our gingerbread house

Last weekend we made some gingerbread men for a friend and had so much dough left over that I had the idea to make a gingerbread house with the kids. The recipe is here: http://www.foodinaminute.co.nz/Recipes/Gingerbread-Men. I cut 2 squares for side walls, a front square with a door hole cut in it and two pieces for the roof. I used a spoon to make the roof tile pattern. I took the photo and then realised that we'd need two triangles- front and back for between roof and front and back parts- so put them in the oven later.

I also came across this recipe for gingerbread 'glue' http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/gingerbread-house-glue/ . It uses meringue powder so I had to go and find out what that was and hunt some down at the supermarket. For people from NZ something similar available in supermarkets is Edmonds Pavlova Magic, it's in this cute little egg shaped container.

So after all of that I started to construct our little gingerbread house.  With the icing made and the lollies on I began to try and piece it together- hmmmmmm it wasn't as easy as I'd thought it would be.

First the roof caved in....

It did that more than a few times...

So I gave up and ate it. It was good.

On the plus side- the icing mix was definately stronger than just an icing sugar and water one.

If you've made a gingerbread house from scratch I have great respect... any tips for my 2013 attempt are welcome. I'm thinking building in stages, refrigeration and props to hold things in place : )