Thursday, December 30, 2010

Pre-Fab Gingerbread Can Be Fabulous!


This Christmas wouldn't be complete without decorating some gingerbread. You can click here to see last year's faux gingerbread house on Foodspiration. Because this year we have a new baby, instead of baking a gingerbread house, we went the pre-fab route. This turned out to be surprisingly easy and rewarding even though I didn't get to bake the gingerbread myself!

This 8 dollar kit from Trader Joe's reminded me of a Tahoe-style cabin with front and back pieces and two roof walls. Thank goodness, I had my crafty cousin, Sara, to help me assemble and decorate this house. She's a great baker and cook- bringing homemade caramels and cookies to Christmas this year!

The kit included powdered sugar and a few candies for decoration. However, we dug into my stash of sprinkles, candy canes and gumdrops to really make this house come to life. We also piped the royal icing. We decided to build the house first and decorate second. This design of the structure was really robust and it felt pretty sturdy as we were "gluing" on candy with royal icing.

And voila! A pre-fab gingerbread house that we think is pretty darn fabulous.

and here's the back... It made a great centerpiece on the dining room table!

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and we wish you a Happy New Year!