Today Ethan and I attempted to make our very first gingerbread house. Ethan's wonderful Daddy surprised us the other day by bringing home an early Christmas present for us, this lovely Great British Bake Off Gingerbread House Kit from Marks & Spencer. I had been looking for a kit with pre made pieces, but this seemed like a much better idea as we got to make it all ourselves. Ethan was very excited as he's been seeing gingerbread houses everywhere, and now he would finally get to express his Creative Development and decorate his own.
Unfortunately, making a gingerbread house is apparently a lot harder than it looks, and you actually have to be as good as the contestants on Great British Bake Off to be able to do it. It was one disaster after another today! I decided to make the dough and bake all of the parts while Ethan was napping and just spend time with him decorating it. Thank goodness I did, as it took his entire 2 hour nap for me to get them done! They kept falling apart, the dough was too crumbly, but finally I figured out that if I cut them out directly on the greaseproof paper it would work. Walls baked, Ethan woke up and I made the icing and we sat down to put the house together. Yet another disaster, I couldn't get the walls to stay up, Ethan wanted to help which just caused the walls to fall down as I just didn't have enough hands. Of course one of the walls broke in the process. Finally I decided to wait until Ethan's wonderful Daddy got home to help (it was his fault afterall that we got into this mess ;) and luckily he is a much better builder than I am and managed to put together the house as Ethan decorated some gingerbread men. We're leaving it to dry overnight before we start to decorate the house, in fear that it's still not strong enough to withstand Ethan's exuberant decorating. Let's hope for a more successful baking day tomorrow!
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