Easy Gingerbread Houses (Part Tu-torial)

This post may contain affiliate links, but all opinions are 100% mine, all mine.

Some of you have been here long enough to remember the gingerbread playdate I blogged about a couple of years ago.

                

Loving my boys in their chef's hats!  You can find them HERE.

Barry felt right at home.

Well, these little gingerbread cottages have become an annual tradition around here, and with dozens of these beauties under my belt I figured I'd whip up a quick tutorial for you (also, my girl asked, so this one's for you B!)

First of all, AND THIS IS NEW VERY IMPORTANT INFO, please use only Honey Maid Graham Crackers.  Do not attempt to get frugal with generic crackers.  Do not attempt to go classic with the cute red box.  I am speaking from experience here.  Your cottages will suffer for your frugal, traditional ways.  BUY THE BLUE BOX.  And buy enough to allow for some arriving broken or being broken in the process of building.  Got it?  Here, let me help you:

Second, after the first year I gave up on assembling the cottages with icing and resorted to hot glue. By all means, use icing if you are making these for your family.  If, however, you are making 6 or more cottages, use hot glue. It is so much faster and no one eats them anyway.

Finally, the original inspiration for these was all Martha.  I also still use her Royal Icing recipe for the excellent, super-hardening icing which holds the candy in place.  It's super easy: mix 1 pound of powdered sugar and 5 tablespoons of meringue powder with 1/2 Cup of water.  You can add a bit more water if the icing won't spread, and lemon juice or peppermint extract if you prefer to have some flavor.  I usually double or even triple the recipe and keep leftovers in the fridge for Valentine's Day cookies.  The meringue powder is your friend because that's what makes it harden so much.  You can buy some here:

I recently used this brand after not being able to find my usual brand in stores, and it worked great!  Also, royal icing can require several minutes of beating.  I like using a whisk attachment on my KitchenAid stand mixer to make things easier:)  Enough words, on to some pics and if you have any questions, please speak up!

Prep: you will need four graham crackers per cottage.  Break two in half to form four squares.  For the other two, carefully cut as shown above with a serrated knife.  Use a gentle back-and-forth action for the least amount of breakage.

Glue a square to your cake round (or a paper plate).

Attach one of your peaked-roof crackers by gluing it to the cake round and the first square.

Repeat, with your second peaked-roof cracker. 

Add the final wall of your cottage.

To each side, glue a square to form a roof.  There will be a gap at the top of the roofline, but I have found that it works just fine for decorating. 

There you have it: Easy Gingerbread Houses! Now you are all ready to decorate and have fun! Enjoy!

Love,