Graham Cracker Houses

With two whole weeks of Christmas vacation before us (with no travel plans and not much family in town) I knew the kids would be looking to me for some entertainment.

Great.

So we started off our holiday break with a candy eating fest, er, I mean a (faux) ginger bread house making session.

I started with the wonderful and original idea to buy one of those kits from the store and simply have the kids assemble. Easy peasy. Then I thought, why do that whey I can probably make home made ginger bread and not have to get out of my jammies? I looked up some recipes and thought it was totally do-able. But then something died inside of me when I realized I’d have to go to the store for molasses and cloves.

So I went with the easiest route I possibly could.

Graham Cracker Houses

Have you ever made them before? You might miss out on the wonderful smell of gingerbread wafting through the air and having cute windows and doors in your house but when you are 8, 5, and 2 you don’t care. Heck, you don’t even know. Really the fun is licking the frosting off your fingers as you make them and looking forward to eating the houses after you’ve waited 3 whole hours to show your daddy when he gets home from work.

To make your own Graham Cracker House you’ll need the following:

cut cardboard covered with aluminum foil for your base
graham crackers
sandwich bags for squirting icing
a candy assortment such as jelly beans, smarties, licorice, sprinkles
and royal icing

Here is the royal icing recipe I used. It worked like a champ.

ROYAL ICING

3 egg whites
1/2 t. cream of tartar
1 lb. confectioners sugar

I let each kid take a turn using the beaters. Maybe a minute each until the icing was fluffy and getting stiff.

I taught the kids how to squeeze the icing out of the sandwich bag (cut a tiny bit of corner off one of the bottom corners) and helped them build their houses without interfering too much (hard for me.) Then I let them go to town with the decorating. If was fun to see the things they came up with. Bird nests and exploded bombs in the front yard. Ha.

I did help Leah quite a bit with building her house but I was surprised with her house decorating abilities and soon backed off to let her at it. Good job you cute frosting face two year old!

Ta da! Day one of Christmas Vacation down.