Gingerbread house workshop 2015

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Gingerbread house workshop 2015

We’ve just had our third annual gingerbread house workshop. Every year we are amazed and impressed with the kids creative approach to their gingerbread houses. I must say too I think we just get a bit better every year. Each year learning from the last what works and does’t.

This year the houses were finished in record time. Here are some of the things that stood out for me as lessons learnt…

  • I rolled my gingerbread a little thiner and cooked it a bit crisper this year.
  • I put my cookie sheet in the freezer to firm up once I had rolled the dough. Not so vital if you are in the Northern Hemisphere but down here it’s hot work!
  • It’s important to leave some time after building your walls for the royal icing to set before trying to add the roof. I think our kids are learning to be a little more patient!

 

 

Useful links

I’ve included my own template for a small house. If you have a group of kids this is a good size and you can make four out of the Gingerbread recipe above.

Template Small Gingerbread House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweatopia’s gingerbread recipe

Sweatopia’s royal icing recipe

 


Gingerbread House Workshop 2014

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Once again we had a great pre-Christmas gingerbread house making workshop. Each year the kids amaze me with their ideas and the increased complexity of their creations. This year we tried decorating our roofs before adding them to the houses. The roofs have always been a trouble spot. Usually someone has a house collapse at when the roof is added. We found this order of things worked better.

  1. Put the sides of the house together first. This allow the maximum amount of time to dry and make a stable base for the roof
  2. Construct decorations such as the gingerbread men, snow men, various fondant and candy flowers
  3. Decorate the roofs
  4. Roofs go on last

All of these houses were made with this template. Free to download here.gingerbreadTemplate

Happy Holidays from PPI!


Gingerbread Houses 2013

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So we’ve managed to keep the tradition up for a second year at least. I think we had even more fun this year creating our gingerbread houses and the kids extended their decorating skills to using a bit of fondant and gum paste for some of their decorations. We even have a mountain man style log cabin and a sea side cabin, completely appropriate for a Kiwi Christmas.

We hope our project inspires you to try your own gingerbread house. Don’t forget to check out last years post with links to tips, tricks, videos and our template to download.

Gingerbread House Tips and Tricks