Every winter we get emails from people in search of the perfect gingerbread house recipe. And every year I tell people that I don’t bake gingerbread houses. I’ve done it in the past, and every time I remember about half way through why my brain tried to tell me not to start it in the first place. The mess, the stress, the frosting EVERYWHERE…I could go on and on. What I do love, is making little graham cracker houses. I’m sure this concept is nothing new to most of you, but I do feel like I’ve simplified and perfected the process so that it’s not one of things I regret doing halfway through!
One of the things that makes our gingerbread house tradition easier is that I prohibit my children from actually assembling the houses. For real. Honestly, it’s so much easier if you do the work to prep them ahead and then you can sit down relatively stress free with a smorgasbord of candy and just have fun decorating. Here’s a few supplies that make this really easy.
First, the icing. (One important note is that you might find to make this even easier, you can skip the icing and hot glue those houses together. Just putting that out there.) To assemble the houses, you’ll want something that dries hard, and royal icing is where it’s at. You can make it with raw egg whites, but I prefer powder. Meringue Powder is just dried egg white powder, and it’s easily found wherever Wilton products are found. They carry it in-store at Walmart (on the Wilton aisle) and at Michael’s Craft Stores. You can also get it on Amazon. It’s just a dry powder and it keeps for a long time so it’s great to have on hand. This makes it so your frosting will glue like cement.
The second thing is Cake Circles. These are totally unnecessary- you can obviously make little gingerbread houses on a sturdy paper plate or a piece of cardboard covered in foil. But if you’re getting meringue powder anyway, these packs of cake circles only cost a few dollars for a pack of several. They come in lots of sizes, circles or squares, and even silver-coated with scalloped edges if you want to get fancy. They’re sturdy cardboard that’s coated in a nice coating that won’t absorb moisture. Makes it easy and uniform! You can find these near that meringue powder in all the same places.
Now apparently I didn’t take any photos of frosting, but it’s super simple. I use a basic ratio or 1 tablespoon meringue powder to every 1 cup powdered sugar, and then enough water to make what I call “toothpaste consistency”. Since this frosting is thick, I recommend using a pastry bag (as opposed to a ziplock with the end cut off, which can easily burst and split) again, you can grab a pack of several disposable ones with that Wilton stuff if you need a few. If you’re going to use a plastic bag, I’d go for a heavy duty freezer bag. If you’ve got little hands helping, use a rubberband or zip-tie and tie the end off tight so it doesn’t squirt out the end.
To assemble the houses, start with two sides like this:
Some people like to glue their crackers to a mini milk carton, but I just free form them. I frost the entire outside of the next side and finish the base.
You’ll put two of those same sized crackers on the roof, but there will be a little open space that needs filling, so I use a sharp, serrated knife and very lightly cut another cracker like this:
You’ll want to saw super softly so it doesn’t shatter, but it works- I promise! Then assemble the roof like in the photo below. The other reason you should assemble all of the houses beforehand is so your kids don’t hear all the naughty words you mutter as you wonder why it’s so difficult to turn tiny crackers into a small house.
Now, since I mentioned I like to make these ahead of time so they are assembled, dry, and sturdy for the kiddos, I don’t want big globs of frosting all over the edges because it will be dry as cement by the time they decorate and it tends to just get in the way. So I just use my finger and wipe off excess around all of the joints, and then the houses can sit and dry like this.
When it’s time to decorate, you can either make more royal icing, or it’s often easier for little kids to just use a standard buttercream. Buttercream stays soft so it’s easy to use, and it tastes yummy! For me, Necco’s are always a must- my Mom always made a shingled Necco roof so I always get several packs of those (get twice as many as you think you need since half of them are inevitably broken)
And the load up on anything and everything you want.
Part of the fun of making gingerbread houses is eating half of the candy during the process.
Try not to be jealous that my kids are obviously creative geniuses.
In all seriousness I was actually surprised and impressed at the creativity they all exhibited. This one made a clock from a peppermint and licorice whips, and I loved the little door knobs on the door!
This one added a porch, and another kiddo even created a little candy dog.
This one is mine and I have to say, I find making houses out of candy quite therapeutic!
Hopefully this post makes the process a little simpler for someone out there so you can enjoy a fun afternoon activity at home before Christmas. Tag me on Instagram so I can see your creations!
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Graham Cracker Gingerbread House
Description
Simple way to make a “gingerbread” house, great activity for kids!
Ingredients
Icing
- 1 pound powdered sugar (about 4 cups)
- 4 tablespoons meringue powder
- water
- Graham crackers
- candy for decorating
- optional: buttercream for decorating
- optional: cake boards (see post for details)
Instructions
- In a stand mixer, combine powdered sugar and meringue powder. VERY SLOWLY add water as to not add too much, it takes a minute for it to absorb. Drizzle in water with mixer running until frosting reaches consistency of tooth paste.
- Place icing in piping bag and assemble houses. Wipe off excess frosting at joints. Let dry until hardened and then use buttercream or more royal icing to decorate with desired candies.
- Let sit on counter for days while getting stale and be eaten/destroyed by small children until it drives you so crazy that you throw them all in the trash one day and said children have emotional meltdowns about it. Repeat the following year.
Notes
- Make any amount of frosting you like by using ratio of 1 tablespoon meringue powder to 1 cup powdered sugar.
Questions & Reviews
I tried this last night but the crackers kept breaking on me. Any advice on getting a clean cut? Thank you!
Sometimes that can have have to do with the brand of crackers. I’ve found it also helps to use a sawing motion and first “score” the crackers with a knife before gently breaking them apart. Hope that helps!
I like this because I can use it for a Christmas contest
in the past the children have been from 5 to 20..they all wanted to create their own structure,,houses, churches,barns,,
wagons, fences…it was wild..my frosting didn’t set so fast,,,but I got my hairdryer and blasted the little buggers lol..it all eventually came together & was extrenmely creative. I have them bring their own cookie sheet so they can take them right home & gives them a work space for yard and fences. the chaos is really the most fun this year we will have 10 to 15, set up in two rooms that are open together
HAHAHA, thanks so much for keeping it real, and the great guilt-reducing tips. Excuse me while I go order merengue powder.
Thanks so much for this post! We wanted to do a gingerbread house project at my daughter’s daycare and needed a simple means to get twelve 3-year-olds to make their own houses. Your method worked wonderfully. I made the houses the night before (skipping the triangular parts, too much work), set them on foil-covered cardboard, and brought them all to the daycare for the kids to decorate. We found that putting a few tablespoons of royal icing in small individual freezer bags with a tiny tip cut out works well for preschoolers. The kids were able to squeeze out the icing and stick on the candy from the muffin tins without any trouble. We were anticipating a chaotic mess, but the kids sat quietly and created some pretty fantastic houses, before ravenously destroying them. Thank you!
Ah, SO happy to hear this!
I can second the melted sugar comment. I always do graham crackers with melted sugar, and the houses are sturdier than anything I’ve ever achieved with royal icing.
Adorable! I might actually be brave enough to tackle this with my brood this year!
Love the houses. Kids definitely just want to decorate with candy –they don’t care if it’s made from gingerbread or graham crackers.
I actually just wrote a post about my experiences making homemade gingerbread houses the past few years for Festival of Trees if anyone is ever interested in making it from scratch: http://hillfamily.net/how-to-make-a-gingerbread-house/
Thanks for all the tips, just assembled my houses for decorating! I have always been afraid to make royal icing but your recipe worked like a dream. Very fun and best of all no frustration!!
I always use melted chocolate or white chocolate to glue them together. Hardens quickly and tastes really good with the graham crackers!
YUM- I bet that tastes good!
Ditto on the creative geniuses!
We have a friend who taught us how to make houses out of those giant Hershey Symphony bars. That is one house we enjoy eating afterwards!
Do you have the directions on how to make the gingerbread house using the Hershey bar?
I used to use royal icing to assemble, but like Jackie, I’ve taken to hot glue-ing them, especially if I’m making a lot of houses (then the kids can go over the seams with the icing). Either way, decorating these is always a hit!
Your timing is perfect. Last night my friend and I planned to make these with our kids next weekend! Thanks for simplifying the process and your suggestions. Makes it much easier.
Ps your kids did awesome. Love the creativity.
Thanks for this!! I’ve been dreading to gingerbread houses this year but I promised my girls, hopefully this will cut down on the stress.
This used to be one of my favorite Christmas activities growing up. My mom was the “bomb” at decorating her graham cracker houses and it often became quite the competition. She started off using the royal icing, then moved to melted sugar (just dipping the sides in and “gluing” the pieces quickly). Then she discovered the hot glue gun. Makes a snappy graham cracker house and we always covered the edges with frosting anyway. Looking at your pictures reminds me of my great experience as a child. Looks like I need to renew it in my family. Thanks for the idea 🙂
I love the last step in the directions! I already had to give my kids the warning this morning that their gingerbread houses are going to be thrown away. They were under the impression they would be kept forever. It’s been one day and I already want them off my table!
My 6th grader is making these at her class party this Friday, but the goal isn’t to make them cute. It’s a STEM school so they are supposed to engineer a strong house and when they are all finished they will do a shake test to see which houses would hold up in an earthquake.
Also, I love that you just put the candy on with regular frosting. I’ve never thought of doing it that way, but it would be WAY easier!
We do one real gingerbread house around our place. A gluing tip is to just melt sugar. It does burn and smells a little off for a minute but it dries really fast and really hard. I just put a 1/4 cup or so on a non-stick griddle, turn up the heat to medium and stir a little until the sugar begins to melt. I dip the side in the melted sugar and, working quickly, put the walls together. The last wall usually requires a spoon to drizzle the sugar into the corner to get it all together.
Your houses are gorgeous! We tried making these last night, and didn’t have the same positive experience.
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
Your blog makes me happy! I love how real you keep things at your house! Thanks for the good ideas and tell your son I loved his clock!
I’ve yet to attempt a gingerbread house in my home so thanks for the great tips. My daughter did make one at school this year which we currently have displayed on the kitchen counter. Any idea how long you can keep these things around?
Step 3 is my favorite step. 🙂 I think we’ll be doing this in the coming week!
So fun! I always just hot glue the houses together to make it even easier… And so we can use them immediately because I usually don’t remember to do it ahead of time.
This is exactly how I make my gingerbread houses. I used to bake gingerbread and do real ones but I decided it was too much work. My kids would just eat the candy anyway and leave the gingerbread. Its more fun for everyone. And I’m not stressed from baking the houses. Last year I could not find Wilton meringue powder anywhere so I used a different brand I found at Hobby Lobby. It worked but not quite the same. I’ve got Wilton this year.