Making a gingerbread house is not wholesome family fun...

[TellMeDinosaurFacts]

...because of the amount of bastard swearing that ensues.

A dear friend has sent a Baked In Gingerbread House kit as "family festive fun" for us to make before Christmas. I have a very enthusiastic 5yo and we've tried our absolute best but MY GOD rolling out dough between slippery sheets of baking paper and trying to help her cut round paper templates only to have the dough crumble as we attempt to transfer it to the baking tray has driven me to madness already. We managed a rough assemblage of a pre-baked IKEA job last year, but that only worked because we used wooden bricks for structural integrity on the inside.

I would upload a photo but we've barely made a start and already I am wondering how I'm ever going to forgive my friend for sending it.

Please send hints & tips, photos for me to rage at with jealousy, etc etc

YABU = my 3 year old and I knocked up a scale replica of Blenheim Palace before breakfast this morning. I don't know what you're talking about.

YANBU = they are the devil's work, and the perfect ones you're seeing on Facebook only turn out that way because the maker has sold their soul.

[quote TellMeDinosaurFacts]@TaranTulasForSamhain that is bloody genius. I bet I could use my son's Warhammer orcs to stage some sort of city of destruction.[/quote]
Have a few gingerbread people standing around ( or lying around if their arms and or legs have fallen off) , make sure they have really DM sad faces.

Ok so the windows look ok but I've already lost a structural corner because I didn't leave enough space between the wall and the random stuff that we made to use up the last bits of dough.
Now I'm supposed to trim it- but I think it's 70/30 against me that doing so will actually break it up...

Yes let’s all have fun trying to stick a house together with hot sugar, when that does not work resort to super glue, when that does not work resort to wine and explain that it is actually an archeological experience so the dc can dig through the wreckage for the sweets that should have artfully decorated said house.

Fuck.

We did a ready made stick together job a couple of years ago. I got some baking one this year as the kids are older and it will be so much fun.

I'm scared.

Next year do Christmas trees. Different sizes star cutters you can buy as a set then stack with sweets between for baubles and slop (beautifully decorate with) icing for the tinel
Much less faff and stacking flat things is far easier

The only way to deal with this is to get your 5 year old to send them a thank you card that is liberally covered with glitter and a generous helping inside too......

@londonmummy1966
I LIKE YOUR STYLE

Yanbu. (F*ING SIL and your passive aggressive "family fun gifts" I'm looking at you). I've not forgiven that this was all she gave DCs last year - not to be ungrateful, but there's no fun anywhere for primary aged kids in a kit which needs to be baked and assembled, leave alone two of the bleeding things.

I’m not allowed to make any gingerbread structures anymore, since the epic meltdown of Christmas 2020. DH made me promise I’d never do it again (however I’ve decided I’m going to make a train next Christmas - just need to spend a year learning to access my zen energy...).

It was rather cute in the end, I guess, but I had much grander plans and by the time I got to the pictured stage I had completely run out of fucks to give. I couldn’t even bring myself to ice and decorate the roof.

Oh, and when it says 'trim when it comes out of the oven', it means 'trim as fast as humanly possible while burning your fingers because otherwise it will harden to stone and break into tiny pieces when you try to cut it'.

Use glue to put it together. Then lots of icing and sweets in different comours to cover the roof. A bit of cotton wool in the chimney and battery operated fairy lights inside the house to shine through the windows.

This was mine but I swear the icing is mostly tears of frustration

@TellMeDinosaurFacts

Ok so the windows look ok but I've already lost a structural corner because I didn't leave enough space between the wall and the random stuff that we made to use up the last bits of dough. Now I'm supposed to trim it- but I think it's 70/30 against me that doing so will actually break it up...

You have about 30 sec to trim it after it comes out of the oven..otherwise it will break.

I used to pre-make the gingerbread by myself and just let dc help with the decorating/assembly.

What I actually can't stand about them is not the faff but a) the sheer amount of gingerbread, it's far more than we can get through
and
b) the amount of icing needed to hold it together and decorate is sickly. I like gingerbread and don't like icing, though I will eat it if I have to. What I hate is a portion of something which is at least 50/50 ginergerbread to icing.

And don’t forget lots of icing sugar on the roof and over the sweets!

Here's one that I made with my boyfriend and now dh 5 or 6 years ago.
I remember the amount of swearing and those bastard chocolate buttons sliding off the roof.
Never.. Again.

If all fails you can put a New Year's rocket inside the gingerbread house and blow it up on New Years Eve!! 🧨

Did once never again! I should used superglue that’s about only chance I had of making a 3D structure. Much better off buying gingerbread men cooked and then let kids go mad with icing and sweets.

Lidl sell one which is basically pieces that need stuck together and decorated - £4.99, looks fab done!

Hahahahaha! I used to do adventurous icing, but drew the line at finger bread houses. Now just buy in from the local cake shop.
At least this thread has furnished you with several lovely photos to put on your social media. We won’t tell…

GINGER not finger- fecking auto carrot

I remember doing that last year with dd.

It went along the lines of:
Stick walls together. Hold for very long time, then they seem to be sticking. Brace them in position with various heavy items. Return 3 hours later to find 2 walls stuck together crooked and not going to unstick and the other two fallen down.
Repeat.
Several times.
Including the roof, which eventually sticks half way off.

It would have been better as a Halloween haunted house

Eventually we gave up and just ate it.

I would not attempt one with a small kid. In my late teens I used to make one every year with my mum, and it was hilarious. The lengths we had to go to to hold it up until it set were something else. It made a wonderful centrepiece though, and was delicious. Oddly the one spice not in our recipe was ginger.

This year I bought mini pre made houses from ikea
And I stick them together with royal icing

Kids are older now 😮‍💨 so I'm going to make it into a competition

It won't end well 🤣🤣

I bought the prebaked kit to put together. Year 1: worked brilliantly. Year 2: fell apart and we ended up with a pile of broken biscuits with a pretend candle on top. We've never tried again!