Gingerbread Houses

I have such fond memories of making and eating gingerbread houses as a kid, and every holiday season I scour the Internet and stores for the perfect gingerbread kit. I always feel like they’re too processed, filled with sugar and have too many words I can’t pronounce in their ingredients list and I pass.

This year, I wouldn’t be denied! After seeing Annie Campbell ’s post on her Swedish Christmas, I begged her to help me create the perfect gingerbread houses to decorate with the kids. I wanted to make Hanukkah houses that we could use for our annual Hanukkah party. We had a couple friends over and all the kids made their own houses with a little help from the adults.

The Houses

Annie came up with an organic gingerbread kit that she baked herself and assembled. Click HERE for the gingerbread and royal frosting recipes. She ordered molds from Amazon to create the perfect shape.

If you are not this ambitious and want to buy the houses preassembled, check out Farm Shop in the Brentwood Country Mart – they had beautiful premade kits both decorated and plain.

For adhesive, Annie used the royal frosting, which looked great and was easy for the kids to use. She bought tons of blue, white and silver candy from Jack’s Candy Downtown, Candy Warehouse online and different markets around town. Dylan’s Candy Bar is also a great resource since it just opened in the farmers’ market. Annie then separated all the candy by type in mason jars, which looked great. She also filled some of the jars with shredded wheat – they made the perfect shingles.

The kids went crazy decorating their houses and I loved seeing everyone’s unique technique and styles – you really saw their individuality and creativity shine. And I’m not going to lie – all the parents loved reliving their childhood… though some were decorating them for the first time!

The Menu

After decorating our houses, we snacked on a yummy eggplant and squash dip on crostini from Bolani, which you can find at a lot of local farmers’ markets. For dinner, Annie made delicious vegetarian lasagna, rosemary white beans, roasted broccoli & cauliflower with lemon zest and a salad of winter greens with artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers. For the little ones, she made homemade chocolate chip cookies and an insane rice milk punch, which the kids loved. XXJKE