Remember winter week on SYTYC?? I made the snowman glove dryer. Well, it was actually the backup plan – I originally was going to go with a “Anyone Can Make a Real Gingerbread House” type of entry. But in the process I failed and thought, ugh, on to plan B. But since I did it, and it’s a craft, I’ll share with you guys (plus, I can’t get voted off my own blog for a lame craft!)
Growing up we always made Gingerbread houses. They looked great. My mom made the church and my brother and I each got a house that we decorated, under her supervision. I’ve made them as an adult and they’ve looked great and were fairly easy. I don’t know what happened this time (the pressure of the competition?!?) First, mix up some dough – I love how my recipe is hand-written from my mom – before the computer was an everyday part of life. I forgot molasses and then tried to knead it in by hand at the end – that’s where it all started to go wrong. But I pressed on.
With the mix-up in ingredients, the dough was REALLY thick and hard to roll out. I just went with it – mistake two – I should have just started over. I pressed on. Use pattern pieces and cut out shapes.
The gingerbread cooked up weird because it was so thick – I started to have my doubts about the project. I made sucker stuff to fill the windows. I don’t have a candy thermometer and so the goo wasn’t hot enough and never set up. Ugh. I scraped all the goo and tried again – about this time my husband suggested moving on to the backup plan (snowman dryer here we came!).
I told my mom I didn’t know how hot my candy was and she told me a great tip – you take some of it and drip it into a cup of water – if it immediately makes a “hard ball” (hence this is called “hard ball” stage) then it’s ready. Why didn’t I know this earlier?? After pouring it into the windows, using yellow to simulate light, add a drop of food coloring and swirl it around in the church windows to simulate stained glass. I dropped in way too much and the church windows are blackish – another fail.
I have a board with a hole in it I use each year. You build the house around the hole and then you can put a night light up in it the house, through the hole, and with the light on the inside the windows will glow – very cool.
When putting pieces together with the rock-hard icing (cement icing – it doesn’t taste good, but holds great) use cans for a few minutes to stabilize the houses. Mine didn’t fit well because of the thick gingerbread and the way they grew weird when they baked.
And so, with slanty houses, I thought, time to give up! I turned it over completely to the kids. They had a blast.
And so now we have this kind of gingerbread village instead of a fabulous, intricated, well-designed one. I’m okay with it.
Although I do have to share some pics of my aunts AMAZING gingerbread house – she does one every year and they are fabulous!!! Obviously, kids don’t help with hers….
Look, there’s even an inside – do you see those donuts?!?
Now, waiting for the fun part that comes after Christmas – demolition! Here’s my oldest (now 8) when he was 3:
Girl make them out of graham crackers and save your sanity!! 🙂 Love this post BTW!! 🙂
Good to know that everybody messes up once in a while. I’ve never made it past the graham cracker stage so to me, this is amazing!
I like your slanty houses. More realistic I say! Good for you for pressing on girl. What a fun tradition!
Great job on the Gingerbread House. Looks delicious. :o)
Paper-Crafts Chick
I have a brand new linky party going on! I would love to see you add to it!
-Dana
https://danajeanward.blogspot.com/2010/12/strut-your-stuff-for-christmas.html
Your houses are awesome!
Thanks for linking up to to TOO Cute Tuesday.
https://funkypolkadotgiraffe.blogspot.com/
I started out from Operation Org to see your craft room mess. Mine may be worse (wink). I can’t wait to see what you do.
Love that you made GB houses with the kids. You can see mine on my blog.
https://countrywifecitymom.com/post-christmas-frenzy-musings/
My kids are grown so I think you had more fun.
Best,
Citymom