Gingerbread housing now available

We had our second annual gingerbread house raising with our friends, Katie and Cathy, this evening, and with my sister, who is in town for the holidays!  The gingerbread house idea came from the fabulous old cast iron molds that belonged to my grandma on my dad's side.  Every Christmas, she would have her four grandchildren over for what was known as Gingerbread Cookie Day, during which we would make cookies and eat sugar until our brains exploded.

I never had much to do with the making of the house, which happened at the same time, I think, and was mostly done by the adults.  Or, possibly, it was done by my grandma later.  I'm not sure.  All I know is that we now have the molds but didn't know quite how to use them until last year, when Dr. Google showed us. 

We managed to put up a very respectable gingerbread mansion last year, but I think we topped it this year.  First of all, I knew how much time it would take, so I started baking the pieces quite a few days in advance, and I had the kids help as much as they could.  Secondly, we assembled the house and the clock tower prior to our friends and Auntie Edlyn arriving, so that we could focus on decorating when they got here. 

Last year, we spent a looong time waiting for the house to set and we even busted out the hair dryer to move things along!  This year, the icing had glued everything together and set before anybody got here.  And, we had tons of fun.   We have several budding holiday traditions going with these ladies and we love it.  We all have fun, and the kids just can't get enough of them, either.  And, if I may say and again, having Auntie Edlyn here just put them right over the edge into happiness hysteria. 

Here are some photos of the whole process.

Greasing the molds prior to baking:

The massive hunk of dough, which ended up needing to be doubled:

Getting ready and opening alllll the bottles of sprinkles:

The huge bowl of royal icing, of which we used almost all:

The house and bell tower, waiting to be decorated:

Work in progress!:

The final product:

Note the awesome and gigantic gingerbread security man guarding the estate....

Thanks to Katie and Cathy and Edlyn!  We had a great time and now we have a house so sturdy that it could probably last until next year.  We could just rotate it between houses until Xmas comes again :)