Last weekend I was lucky enough to participate in a tradition totally new to me & not at all new to the boyf. Every year since they were youngins he & his sisters get together to make gingerbread houses.
It was pretty obvious it was my first time unfortunately. I’ve not yet mastered the roofing weight limits or the decorative sugar cement placement. I did however create a gummy bear fire pit scene. (The fire was a jaffa!)
The real masterpieces came from Brend’s sisters (and boyfriend) with decorative shutters, flake gravel roads, chocolate button tiles, and jaffa baring apple trees. There was even a chocolate car!
Brend’s house was less ‘perfectly pretty’ and more ‘all the colours & all the candy’. Closer to what our real lives are like instead of the lives in magazines.
We elected to keep our gingerbread house at Brend’s parent’s until xmas. Lest I start trying to sneak the bits no one will notice till the house is bare and crumbling.
Oh wow! Those look great! Did you bake them from scratch? I’ve only made one one, from one of those premade kits. It was not as good as yours. :(
Brend’s mum & younger sister made the gingerbread from scratch! They’ve had a lot of practice. So delicious.
Those gingerbread houses rule! I’ve been thinking about getting a kit from the supermarket, but I should try making it myself. Great decor!
So beautiful! And now we definitely need a gingerbread Pawnee!
That is awesome! And you’re lucky to have such expert gingerbread makers around :) Every year my husband and I make a big creative surprise for our friends for our end of year Christmas party. Last year it was a gingerbread viking ship.
http://www.steffmetal.com/how-to-make-gingerbread-viking-ship/
We’d never made gingerbread before, so I got a book out of the library about making gingerbread houses. Made a HUGE batch of gingerbread following the (American) recipe … most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted! Full of molasses and so so awful. We threw the whole thing out and made the recipe for a gingerbread men recipe I love – too soft really, but also delicious, which is a win :)
Wow Steff! That is so awesome. I’m not sure what kind of recipe was used here, it’s a bit more gingery than the gingerbread men you get in bakeries in NZ but it’s really delicious. It’s one that’s been used and perfected over years I imagine!
And I can officially say it tastes really good 3 weeks after making. Now that Xmas is over we’re slowly devouring it.