Halloween Gingerbread Houses - 2014 Edition

Cue the Visa commercial...

18 cups of flour
3 cups of butter
4 1/2 cups molasses
3 hours in the kitchen making dough, cutting and baking
2 hours in the kitchen assembling
over $50 in candy
time spent with my three granddaughters....priceless.

This is year five of our Halloween house decorating day. The first year it was just with the oldest granddaughter, last year we added the youngest. Three little girls, royal icing and bags of candy  makes for a crazy time! Last year it took me forever and a day to clean my kitchen after our decorating extravaganza.  Sprinkles, candy, royal icing on the floor, chairs, and every place in between made for a lot of clean-up work.  This year I thought I would be smart so set up the decorating station in our back patio.  I failed to take into account that (1) the morning sun shines directly in there and (2) we were in the beginning of a mid-90's day.  The sun was roasting us, the candy was getting sticky, the icing was sliding off the houses. So we packed everything up and moved back inside! Once again, I had a big mess to clean up but it was all worth it.

Ready to go to the patio.

My assistant supervising the royal icing mixing.



My girls ready to decorate!
 

I try to come up with new house designs each year to keep things interesting and exciting.  This house has a little Hansel & Gretel vibe to it.  I used mini pumpkin cookie cutters to cut out the door inserts.  Once the gingerbread had baked I filled the inserts with crushed candy and put back in the oven until melted.  Once cool, it makes a cute window effect.  One of these years we'll put some sort of lighting in the houses.

My husband, also know as Papa, was very instrumental in assembling the houses.  I did the cutting and baking, he did the bulk of the assembly. He has much more patience in that department than I do!

Grandchild #4 arrives in a few months.  In a few years we will be adding one more gingerbread house to our assembly process.  It's a lot of work to get the houses ready for the kids to decorate and there are moments I question my sanity in doing this.  That all disappears when the girls get here and they excitedly get to work.  I hope we are doing these houses for many years to come!

The aftermath!

I'm sharing at A Stroll Thru Life.