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Pam's Beautifully Finished Gingerbread House

The CrEative Pre-Baked Gingerbread House Project Story

(…or, “Yes, I ate the whole house!”)

By Chris Dunmire, CoachingYourCreativity.com

Willy Wonka would understand. Besides, a lifetime of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory primed me for this, I swear. Let me state for the record that my enthusiastic idea of putting together a gingerbread house with my mom-friend Pam had innocent intentions. The plan was that we’d both get small gingerbread house kits with pre-formed cookie walls, icing mix, and bagged candies, and build them side-by-side in creative communion on her kitchen table. A mom’s cozy kitchen is the best place to do cookie stuff, after all.

Even at 36, this was a huge undertaking (and treat!) for the kid in me who never made a gingerbread house before in her life. Pam, a retired second-grade teacher offered a few suggestions before we settled on the Wilton kits: graham crackers and milk cartons, rolling our own gingerbread dough, etc., but the easiest first-time solution for us both was simply to use the kits — pre-baked, pre-determined designs with step-by-step instructions — allowing us to focus on the building mechanics this time around.

But the mechanics of putting together a pre-baked gingerbread house kit isn’t as easy as it appears. First of all, Pam opted for GIANT kits — a decision that turned our cozy gingerbread cottages into McMansions. Second, “pre-baked” means just that. It does not mean the baked pieces are “even,” “straight,” or “flush,” and if not, the unevenness needs to be reworked (cut, sanded, licked) straight, even, and flush enough to proceed with the framing step.

(Ha! The finished gingerbread house pictures shining back from the glossy box looks perfectly good and all, but I suspect the icing and gumdrops are hiding more than just the wonky, wobbly seams!)

The Crumbling Cookies

My undoing on the “Gingerbread House Project” actually began with the unwrapping of the two little blank gingerbread people that came with the kit. These were a couple of thick, yummy-sized gingerbread cookies — with no discernable people marks yet — and what — there's cracks in their arms. My cookies had broken arms!

“Here, I’ll trade you one of my people for one of yours,” Pam said. She’s so generous that way.

Now we both had a set of one-wounded, one-whole, gingerbread people. A dab of icing was all it took to re-set the broken arms, but I couldn’t take my eye off them as they sat in our makeshift IC unit (intensive icing care) recuperating. I think the crumbled cookie dust set something sinister in motion.

To make a long story short, after we mended the cookie people, Pam and I spent two project days (several hours each) framing our homes. It took two sets of hands and plenty of pantry canned-foods of similar height to prop and hold up walls while one of us applied the icing glue to the seams. My roof cracked and caved in at least once. After applying the icing, you let the house sit for several hours to dry before proceeding to the next step. That’s why we had to work on multiple days. One day we did the walls, the next day we did the roof. Another day would see the application of the roof icing and candy embellishments.

So, this simple gingerbread house project was tiring me out. After the second day at this, seeing my house’s walls and roof were set enough to transport by car, I decided to take it home to finish embellishing it there. Pam had company coming that week, so I also wanted to relieve her kitchen space of my cookie construction site.

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About the Author
Chris Dunmire is the author of the Dollar Bill Origami Money Plant and driving force behind the popular Creativity Portal Web site. She finds meaning as an artist, humorist, and creativity coach and channels her overactive imagination into multiple containers on display at ChrisDunmire.com.