by Rachel Schwartz on 12/10/2020 to
Family
The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the perfect time to create edible masterpieces to display on the mantle. Gingerbread houses are a popular and fun winter activity to do with children (or adults!) and can bring with them an afternoon of fun, laughs, and a sugar rush. While there are gingerbread house kits available, making your own can be cheaper and allows for extras in case one house is messed up or a piece is accidentally broken. Using graham crackers to create the gingerbread house is a well-known and easy alternate to baking gingerbread pieces from scratch. They are also easier to recreate if a piece does accidentally break in the excitement of decorating as they don't require, just more graham crackers and some royal icing.
While decorating a gingerbread house can technically be done using whatever you might have around the kitchen, various forms of candy and some cereals are the popular options. If, by chance, there is any leftover Halloween candy still around, this is a great way to finish it. Otherwise, buying a variety bag of small, individual candy is ideal. M&Ms, pull-n-peel Twizzlers, Sweet Tarts, Smarties, Lifesavers, Now and Laters, hard candies, etc. are all good options for decorating as they are all small, can be separated, and come in packs. Cereals like shredded wheat are also preferred by some as they can make for great roof tiles, sidewalks, or crumbled for fake snow.
To turn a box of graham crackers into gingerbread houses and to make the royal icing, follow the instructions below. Additional royal icing may be needed for the decorating process.
To Make the Houses:
1. Take one graham cracker and cut 1/4 at one end. Using the perforated lines as a guide, you should see one short line cutting the graham cracker in half across and one long one dividing it lengthwise. With a serrated knife, carefully make a cut halfway between the shorter perforated line and one end of the cracker, leaving you with two pieces--one long (A) and one short. DO this three more times until you end up with four long pieces of graham cracker and four short pieces. The short pieces will not be used and can be eaten or saved to use as decoration.
2. Take two of the long pieces from step 1 and cut the corners off one end of each piece. Using that long perforated line as a guide, that line should be in the center and use the knife to cut a diagonal line between the tip of that center line and the shorter line going across the middle. You should now have two pieces with a point (B) and two without (A). These will form the end and roof pieces of the gingerbread house.
3. Taking a fresh graham cracker, cut it in half along the short center line. This should result in two square pieces (C).
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper to create an area on which to build the gingerbread house so that the icing doesn't stick to the countertop or other surfaces while hardening.
5. Place some royal icing in a pastry bag or in a sandwich-sized Ziplock bag and cut off a corner to create a piping bag. Pipe some icing along the sides of a B piece with the point toward the ceiling and carefully join each C piece one at a time to either side of the B piece, making sure to hold them in place for 30 seconds or so, so that the icing will hold both pieces together and upright.
6. Pipe icing along the exposed sides of both C pieces on the other end to attach the second B piece, again with the point facing upwards. Once the icing has had a little time to set, pipe icing along all the exposed edges at the top of the structure and along the long side of an A piece before carefully placing both A pieces lengthwise on top of the structure to create the roof. If needed, add more icing along the seams to hold the roof in place.
7. Let the icing set and fully harden before decorating.
To Make the Royal Icing:
Ingredients:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 egg whites
- 1/4 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
Directions:
- Beat the egg whites until frothy before adding in the other ingredients. Then beat until the icing can form stiff peaks.
- Add icing to a pastry bag or divide into bowls for decorating.
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