Gingerbread Houses

After dinner on Sunday night, we pulled out the gingerbread houses that we'd made earlier in the week. We used to borrow our neighbor's gingerbread house molds, but this year she gave them to me so I could have them since she hasn't used them in years. Days ago, Sofia got home from school and pressed the gingerbread into the molds and I hot glued the house together (we learned several years ago that using the icing to bind the house pieces together is a serious time commitment).

We cleared our dining room table and the girls help me set out all of the candy, sprinkles, candy canes and other things we could use for the gingerbread houses. Meanwhile, I made the icing. Unfortunately, I didn't use enough cream of tartar so it was too thin. I made a new batch with a lot more cream of tartar and it worked much better, although still wasn't enough to really hold the candies well. The girls had a great time decorating and Olivia especially liked to squish her hands into the thin icing. By the end, we had two overly-decorated gingerbread houses.

Sofia pressing the homemade gingerbread into the house molds.

Let the decorating begin!

Adding a gum drop path

Olivia and John decorating

The nearly-finished houses from both sides!

Sofia putting on the finishing touches!

Almost done!

Silly girl!

The finished houses