I have questions about holiday gingerbread houses. This year, my husband and I made our first gingerbread house. It was a blast, messy, but lots of fun. However, it was not at all what I was expecting. We bought a kit from our local store and bought it home and to our surprise the walls came pre-constructed. The icing was premixed and in a foil bag. The decorations were pre-portioned and there were even decorating instructions included in the box! It was like a paint-by-number page. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but I half expected to half to bake the walls and mix the icing ourselves. That the kit would have simply included a recipe, cookie cutters and the candy decorations.
We built the house and had plenty of laughs along the way none the less. Since the construction of our tiny holiday cabin of candy and icing, he and I have noticed these little houses in every holiday movie and commercial. We have found ourselves discussing the construction of the ones we see and how we would like to enhance our house building skills in years to come. So my questions for you are as follows:
1. Have you ever built a Gingerbread house? Is so, was it a kit or homemade?
2. Do you eat it after you construct it? How long after you construct it?
3. Should eating your Gingerbread House be a Christmas Day tradition in my home?
4. Is it even safe to eat the boxed kit Gingerbread houses? After all, how long have they been sitting on a shelf or in a warehouse?
I’ve done a bit of homework on the subject and asked around. Here are a few fun facts on Gingerbread houses.
1. Gingerbread is made from Ginger, cinnamon, Cloves, nutmeg, Cardamom, anise, and sweetened with honey or molasses.
2. To be considered Gingerbread, Ginger must be the dominant flavor and use either honey or molasses as the sweetener instead of sugar.
3. Queen Elizabeth I is believed to be responsible for the first Gingerbread mas as she had them made to resemble visiting dignitaries and presented to the visiting dignitaries as gifts.
4. Unmarried women in England would often eat Gingerbread men for good luck in meeting a husband.
5. Since the early 1970’s, pastry chefs have baked, constructed and decorated a gingerbread house for the enjoyment of the First Family, the American people, and White House visitors. This gingerbread house is typically a mock of the actual white house as it is decorated for Christmas that specific year (window wreaths and all)
So the mystery of the gingerbread house is this, I’ve seen many holiday movies and many house constructed in our home by families and friends, but I’ve never seen them eaten.
MYSTERY….. What happens to these houses right after Christmas?
a. Eaten?
b. Thrown in the trash?
c. Put outside for critters to find?
d. Demolition derby by children (or adults?)
Looking forward to hearing what you do or have done. In the meantime, Have a Happy Day!
I grew up in St. Petersburg Florida. When I was in elementary school I “Volunteered” that my mom would make a gingerbread house for the school auction. Well, my mom would have liked to have KILLED me afterwards. In the high humidity and warm December it was almost an impossibility (we didn’t have air conditioning back in the days. I just remember crumbling and breaking walls and some cuss words I’d never heard before.