So Easy A Cave Mom Can Do It

I admit, now that I'm looking at this close-up, there are a few things I would do differently next time, but I still wanted to share this because it was so EASY!

If you've ever tried making a gingerbread house with the traditional royal icing and candy, you probably recall that the icing takes forever to dry, all kinds of supports are needed to keep your house standing while the icing dries, and the candy is ridiculously expensive if you buy enough variety to really do it up cute.

The kids really wanted a gingerbread house this year, and I really wanted a successful gingerbread house at long last. (I can't tell you how many times I have tried and failed.  Royal icing and I get along great with flat cookies...not so much for 3D structures.)

I realized that we never actually EAT our gingerbread.  It sits there until its thoroughly stale and nasty anyways, so why not use hot glue?  The hot glue was as close to an instant bond as you'll get with something full of sugar and grease.  While it didn't bond as well as I would have liked it too, it certainly bonded well enough to get my structure standing.  Although next time I will still make a recipe of royal icing to fill it in and make it pretty after I've got it glued.  (I didn't have enough sugar on hand and didn't want to go buy any for this project.)

When it came time to decorate my little house, I saw I had some homemade wheat thins on hand that looked nice and rustic and shingle-y, so I started gluing them on the roof only to discover I was about 1/3 short of what I needed to complete the roof.  But guess what?  Marshmallow fondant makes a nice snow-laden roof, and I happened to have a small amount left over from this cute thingy I made a couple weeks back.  (please excuse the cornstarch/kitchen tool laden counter.)

So with the help of a rolling pin, my fingers, some cookie cutters, and a steak knife, I got the rest of that cut out and put on my little house.

When all was said and done, this house, which I think is at least as cute as one you can make from a pre-purchased kit cost less than $5.00.  WAY less.

Of course now that I've got one under my belt, I've got lots of ideas for really doing it up next year, but hey I think this turned out pretty decent for my very first actually STANDING home-made gingerbread house.

And since it was so easy a Cave Mom can do it, you can too!