Time to indulge in one of the season’s favorite family-friendly activities! Whether you’re buying a prefab gingerbread house or making one from scratch, the key to success lies in the trimmings. How will you adorn yours?
This list of edible construction materials provides a handy blueprint. May yours be the cutest gingerbread house of all!
The Materials
Bread sticks: for rafters, beams, pillars, logs
Candy canes: for pillars, support beams, fenceposts, lightposts
Coated candies (M&M’s): for tree decorations, Christmas lights
Cereal: for colored loops for Christmas chains, tiles, small wheels, flat types for shingles
Chocolate bars: for door, shutters, shingles
Cinnamon candies: for red roofing tiles, paving stones, flowers
Crystallized flowers: for frosted garden flowers, rare jewels, lady’s corsage
Foil wrapped chocolate kiss: for church bell, roof decoration
Frosting: for mortar, snow, flowers, siding, hair, ribbons & bows
Fruit leather: for window shades, fabric (from leather to whatever)
Gumdrops: for bushes, flowers, ornaments
Gum candies: for sliced into shingles, shaped into flowers
Hard candies: melted for stained glass windows, mirrors, reflecting pools; crushed for colored gravel, beads, gems
Ice cream cones: for trees, tower turrets, hats, hoop skirts
Icing: for garlands, flowers, snow, bows, siding
Licorice: for railings, edgings, exposed beams, fireplace bricks
Licorice ropes: for rope, edging, window pane dividers, harness
Lollipops: for road signs, people, trees, bushes
Marshmallows: for snowballs for snow forts, snowmen
Marzipan or fondant: for anything you can shape it into
Nuts: for stones, shingles
(slivered almonds)
Powdered sugar: for light dusting of snow, frost
Pretzels: for fancy ironwork fences, bed headboards, scrollwork
Pretzel sticks, dry bread sticks: for logs, winter trees, firewood
Rock candy: for rocks, stepping stones, stone walls
Round crackers or cookies: for wagon wheels, doors, tabletops
Shredded wheat: for roof thatching, hay, hair
Silver dragees: for doorknobs, ornaments, jewelry (not edible)
Sprinkles: for flowers, Christmas lights, ornaments
Wafer cookies, crackers or candies: for roof shingles, siding
For more projects like this, check out Making Gingerbread Houses by Rhonda Massingham Hart.
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