Gingerbread houses

[pigleychez]

Loads of my friends have been making them recently and its inspired me to have a go.

Do you make the gingerbread yourself and cut into the pieces? I know you can buy kits though so do they have the pieces pre-made or is it just a box with the recipe ingredients in it?

Never made one before.

Any good places for kits etc? or good recipes?

Sorry to hijack OP, but two if by sea is your nickname to do with the restaurant in NY?

Ah no, it's to do with living in a small coastal town north of Boston for a couple of years! Not Revere itself though, further north!

Jam the tate and lyle stuff is in a purple box, I think. It's fab.

I supervised assembly of the Aldi one last weekend. Definitely use royal icing (mix 250g of icing sugar with 1 egg white, add a drop of lemon juice if it's too stiff). It sticks the gingerbread pieces together really well, and sets hard within minutes. Nothing fell apart and the finished product looked great.

We buy the Aldi/Lidl one, and stick it together using melted chocolate.

Tried the Ikea one three years ago. Followed instructions regarding melted sugar glue. It ended badly when it would not stick together ,would not stand up and got hurled across the kitchen for being such a flaming pain.
Nothing daunted, tried the Lidl one last year and used royal icing. Total success, am making another today. However the actual gingerbread is nowhere near as tasty as the (shattered) ikea version.

I make my own after drawing a template on a piece of paper (walls and rooves) and stick together with very stiff royal icing. Seems to work OK although I really want one of those tins for next year.

Well during a trip to Sainsburys this morning (Bad idea!) I spotted a box Kit from Dr Oketer. It was only £4.99 and we had a lazy afternoon to fill so thought why not.
The girls loved doing it this morning and putting the sweets (and pinching some!)
Pretty pleased with our efforts :)

I am making one this afternoon. I bought a kit from Costco. Wish me luck

Did our this morning. After a bit of a debacle getting it all to stick together last night the finished product looks great. I highly recommend getting edible glitter to sprinkle everywhere looks fab. DS's had a great time decorating it and eating all the supplies.

Thank you so much for the royal icing tip. Made putting the Ikea one together a breeze. DM and DMil had a great time. DS may get some of the sweets later.

Anyone know how long gingerbread lasts?

After some significant roof slippage problems, DH kindly wrapped it up tightly in clling film to hold it in place while the 3kg of icing dried.
Decorating tomorrow, then the traditional Playmobil Hansel and Gretel re-enactment in front of it..as an excuse to sneak most of the sweets back off i suspect, but it happens every year...

ours looked great, done with stencils, made from scratch, wonderfully decorated(ish), not falling apart. It lasted one day until dd3 decided to pull off and eat the sweets. I made a sad attempt to glue it back together.
last yer we put crushed boiled sweets in the windows and that looked fab

Ours is normally up for two or three weeks. It's not as tasty as fresh gingerbread, obviously, but it's fine. But I suppose it might depend on your recipe...

Over here it's a charity event held in churches, you pay to go and everything is supplied. We had royal icing bags and loads of sweets!
It was my first year this year, it was a real laugh, a gang of us went and took wine! There were some serious "makers" who brought pins to hold it together until the icing sets! The same people brought their own sweets!

Look at the Youtube video "Ikea gingerbread house". It is brilliant. I used royal icing (1 medium egg & 8 oz icing sugar). I needed a few props during the assembly process (small jars or tins). Took me about 2 hours to make.

This thread has reminded me that I still have a gingerbread house kit sitting on top of the kitchen cupboard waiting to be assembled .

I've been so disorganised this Christmas...must try harder next year.