Gingerbread House - when do you make yours?

[Saisong]

I got the Costco gingerbread house this year; we've never done one before. The kids have been clamouring to make it, but I dont want to peak too early!

So hit me with your tips on Gingerbread Houses - How to build, when to make, how long they last. And maybe my most pressing question - does anyone actually eat them??

Not sure I even know what you mean

Made ours weeks ago and eat it the same day!

The last one I made was so damn tasty the chimney never even made it on to the roof

Always used to make it Christmas eve, and yes of course we ate them. Don't think they should hang around for weeks like fruit cake though.

I made a couple from kits when the kids were wee. To be honest I found them disappointing. The gingerbread was too dry for cake and too soft for biscuit - a rather unpleasant in between texture.
And the icing was horribly over sweet - like royal icing on Christmas cake, which also sets my teeth on edge.
They looked beautiful, but I never want to eat one again!
I’m guessing they’d be more palatable if home made from scratch, rather than a kit, but only if you have an incredibly sweet tooth. I’m also not even a great fan of gingerbread- I think it tastes soapy, and prefer ginger in savoury dishes like curries. So maybe not the best person to give you an opinion, sorry, OP!

1. buy in October
2. put flat-packed gingerbread house "somewhere safe" until 2 days before Christmas Eve.
3. 2 days before Christmas Eve spend too much time searching for mislaid flat-packed house, but do find 6 packs of mince pies at the back of a cupboard I forgot about.
4. Find flat-packed gingerbread house whilst cleaning kitchen. Lose all enthusiasm for constructing it.
5. Recruit bribe willing builder bored teenager to do the necessary.
6. Marvel at "beautiful" house with wonky roof. Disguise wonky roof with authentic snowfall of icing sugar.
7. Teenager strops off about the wonky roof, slams a door in real house & gingerbread house collapses.
8. Rapidly reconstruct & repair using industrial strength icing.
9. Visitors to house admire gingerbread house. Everyone politely says they're full & couldn't possibly eat any so gingerbread house remains largely untouched. A few sweets are picked off the roof by passers-by. Grandma breaks a crown on an icing-encrusted smartie.
10. 6th January, derelict gingerbread house is still on the sideboard. No one fancies it, as it has been gathering dust & the cat may have licked it. Even the witch from Hansel & Gretel has withdrawn her offer from Foxton's. 11)Condemned house is binned. 12)It's amazing how far a little icing sugar spreads, as you are still cleaning it up come Shrove Tuesday.

We are not having a gingerbread house this year! No, no, no!

Made our Costco kits last week, decided it was better to do them before we get in all the Xmas food.
Teens decorated them, then put them together (with much frustration) but I think we should have put them together first, left the icing to dry- then decorated.

Do not let the children do the cementing together of the house.
I suggest you put the roof on, then support it from underneath the rim, by stacking books or a tall cup at the sides of the board till it dries.
They are really good value sets, enjoy!

I have been meaning to do ours with the DCs for the last few weekends, but keep running out of time. It will have to be once school has broken up now.
If you've never done one before, ideally they need to be constructed on one day and decorated another, as the icing needs to set and glue the panels together before more prodding and weight is added. If you try and do it all at once you will end up in a big sticky mess with crying DCs, and you won't get sign off from Building Control.

We made ours 2 weeks ago. They only lasted s couple of days. Very tasty!

TheOrchidKiller has pretty much summed it up

When the DC were little and we would have Christmas lunch rather than dinner, I would make a homemade gingerbread house with them on Christmas Eve and it would be served and eaten at teatime on Christmas Day as part of a buffet.

I bought an Ikea kit to make one year when they were teenagers for nostalgia's sake and nobody touched it until New Year's Eve. My friend's young daughters were desparate to try it as they had never seen one before and tried to break a piece off. The royal icing snow was so rock hard that nobody could get it to snap.

Eventually we declared it unfit for consumption but the girls spent a fun half hour watching DS16 attacking it with a hammer and electric carving knife to see if they could get it to break.

TheOrchidKiller has nailed it! (Which is probably what you need to do to the gingerbread house too...!)
Laughed so much at that post - it brought back memories. Thanks, Orchid.

Costco here as well! Christmas eve... Something to do! Praying its an easier set than last sets have been (bloody nightmare)

Skank, very very good tip! Build the day before!!

Usually wyen we find the kit...sometime in February

When do I make mine?
Hallowe’en.
And I used to read my two the story of Hansel and Gretel by candlelight. 😁

We made a lovely one last year, not from a kit but from a recipe with templates in a GBBO recipe book. I think we made it about a week before Christmas and started eating it a day or two after we made it. It was really delicious and looked just like the picture, but it took hours (and much swearing) to make.

Ah, I knew you lot would be founts of wisdom. I especially enjoyed OrchidKillers contribution - I can just picture the Christmas spirit

I feel much better prepared now. We will embark on construction next weekend to celebrate school breaking up. I won't forget to build a day in advance. I might even do a pics thread if we haven't all killed each other by then!

We made ours today but it's not a house this year, it's a sleigh full of presents!

Thats looks brilliant AverageBear!

Ds and his gf design and make ours from scratch and every scrap gets eaten. I am looking forward to seeing what they have in store this year. This one from a couple of years ago is probably their best one to date.

We made our Costco one yesterday - it tastes lovely btw 😋
Butter experience has taught me to stick it in the fridge each time we build something. So, walls - fridge, add roof - fridge, build trees - fridge and so on. Give a good 20 min blast each time. Then leave for 30 mins before you allow kids to decorate. Save a much time and tears in the long run!

Ahh I've bought the Costco one and I've just realised I won't have anything to put it on. Will need to source a tray. Thanks for all the building tips. I'll be doing mine this weekend.

I buy one every year but I’m not sure why I bother. For starters, it’s an absolute bastard to get it to stand for more than two minutes. I think last year was the first year we had one that stayed up for a couple of days... Secondly, no one really eats gingerbread in our house so it just mostly goes to waste.

I still buy them because it’s almost a tradition now just to have a collapsed gingerbread house . We do it on Christmas Eve usually.

We had the sleigh one but totally forgot it and found it at the top of a cupboard [oops]

I didn't people actually ate them, ours always seem inedible

Ours do one each as a competition. It is more a performance art than planned food stuff but they usually nibble away at them. We are saving ours until schools break up in case they need to quarantine and are bored.