It seemed like such a great idea. Make a gingerbread house! I mean, they come in kits now. It’s not like I’d have to bake the pieces and then try to assemble them. A kit. With instructions. And an E-Z form base.
“How hard can it be?” I asked my husband.
He gave me The Look. I’m not allowed to use this phrase since The Amityville Remodel. Still, I figured it couldn’t be that hard. Kids do it. We bought the gingerbread house kit.
I read the instructions. They were somewhat…brief. But still, it’s a gingerbread house. There aren’t that many pieces. Two ends, two walls, two roof pieces. Pretty easy to tell what goes where. So I warm up the icing and get started.
Two end pieces up, two walls between, four wall structure. Except the icing doesn’t really hold. Apply more icing. Jam walls back together. Eventually get four walls sticking together, more or less straight.
Add roof. Hey, it’s working. Kind of. Begin to ice roof, as a prelude to sticking on candies, gum drops, etc. Apply a peppermint as shown in picture to top of roof.
The weight of a single peppermint is too much. Roof loses structural integrity, begins to collapse. The long, slow slide to gingerbread destruction is underway and I am helpless to stop it with my frosting-coated fingers, although I try.
I apply more icing. It’s hopeless. The roof will not go back on. I have a four-walled, roofless gingerbread structure. The gingerbread figures who come with the house stand around in frosted candy-sprinkled dismay, wondering if the baker’s version of FEMA will rescue them. They’re guilting me out. So the toddler and I eat them. Homeless gingerbread people problem solved.
In the morning, the gingerbread debacle looks like a Candyland tornado victim with no survivors. Husband offers to remove the evidence. I say, “yes, please” and begin to scrape off the frosting that ended up everywhere.
“Next year we’ll do it together,” the husband says.
Yep. And maybe by then we can build some kind of support structure to keep the roof on. We’ve got a year to come up with something. Hey, how hard can it be?
😮
Omg that’s freakin hysterical!
Way to handle the homeless gingerbread people problem. *snort*
Murderer. How could eat them when they are homeless! LMAO
😆 I love it…sounds like you understand the problems a head and will be able to build a structure that will with stand the Great Windstorm of 2007?
Better luck next year!
Kelly
Jaci, I couldn’t just leave them homeless. It’s the holidays.
Annmarie, did I mention the frostind and candy sprinkles? Yum! 😆
Kelly, considering the windstorm of 06 blew the metal roof off the Clallam Bay grocery store, I thought about claiming I did it that way on purpose as a comment on November’s weather. 😮 Next year better be a tad calmer!
Toothpicks.
When we made ours last year, we used toothpicks to hold the base structure together and to attach the roof.
:roll:sadistic woman. *sniff* Someday the gigantic gingerbread man from Shrek will come and get you…
Kris, I thought about toothpicks but the walls were too hard. Brad nails, maybe…:roll:
Annmarie, the husband already did the “Not the gumdrop buttons!” routine on me. 😉
ah. Ours was a semi-soft material. We didn’t get a family with it though.
Do you know the Muffin Man?
The Muffin Man?
Yes, the Muffin Man.
The one who lives on Drury Lane?
Spent three years in Germany growing up. I *KNOW* how hard it can be. LOL
Buy the kits with pre-baked pieces. They are hards as rocks and completely inedible, but they don’t collapse. Infrastructures are good too. If all else fails, build a little cardboard box the size of your interior, frost it and put the walls together around it.
Happy holiday hugs,
Jean Marie
PS, are you still accepting blog links?
Jean Marie, the cardboard box idea has merit! 😀 And yes, send me your blog link.
ROFLMAO
I laughed until my stomach hurt. Now I know what to do with homeless gingerbread. 🙂
Too bad your hubby didn’t take pictures.
NJ, have some gingerbread, you stomach will feel better. 😉 And trust me, we’re better off without photographic evidence!
OMG! I can totally picture this. You needed one of those FEMA blue roof tarps. LOL!
Nic, why didn’t I think of that? 😆
LMAO! What were you thinking? *g*
Jordan, I know, I know. But they’re so pretty and festive!
LMAO!!! *g* Did you take pictures?
No pictures, Erin. It was too sad a sight.
ROTFLMAOPIMP!! To funny Charli. Ummmm I hunted around the internet and found a couple of recipes for the glue/icing cement for next years Gingerbread House.
Icing Cement:
2 large egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons water
3 cups sifted powdered sugar
Icing Cement:
Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and water until frothy. Blend in sugar on high speed until stiff, 5 to 10 minutes. Use immediately or cover and use within 8 hours.
or
Ingredients
4 egg whites
6 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
Directions
In an electric mixer, beat the egg whites with 1 cup of the sugar and the cream of tartar until smooth. Add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at time. Mix until creamy and smooth.
I hope this helps. Bwahahahaha
Candy
Thanks, Candy! That’ll come in handy next year. 😉
I told my husband this morning that I wanted to build a gingerbread house with the boys. I actually said, “How hard can it be?” No kidding! Wow, I guess I know the answer to THAT question now. 😕 Thanks for the warning.
Tracy
LOL, Tracy! Well, now you know. My toddler had fun even though it was a disaster, though, so that’s no reason not to give it a shot. 😀