Gingerbread Houses
Friday, December 24, 2004 at 12:07 AM | Filed under Christmas, creation
We’re at my aunt’s house to celebrate Christmas! My sister, a handful of cousins, a boyfriend of one, and I made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. There were only five platforms to work on, so Shelly and I worked together. We had a bunch of materials to work with, including two boxes of graham crackers, homemade frosting, and a whole bunch of sprinkles and candies. I found that the toothpicks worked even better than the knife for cutting the graham crackers. I'm posting a bunch of pictures below here. Sorry about the lighting and quality—Aunt Carla wasn't using her flash, despite our constant reminders. Or maybe her camera was broken.
Here's Stephanie’s. She decided to go with a traditional gingerbread house. It seemed to make her a long time to make the basic shape of the house. I guess it kept falling apart. I bet the roof will cave in—it's already starting to in this picture. I like what she did with the roof. She and Michelle made a "glaze" with water, frosting, and sprinkles. Shelly and I actually piloted the idea of mixing frosting with sprinkles to get a colored frosting mix.
Michelle decided to go with the winter theme a step more and make a ski jump. It’s kinda hard to see in the picture. She used several small rectangles to make the curved surface of the ski slope. She covered the platform with marshmallows for that lovely bumpy snow look.
I love the car. I've never seen a gingerbread car. It looks great. It looks like somebody put a gum wrapper on the top of the car—I think that's supposed to be skis. Oh, the other one's still on the ski jump. See at the foot of the ski jump the pair of red candies? Those are the feet of a marshmallow person who went headfirst into the snow. Aww, pity.
Here's Russell’s. He also went with a normal house, but he was a bit more ambitious with a large sloped roof. The roof was sliding off, so he had to put marshmallow column to hold it up. He lined the edges of the roof with peanut butter-flavored chocolate chips. He did the same thing that Stephanie did with the colored sprinkles on the roof. It looks nice like that that way. I like how part of the roof is cut away. I don't know what purpose that serves, but it looks neat.
Kevin says his gingerbread house is the best. I like it very much. He built it upside-down. It looks like there's a tree, and it's upside down too. If you haven't noticed, candy is everywhere! Candy on the top, candy littered on the ground, and look! Gold coins! This is why I like Kevin's gingerbread house so much. There's a chocolate bar stuck up in the top.
Shelly and I worked together, and still remembering our fun trip through Dallas, Texas, we decided it would be interesting to make a gingerbread airport. We started with the hangar, then we drew the runway. Then we were going to build a hospital landing pad for helicopters. Shelly drew a cross with the frosting, and I said, "Isn't it supposed to be an H in a circle?" and she said, "Oh well, now it's a Christian Airport," and Russell said, "It's Air Jesus!"
The airplane is made of marshmallows held together with toothpicks, a Hershey Kiss for the nose of the plane, and some graham crackers for the wings and tail. I suggested we make a red stripe across the plane, so we made some red frosting with red sprinkles, but Shelly missed and made a big fat smudge across the side of the plane, so we just decided to paint the entire plane. Then Shelly found some turkey things and added them to the airport. The one on the runway looks like it's dead, and we said it got run over by an airplane.
Overall, it was a lot of fun, I guess. I anticipate that over time, the roof on Stephanie's gingerbread house will collapse and fall in, Russell's roof will slide off, and other horrible things will happen with the other three gingerbread houses. Maybe their dog, Chica Sue, will try to eat them. Oh no, that would be horrible!
Here's Stephanie’s. She decided to go with a traditional gingerbread house. It seemed to make her a long time to make the basic shape of the house. I guess it kept falling apart. I bet the roof will cave in—it's already starting to in this picture. I like what she did with the roof. She and Michelle made a "glaze" with water, frosting, and sprinkles. Shelly and I actually piloted the idea of mixing frosting with sprinkles to get a colored frosting mix.
Michelle decided to go with the winter theme a step more and make a ski jump. It’s kinda hard to see in the picture. She used several small rectangles to make the curved surface of the ski slope. She covered the platform with marshmallows for that lovely bumpy snow look.
I love the car. I've never seen a gingerbread car. It looks great. It looks like somebody put a gum wrapper on the top of the car—I think that's supposed to be skis. Oh, the other one's still on the ski jump. See at the foot of the ski jump the pair of red candies? Those are the feet of a marshmallow person who went headfirst into the snow. Aww, pity.
Here's Russell’s. He also went with a normal house, but he was a bit more ambitious with a large sloped roof. The roof was sliding off, so he had to put marshmallow column to hold it up. He lined the edges of the roof with peanut butter-flavored chocolate chips. He did the same thing that Stephanie did with the colored sprinkles on the roof. It looks nice like that that way. I like how part of the roof is cut away. I don't know what purpose that serves, but it looks neat.
Kevin says his gingerbread house is the best. I like it very much. He built it upside-down. It looks like there's a tree, and it's upside down too. If you haven't noticed, candy is everywhere! Candy on the top, candy littered on the ground, and look! Gold coins! This is why I like Kevin's gingerbread house so much. There's a chocolate bar stuck up in the top.
Shelly and I worked together, and still remembering our fun trip through Dallas, Texas, we decided it would be interesting to make a gingerbread airport. We started with the hangar, then we drew the runway. Then we were going to build a hospital landing pad for helicopters. Shelly drew a cross with the frosting, and I said, "Isn't it supposed to be an H in a circle?" and she said, "Oh well, now it's a Christian Airport," and Russell said, "It's Air Jesus!"
The airplane is made of marshmallows held together with toothpicks, a Hershey Kiss for the nose of the plane, and some graham crackers for the wings and tail. I suggested we make a red stripe across the plane, so we made some red frosting with red sprinkles, but Shelly missed and made a big fat smudge across the side of the plane, so we just decided to paint the entire plane. Then Shelly found some turkey things and added them to the airport. The one on the runway looks like it's dead, and we said it got run over by an airplane.
Overall, it was a lot of fun, I guess. I anticipate that over time, the roof on Stephanie's gingerbread house will collapse and fall in, Russell's roof will slide off, and other horrible things will happen with the other three gingerbread houses. Maybe their dog, Chica Sue, will try to eat them. Oh no, that would be horrible!
