Fatties

This is the last Fatties post before Christmas Day, so we’re going to do you a solid and talk about something entertaining, child friendly, delicious and beautiful. Gingerbread houses.

image: tikkido.com

Gingerbread houses are great activities to entertain kids young and old, they look awesomely festive no matter how  messily made they are and any extra construction materials are edible. We love edible things.

A few things to keep in mind when making a gingerbread house:

1. Do your prep. When your hands are covered in royal icing (aka cement) you don’t want to scramble reaching to open a bag of jujubes. Things will topple. People will shout. Shouting is bad.

2. Keep calm. So your wall cracked, don’t make your 10 year old cry over it. Remember our tips for keeping calm during the holidays. Further to this, don’t plan to build your house the day of a party, it’s a slow, patience required task. That said, you can build it the day prior and let people decorate it as a party activity.

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3. Be creative. Look up photos of how others have decorated their gingerbread houses. Let them mash together and simmer in your brain then make your own creation.

image: taste.com

4. Dry out your gingerbread for a good long time. The longer it dries the more hard and brick like it’ll be. When we say brick like we mean strong, in case it’s not clear.

image: gingerbread-house-heaven.com

5. We like ’em short and stout, like our men. Why? The shorter and stouter, the stronger the house and less susceptible to slippage and cracks. We basically build the lumberjacks of gingerbread houses.

image: angiessouthernkitchen.com

Here’s a great easy gingerbread video.

This is a quick but very effective recipe for structural gingerbread. Structural means there’s no leavening agents to make it puff up. It’s going to be hard and solid, just what you want to build your house with.

This is a great all around recipe, complete with icing tips and a nice little video. Remember to post pics, we want to see! And if you’re feeling really pumped up, might we suggest a decorating competition at home?