<p>I am thinking of having guests build gingerbread houses as a party activity.</p>
<p>Has anyone built one? Can you give me some tips?</p>
<p>I would prefer to provide construction materials without using a kit, and want the end result to be edible.</p>
<p>Do you want actual gingerbread instead of graham crackers? If so then you need to do the baking ahead of time to let it cool unless this is an all day activity. . We made gingerbread houses for years with the kids. Real ones that were about a foot square. You do not need to make them that big. </p>
<p>If you have some patterns for a smaller size walls and roofs you can bake and cut out the pieces ahead of time, then it is fun to put them together. I collected a lot of patterns and recipes over the years and made some of mine own. You should be able to google some. You need a lot of royal frosting and a lot of different kinds of candy. It’s a fun activity.</p>
<p>We never really ate them. The royal frosting gets like cement and the gingerbread recipe for houses gets really hard. We used them for display. Lots of extra candy for eating solved the munchies. Graham cracker ones were better for eating.</p>
<p>using graham crackers and tops of milk cartons for a base like in preschool ;), will give you more time to spend on the fun part.</p>
<p>I was thinking of using actual gingerbread (this would be with high school kids).</p>
<p>If I have the pieces ready beforehand, will it be possible to frost them together and have it harden in time to decorate in the same few hours?</p>
<p>I have the impression that the glue to hold up the structure can take a few hours to harden.</p>
<p>The high school Girl Scout troop DD belongs to does about 200 graham cracker houses each year. Some of us parents got together to build the first 100 this week, the girls will each build a house or two before decorating at their next meeting. It takes about 24 hours for the royal icing to harden to the point that the houses are stable. It takes 6 half graham crackers to build each house (4 for the square bottom, 2 for the roof).</p>
<p>When I make the gingerbread houses I made the house about 2 days before decorating, they seemed to survive the decoration process if they had a chance to set up a while before the decorating started.</p>
<p>Use ROYAL icing. If you use the right recipe it hardens quickly, so quickly you make it up and keep it covered, and then dole it out in increments as you need it so it does not harden up too quickly. </p>
<p>Google for recipes, or someone will chime in, or I will look for what recipe I use. </p>
<p>We make gingerbread houses each holiday season. I have recently made the process easier by buying (edible) pre-cut pieces, but in years past I bought the Betty Crocker gingerbread box mixes that show up around Halloween and are on the shelves until Christmas or until they sell out. They have a long shelf life, and I have bought them at the end of one season and used them the following one. On the box or on the associated website there are recipes to use the mix for cookies, cakes, gingerbread house pieces.</p>
<p>The Royal icing recipe I have used hardens so quickly that we can assemble the houses and decorate with colored icing and candy all in one setting. </p>
<p>The best part is buying all the different kinds of candy to decorate with! Twizzlers are handy and can be cut in a variety of pieces. You can outline windows and doors, use it as trim. I use black and red. Gumdrops, and other small colored candy pieces are good. Remember those dots that were “stuck” to the paper? They work well. They make some now that are not stuck to the paper. And buy plenty because half the fun is eating candy while you decorate. After 18 years of making houses, I have gone from mumbling to the kids to not eat the candy, to buying even more variety of candy and not worrying about what gets used and what gets eaten!!!</p>
<p>More ideas. I did not want to add to the first post and then time out.</p>
<p>Use sturdy cardboard or foamboard for the bases. You can wrap with aluminum foil. Use frosting to decorate the base also. The white frosting makes great snow. You can ask kids to bring a cookie sheet to use also. They can cover that with tin foil, or use it to set their cardboard base on.</p>
<p>Use the royal icing in pastry or frosting bags to glue the sides and roof together. Use it to glue the sides of the house to the base. It only takes about 20-30 minutes for the right icing to set up and be ready to decorate. You can use that time to decorate the tin foil base. It can be covered in “snow.” You can outline a path with candy, etc.</p>
<p>The walls of the house should be a little thicker than the pieces used for the roof. Make templates first with cardboard–like posterboard. Tape them together. If the structure works as a cardboard house it is likely to work with gingerbread. We have used roofs that overhang for sturdy houses.</p>
<p>Use the icing glue to stick the candy to the house, and to simulate snow.</p>
<p>My guess is there are helpful videos online or on you-tube. I recently had D1’s BF come home from a fishing trip with flounder. I Googled “How the filet a flounder” and found the best video guide. And we had fresh grilled flounder fillets for dinner.</p>
<p>I suggest you try several ideas yourself and see how they actually work before choosing a way to go.</p>
<p>sunnyflorida, can you provide your royal icing recipe?</p>
<p>Hardening quickly will be key to the success of this enterprise, I imagine.</p>
<p>What further complicates this is that this is supposed to be a surprise party, so I’m not sure how I will have everything ready and tested without letting the cat out of the bag…</p>
<p>We also make one every year from scratch. I make the gingerbread a couple of weeks early so it has time to harden. I don’t think it will work if you have gingerbread that is edible; it won’t stay together. I have a recipe from a german cookbook. The gingerbread is good to eat when it is hot, but gets very hard as it cools. Our dog has been able to chew a few bits off, but not a person.</p>
<p>fendrock - could the gingerbread be cooked/stored at another house?</p>
<p>WHen I made the fancy ones back in the day, we crushed lifesavers and piled the crushed candy into the window openings before baking. When it works right, the candy melts and you have stained glass windows. If you try this, put aluminum foil down underneath and grease lightly.</p>
<p>Old-fashioned Neco wafers make great shingles. Mini-candy-canes can support porches. Enjoy the fun! I still have photos of the huge one my friends and I made my Sr year.</p>
<p>Hardiplank, with generous frosting of brown acrylic latex, trimmed with the appropriate caulk.</p>
<p>dragonmom, I like that idea of the stained glass windows from Lifesavers.</p>
<p>I used to make these all the time when I sold Pampered Chef products. We sold molds that were really nice. You would bake the gingerbread right in the molds, then flip them out and glue together with the royal icing. I’m sure you can still buy their molds on e-bay. The nice part about using them compared to graham crackers is that their really sturdy so you can pile on all kinds of stuff. </p>
<p>I did a few parties with these where I would come with the houses put together and then the guests would decorate. It would be best to have two sets of molds so one can be cooling while one is baking.</p>
<p>Rather than use royal icing, I’ve had good luck using white candy melts - either the wilton or make n mold - for the “glue” to hold the houses together. It gets hard very quickly - soon as the chocolate is cool.</p>
<p>A group of our families has gotten together for years to make gingerbread houses. I always use the very simple Betty Crocker gingerbread mix. Instructions for cookies are on the box - use that one. I think I use the pattern from the aforementioned Wilton Co. Bake the house pieces a weekend before. Assemble piece by piece during the week with royal icing. You can also use a glue gun for houses not to be eaten. Bring completely assembled house to the party.
Everybody brings a few bags of their favorite candies, some pastry bags, decorative tips and lots of the fixins’ for royal icing. candies are put in paper bowls. Kids decorate with parents chiming in. Hostess always has a stew/casserole or pizza delivery happening. No need for dessert. Everybody eats the left-over candy
PS - Over the years, decorations have gone from pretty messy but nice candy-cane-type visions to politically correct messages, prophesies of environmental armageddons to as-much-candy-as-we-can-fit to “yes we can” and very neat candy-cane-type architectural wonders.(The kids are in college now…)</p>
<p>Get a gingerbread house kit from Trader Joes.</p>
<p>I’ve made zillions of gingerbread houses. You don’t need a kit or a mix. You don’t need cardboard or graham crackers. Just select a recipe for gingerbread cookies, such as the one in Martha Stewart’s book Entertaining. (I’m sure it’s on the internet.) You can make a simple pattern for yourself with graph paper or any kind of paper and a ruler. (One tip is to not make the pieces too large, because it becomes more difficult to move them around. If this activity is new to you, just build a simple house, not a Martha Stewart Mansion.)</p>
<p>A trick that works well is to roll the dough out on pieces of parchment paper–you may want to spray it lightly with PAM or the like–then cut the house pieces and simply remove the excess dough from the paper. (Don’t forget windows and doors.) You can then transfer the pieces of parchment paper to the baking sheet without warping or breaking your house pieces.</p>
<p>Royal icing is simply egg white and confectioner’s sugar. Beat a couple of egg whites in a bowl and beat in confectioner’s sugar until it stands in stiff peaks. You can use a pastry bag to pipe it on, or use a knife/spatula. A disposable pastry bag with a star nozzle produces a nice-looking result. I use drinking glasses to support the sides until the “mortar” is dry. Although it is possible to assemble the pieces and decorate in one session, when doing this as a group activity I’ve always assembled the houses in advance on a cakeboard covered with baker’s foil or a doily. You’ll need a new batch of royal icing to attach the candy.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all the suggestions!</p>
<p>So… say I have 12 guests at this party… Could I make the pieces in advance (perhaps for 6 small houses, so they would decorate in pairs?)… then have the guests assemble and decorate the houses during the party?</p>
<p>Or is this simply too ambitious (especially since I am inexperienced in house building) and I should come up with an alternate plan?</p>
<p>I do not want to build using kits or graham crackers…</p>
<p>I’d say that 3 or 4 houses would be plenty. I would suggest that you assemble them in advance. The tricky part is getting the roof on. You really shouldn’t put it on until the wall joints are fairly firm, and then you may need something like a drinking glass or two to support each side until it dries somewhat. You don’t want your roof pieces sliding off the top of the house! And decorating with supports in place could be a problem.</p>
<p>Since you are a novice, I think assembling in advance is wise.</p>