I Don't Need No Stinkin' Gingerbread!

I love the idea of being Susie Homemaker or Martha Stewart. You did get the key word there: "idea". I don't have the gift when it comes to somethings. Baking is one of them. I try and try, but I'm not that great. Needless to say I have a wonderful husband that can bake. Woo Hoo for me!

Instead of making Gingerbread Houses with the kids this year, I thought we would use Mad Dog's Graham Cracker Recipe and make Graham Cracker Houses. A few weeks ago I found a great cookie cutter kit from Wilton. The kit came with 3 large cookie cutters which when 2 of each are cut and baked can be assembled into a small simple house. I was all for that. I even got it 40% off. Sweet!

Between Thursday and Friday Night Mad Dog made two batches of Graham Cracker dough for me. The recipe calls for the dough to chill overnight. On Saturday during errands at Target I picked up a bunch of different candy for decorating. The plan was for me to roll, cut and bake the cooks Saturday afternoon and assemble the houses Saturday night for decorating on Sunday with the kids. Easy right? Yeah right!

I rolled the dough out and cut the individual pieces and let them chill for 45 minutes (per Mad Dog's recipe) before baking. I had to adjust the cook time on the cookies since I wasn't rolling them out at the 1/8 inch the recipe calls for. Honestly we like the Graham Crackers a little thicker for this recipe. I baked the cookies and had them cooling before the kids went to bed.

I made the frosting to build the houses. I will say it was a little too runny at first and I had a hard time getting the houses to hold. I used cups and mugs to hold the walls upright while the icing set. By the time Mad Dog came home (late) I had two houses assembled and holding.

After decorating the tree this morning I made more icing and instead of using piping bags, I put the icing into bowls thinking the kids could dip the candy in the icing or use a spoon to spread it on. I placed the candy in little bowls and laid everything on the coffee table in the living room. The kids were excited.

They jumped right in eating the candy. Loki who doesn't even look the direction of candy found a whole new world. She had her fingers in everything. I showed them how to decorate the houses, mainly working on Loki's since she was too busy eating the candy to bother putting it on the house. Lex wanted to do his all by himself. He did a good job, seeing things I did to Loki's and asking how he could do that. I showed him and helped when we would let me.

Lex found he liked gumdrops (like his Daddy). Loki found she likes Mike & Ikes and wants to like Good & Plenty, but really just likes to carry them around with her. Once the decorating was finished the kids went and washed up while I cleaned up the candy. After clean up Lex exclaimed that he was ready for a nap. Loki was due for one too. They both went in with no issue, allowing me to finish clean-up and take photos of the finished houses.

Loki's House

It was a very sweet afternoon.

Lex's House