Gingerbread House
Making gingerbread houses is one of our favorite holiday traditions each December. These are the easiest kid-friendly graham cracker gingerbread houses you can make.
Supplies
· Graham Crackers
· Candy to decorate gingerbread house
· Royal Icing
· Meringue Powder
· Powdered sugar
· Water
Each house will use six graham crackers. Follow the template in the photo above to cut each side. I like to use a serrated knife to make the cuts. Don’t press too hard when “sawing” the pieces.
You are going to cut two identical pieces for the front and back of the house. You are making two cuts to create a peak at the top of each cracker. Next cut two identical sides of the house. This one is easy, just cutting off an inch on one end of the graham cracker. And the final two pieces are whole crackers that you use for the roof.
To glue your gingerbread houses together, you can use a hot glue gun, or royal icing. It all depends on if you intend to eat your gingerbread houses. We actually never eat them after they are on display in our house during the holidays, so I use my trusty hot glue gun. But I’ve made them with royal icing as my glue and that works as well.
Royal Icing recipe:
Royal icing recipe – Beat 3 Tablespoons Meringue Powder, 4 cups powdered sugar and 5 Tablespoons warm water until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer).
Steps
1. Put glue down one side of inner wall of front of house.
2. Attach side wall to the glued piece and hold until secure.
3. Repeat on other side.
4. Put glue on other end of each side wall.
5. Attach back piece and hold until secure.
6. Put glue on roof lines and secure graham crackers to roof.
Here’s a tip, we like to construct the graham cracker gingerbread houses the night before so they are fully set. You will have some graham cracker scraps. We love to put them in a bag and save them for perfect kiddo snacks! They are great to throw in your bag for an on-the-go snack.
Now it’s time to decorate! Let the kids’ imaginations go wild. If the kids are too young to pipe on the royal icing themselves, it’s great to have an adult handling that for them.
We hope you love making these gingerbread houses as much as we do!