Gingerbread Houses

[lauren grier]

Please settle this never ending debate btwn the bf and i..

I've never made a gingerbread house (ever) and i want to. He insists that you do not make it edible, that you use glue (i'm aware that you can do it either way dependent on your weirdness but i want to know what *most* people do)

SO.

Do you a) Affix gingerbread house bits with glue so that it is NOT edible or b) Affix gingerbread house bits with frosting and then devour.

[KristinCB]

c) other

buy the ones premade so that all we have to do is put on the candy and do the fun stuff so that i don't use foul language around my kids while i try to get the gingerbread house to stay together

[MamaBee]

huh... gingerbread houses isn't something I did growing up - I've started with kiddo... but I haven't heard of using glue... I would (and do) use royal icing... of course I get the ones premade made pieces that probably were made in July... lol! So wouldn't be eating it anyways...

[Darcy Baldwin]

We pretend to build and just eat all the candy

No - we build with frosting, let it stay until someone finally decides they've been patient enough and then the kids eat it.

[lauren grier]

Originally Posted by KristinCB

c) other

buy the ones premade so that all we have to do is put on the candy and do the fun stuff so that i don't use foul language around my kids while i try to get the gingerbread house to stay together

you still count as frosting as you use it to affix the candy

[MandaT]

We use the frosting (sometimes with the aid of hot glue as well), but have never ever eaten one, even if we only used frosting.

[heathergw]

those Wilton ones are gross... so I'd glue those, but we use the frosting for the candy and eat the candy off it, but not the actual gingerbread house

the ones we do at our church, the pieces are from a bakery and they're yummy, and use frosting to put it together... we eat that one as soon as we get home LOL

[xboxmom]

Originally Posted by KristinCB

c) other

buy the ones premade so that all we have to do is put on the candy and do the fun stuff so that i don't use foul language around my kids while i try to get the gingerbread house to stay together

What Kristin said.

[Stacey42]

Why would you build one if not to eat it? :P

[Libby Pritchett]

I've only ever done the pre-made kits, and the frosting in those things suck for getting the pieces to stick together. We never actually eat it though, so I'd be tempted to use hot glue in the future if it would stick together better.

[Libby Pritchett]

Originally Posted by Stacey42

Why would you build one if not to eat it? :P

Photo ops!

[jaylensmom]

Originally Posted by Libby Pritchett

I've only ever done the pre-made kits, and the frosting in those things suck for getting the pieces to stick together. We never actually eat it though, so I'd be tempted to use hot glue in the future if it would stick together better.

That's why I use a hot glue gun...Before I used a hot glue gun our house would always have some type of disaster...our roof usually caved in...we never eat ours...we only eat some of the candy while we decorate...

[mummytothree]

I voted other because we only do the foam ones from Michaels!!!

But if we were to make real ones I would make it with frosting and *NOT* eat it!!! Bleck...those things are so stale and gross!!! *shudder* I can't imagine anyone eating those things!!!

[Andrea Gourley]

I stick mine together with royal icing and use the same stuff to stick on all my sweeties. Having said that I only ever made 1, it took me a whole afternoon and by this time my kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off in a sweetie factory. And then, what do you do with them??? I sent mine to school to raffle as part of the Christmas Fayre

[clearskies]

We made ours out of graham crackers and frosting. I learned (the hard way) to make the walls and the roof seperate and wait for both to dry before attaching them together. And while they are technically edible...I'm not going near the thing...gives me a stomach ache just looking at it!

[nesser1981]

We have used hot glue, or I buy the ones already put together.

But, we have never eaten them. I use it as a decoration in the kitchen. I've got a Gingerbread theme going on it there.

[jacinda]

Originally Posted by Stacey42

Why would you build one if not to eat it? :P

I was just going to type the exact same thing.

We don't do traditional gingerbread houses, but we do a cookie version. I buy rectangle shaped plain biscuits with sugar on them, and the kids make miniature versions, held together with icing. It's a much more manageable project at that size, and the kids eat it the next day or whenever. Here are some we did a couple of years ago.

[Jennilyn]

We've only done it twice and that was only because my MIL bought the kits, but we used icing and after I got my photos, we ate it.

[Lyd]

Graham cracker houses was a big tradition in my family. My mom used to make a boiled sugar concoction that we would use to put together the structure of the house. It set up really hard, like cement. But, after years of getting burns on our fingers from that method, we started using hot glue to put the actual house together. But, we ALWAYS used frosting for the candy, of course! That way, the only part of the house that wasn't edible were the seams where you glued things together.

[lhaslem]

I bought our premade one last year and never got around to it....so we'll be using it this year and NOT eating...sometimes the kids pick stuff off, but never eat the actual structure. once we did graham cracker houses at the kids school and those got eaten.

[MommaTrish]

Originally Posted by ltarbox

Graham cracker houses was a big tradition in my family. My mom used to make a boiled sugar concoction that we would use to put together the structure of the house. It set up really hard, like cement. But, after years of getting burns on our fingers from that method, we started using hot glue to put the actual house together. But, we ALWAYS used frosting for the candy, of course! That way, the only part of the house that wasn't edible were the seams where you glued things together.

I'm totally too lazy to make one myself... I rely on my mom doing that bit of holiday tradition with the kids, she digs that stuff. lol But she uses some sugar concoction also.

[ayaandjudah]

I've never made one, but my daughter did last year in school and it was made with icing.

[rach3975]

Only time I've done them was at the kids' school holiday parties. They started with a well-washed paper milk carton and used frosting to hold the crackers to it. It was easy enough for the older kids (1st grade) to do alone, was all edible, and looked cute. If we ever made them at home, I'd probably cheat and do it that way.

[ashleywb]

My girls don't really like gingerbread, so like many others, we do the graham cracker houses. I use royal icing to hold them together. I assemble the 4 sides and stick them to each other and down with icing onto an upside down styrofoam plate. The kids decorate the houses and then the two pieces for the roof and I "glue" the roof on last. We've been doing it for about 3 years with cousins & friends and haven't had one break yet. (crossing fingers now!) They do make cute decorations but the kids especially love eating them. Gotta be all edible for us!

[Ginger_79]

A gingerbread house with glue? No way! A house I can't eat is a total deal breaker.

[iScrap]

Originally Posted by Ginger_79

A gingerbread house with glue? No way! A house I can't eat is a total deal breaker.

This!
We use frosting for ours, too. I love those little cookie houses, though. I may try those this weekend!

[NeverendingJen]

glue and frosting. glue for the structure, frosting for the pretties.

[Kenzi]

Frosting! But we never ever eat ours. It's just for looks lol! But then again it's a store bought kit and I'm pretty sure it would be disgusting.

[kscwgirl]

I usually use hot glue. They don't eat it anyways and I'm SO not patient enough for the icing.

[rachaelsscraps]

We usually make them so early in December, that they get all hard and dusty by the time Christmas comes around, so we never eat them. Yuck!
I want to make one totally from scratch but I am too afraid, lol. We buy the kits. So much easier! When we want to eat gingerbread, we make real gingerbread men from scratch so those are totally edible (and sooo good- and not rock hard like the houses are) Anyways, to answer your question, I always use the frosting, though I've always been tempted to use hot glue! lol


A couple weeks ago, my MIL bought a kit that had 5 small houses to make with my 6yo. They spent a couple hours making them and wanted to display them. Then we all went out to dinner, got back and realized the dog knocked the gate down (which kept her in the back room when we're gone) and she ate the entire thing, she even scraped the frosting off the cardboard base! I guess it's not funny that they wasted a couple hours to make a dog treat!

[digideb]

I would use glue. Only because the thought of it sitting out to be pretty for the holiday and then eating it after it collects dust, dog hair, germs, whatever, just disgusts me!

[lauren grier]

thank you peoples.. i'm counting this as a win for me ahaha

and goodness, i'd never make it and let it sit out all december LOL that's gross. if it's being made it'll be eaten soon thereafter too.

[lovely1m]

Other - affix with frosting and not eat cause its gross and hard. lol

[Milmomma]

I grew up with my mom who was a baker, glue was a big no no. Well first couple years I bought the kit, ewwww! But last year we made mini ones, everyone got to make their own with graham crackers and royal icing. If you make the thick stuff it works just fine I glue the houses together since they are still young. And if you want you can do them on a soda can to help balance the roof till it dries.

[Tracyfish]

We use frosting, but we don't eat it. Last year we did have some houses in our village that didn't stay together and I ended up hot gluing them.