Gingerbread House

Every year before Christmas I make a gingerbread house but no one has really seen them. So this year I am showing what I did and what was done. I start out by getting out one of my most favorite kitchen toys, the heavy-duty mix master. Next I get all the ingredients together.

The house pieces are all baked and ready to be assembled and the candy for the decorations is on hand.

Before I can put the house together I need to make a batch of royal icing. It is the glue that holds everything together.

As I started putting it together one of the end pieces cracked in half. Later on a chunk came off one of the sides. I told Mike this year's theme should be "crack house".

Once the main structure was together I worked on the front walkway.

The finished product. I had a 5th grade girl help with the decorating and Mike did the landscaping.

Another view.

And another.

I had a great idea for the bricks on the fireplace end of the house and will work on perfecting this next year.

After all the work was done Mike called some friends and neighbors and invited their children over to demolish the house. They were all given a bowl for the house pieces plus some vanilla ice cream to go with it.

It didn't take long for the crew to cause a roof collapse.

Shortly thereafter we had totally demolished the house. Mission accomplished.