Gingerbread House

I always have high hopes for making an elaborate gingerbread house from scratch. I never actually do it. So this year I used a kit from Williams-Sonoma. It's a really good kit. Yes, the pieces are a bit clunkier than homemade pieces, but it's so much easier to unwrap them than it is to bake them. The pieces are printed with door and window outlines as well as the loop-y pattern on the roof. While I don't like that because it cramps my creativity, it also does keep me from going crazy with it and messing it up (or having that blank page freeze like when you start writing a paper) so that's probably for the best.

The best part of the kit was the royal icing that came with it. The green was a bit green but the white was just perfect! The exact consistency it should be and easy to work with. The candies were less excellent. They were nice, but I ended up using some holiday gum drops I had in addition to the red "berries" they included. But that's mainly just me being picky and a little bit contrary.

I think it came out really well! (I'm especially proud of the icicles and the trees...piping isn't really my thing, so I was thrilled with how they came out. And the piping around the side walls wasn't half bad either!) That's it from me. You won't be getting my yearly Christmas cake this year as I'm in the States and don't have any Christmas-celebrating family here; being Jewish really does take the pressure out of Christmas! Happy (belated) Chanukah, Merry Christmas, and (because I probably won't be on before then) Happy New Year!