Remember the children’s story Hansel and Gretel? In the fairytale, the two kids found a beautiful, delicious-looking gingerbread house in the middle of the forest. Even though it was owned by a creepy, child-eating witch, it didn’t stop the kids from gobbling and chewing on the house. You can’t blame them. Anyone’s mouth will water at the sight of a house made entirely from sweet treats.

The Graham Cracker Alternative

Many people make their own gingerbread house creations today. These delightful treats serve as yummy desserts and dainty and delectable centerpieces. Of course, you can’t make a life-size one, and crafting one from gingerbread is very difficult. You have to cut out patterns, bake the gingerbread and make it sturdy enough to stand on its own. To make the task easier, many people use a more versatile material for their gingerbread house structure: graham crackers.

Graham cracker gingerbread houses are very popular especially when served during special occasions and holidays like Halloween, Easter and Christmas. Compared to gingerbread ones, they’re sturdier, easier to decorate and they last for a longer time. Edible houses made from graham crackers are also just as lovely and pleasant-looking.

Making a graham cracker gingerbread house might sound tedious, but it’s actually very easy. You don’t have to be a wicked witch to make one of these delightful treats.

Your Yummy House’s Base

Before you start glueing and sticking your graham crackers to each other, there’s one important factor you should take care of: the base. Just like a cake needs a cake board and a pie needs a pie tin, you must prepare a sturdy and steady base where your graham house will stand. A strong base is very crucial to the whole structure since it holds the house up. Remember that even if the crackers are lighter than bread, they will have icing, candies and other additional sweets on them, adding a lot of weight. If you’re not careful in choosing your base, the whole house will collapse.

Most people use regular pie tins turned upside down for their gingerbread house, but these can be small, and aren’t very stable most of the time. If you want to produce a better gingerbread house base, here’s how:

Materials Used:

• 2 cake boards (You can get these from a cake decorating store)
• adhesive tape
• Foiled paper or aluminum foil

Procedure:

1. Get the two cake boards and place them against each other. They must be flat and of the same size so they’ll fit perfectly.
2. Get four pieces of adhesive tape and secure the cake board edges.
3. Get enough foiled paper or aluminum to cover one surface of the cake board. Make sure it’s wrapped tight around the board, then secure it with adhesive tape.

Base Alternatives

If you’re planning to use the graham cracker gingerbread house for a festive and more elegant setting, you can use a decorative platter for your base. It’s more presentable, although it might be more slippery than the cake board. You can also use a flat piece of wood from your garage. Just make sure you cover it with food-safe paper.

Shaping Your Graham Creation

Now that you’ve got your base, you can now proceed on structuring your yummy home. You have to set aside the frosting and candies, though, because you first need to make the house’s outline. You can do this through numerous ways. Here are a couple of tactics you can try.

The Milk Carton Method

If you’re pressed for time or if you’re not very crafty, this tactic is more recommended. You won’t need to cut crackers for gables, and putting the house together is a lot easier. Here’s how:

Materials Used:

• Graham crackers
• empty half-gallon milk carton
• Adhesive tape
• Scissors
• Homemade or store-bought frosting
• Frosting bag/sandwich bag

Procedure:

1. Decide first on how tall you want your gingerbread house to be. Measure the height down from the milk carton’s top, then cut off the excess on the bottom part.
2. Secure the top of the milk carton by taping it close.
3. Stick the milk carton to the base using adhesive tape. Make sure it’s secured properly, otherwise your structure will fall to pieces.
4. Attach graham crackers to the sides of the carton, as the walls of the house, using the frosting as glue. Afterwards, attach two more graham crackers on the slopes of the “roof”– the milk carton top.

You now have the most basic graham cracker gingerbread house. You can proceed on decorating it. Make sure to hide parts of the carton that still show, so your creation will look absolutely dashing.

The All-Graham Method

If you’re crafty and patient enough, this gingerbread house tactic might be better for you. There’s no need to use a carton, but you’ll need a careful hand when propping and glueing the structure together. Here’s how to create this treat.

Materials Used:

• Frosting
• Frosting bag / sandwich bag
• Graham crackers
• Serrated knife

Procedure:

1. Prepare your icing by placing it inside the frosting bag. If you don’t have one, you can use an ordinary sandwich plastic bag. Spoon the mixture inside the bag, squeeze, then cut 1/4 inch off one corner of the bag. You now have a makeshift icing tube.
2. Ready your gingerbread “house pieces”, or the graham crackers. Get six whole, unseparated, uncracked and unbroken crackers. Four of them will be for the two long sides of the house and the roof. The two remaining crackers will be for the end gable pieces.
3. Take the two crackers for the gables, and cut them with a serrated knife, using a gentle sawing motion. To measure how much you’re going to cut off, use the short end of one cracker and measure the angled line from the center of the long part, to the cracker’s center line.
4. Do the same for the other gable cracker.
5. Squeeze a bead of icing along the gable end’s square edges. Place this bottom part firmly onto the base.
6. Squeeze another bead of icing down the two short sides of a cracker, and along the bottom edge. Don’t put the bead on the short edge; place it on the flat, slightly in from the edge, portion. This will allow your side wall cracker to overlap the gable end cracker slightly at the corner, making it more stable.
7. Position the long edge of the wall cracker perpendicularly to the base edge of the end gable cracker.
8. Stick the side edge of the end gable cracker to the icing bead on the wall cracker’s flat side. This will let the walls hold each other up.
9. Position the other gable the same way you did with the first.
10. Add the crackers for the roof, the same way you added the wall crackers, but this time, pipe the icing on the flat of the roof, and not on the edges. Stick the roof’s flat to the top edges of the walls and gable ends.
11. Let the frosting set for 15 to 20 minutes before moving or touching the house again. Decorating it immediately might only make it collapse.

Decorating The House

Now comes the fun part, which is decorating your graham cracker creation to make it eye-pleasing and yummy-looking. You can use various materials for this, such as candies , lollipops, raisins, marshmallows, nuts, shredded coconut, licorice and chocolate. You just need to be creative and imaginative, so you’ll come up with a fantastic design. Here are several tips when decorating your gingerbread house.

• You need plenty of icing and frosting when decorating, because these will serve as your glue. Make sure your icing’s consistency is just right, too. Icing that’s too thick will be hard to squeeze out, and one that’s too thin will make the candies slide off the crackers.
• Decorate according to the season and occasion. For example, if it’s Christmas, use plenty of red and green, and get a Santa candy or Snowman candy to stand beside the house. If it’s Halloween, buy small plastic bats and ghoulie candies for decoration. For Easter, plenty of Easter eggs will do.
• Get bits of graham cracker to add as features for the house. You can make miniature doors, chimneys, and even a small fence.
• Use a different-colored frosting for the house’s piping.
• Don’t waste the “yard” around the house. Decorate your gingerbread house base with edible items too. Licorice ropes will make good fences, upside down ice cream cones can be trees, while lollipops are great as lamp posts. Sprinkle shredded coconut or powdered sugar all over, to look like snow.
• Be imaginative. Create shingles, doorknobs and window shutters with the candies. Use a Lifesaver candy and put it on the front door, to look like a Christmas wreath.
• If you want your creation to be just for decoration, you can spray a sealant to preserve it. Of course, this means you can’t eat it anymore.

No matter what special occasion you’re celebrating, a gingerbread house is always a welcome treat everyone will love. Make this delightful creation, and you’re sure to please kiddies and adults at your celebration. If everything goes well, everyone will be as mesmerized as Hansel and Gretel when they first saw the magnificent and delicious gingerbread house in front of them!

Here’s a video that shows how to make a graham cracker gingerbread house:

Assembling Graham Gracker Gingerbread Houses