Gingerbread House

Ah, don't you just love the smell of freshly baked gingerbread? I know it's the middle of May, but this was a gingerbread house that Steff and I made, I think the last Christmas she was in Japan...which would have been December 2006...kana?

Ever since I was a kid, I've always liked making gingerbread houses. When I was a kid, we used to use graham crackers rather than the actual cookie baked into sheets. But when I went to Japan, there of course are no graham crakers on the store shelves--why would there be? I mean it's not like Japanese people go camping, sing songs around the fire, and makes s'mores with roasted marshmallows.

So, I realized that if I wanted to make a gingerbread house, I would have to make the gingerbread base myself, since I was not about to try building a house out of soda crackers or digestive biscuits. Back to why I love gingerbread houses. Well, I love the spicy smell that fills the kitchen when you bake gingerbread, but the real reason why I like gingerbread houses is pretty much because it gives me an excuse to turn a half a kilo of powdered sugar into royal icing and just buy up candy of all shapes and sizes for the heck of it. Check out my snowmen. Aren't they cute? They have jelly bean mittens and peach gummy candies for hats! I have mini takenoko growing in my "garden" and the steps leading to the house have gummy sushi stuck on them!! Come on, when else am I gonna have a good excuse for buying gummy candy in the shape of sushi?! I think the front of the house has a candy shaped like a strawberry shortcake or something. I love adding all these random touches to it!!

Just as a side note, we had this displayed during the Christmas party, and I was afraid that it might collapse while the icing was hardening, so since I didn't have anything to support it, I stole some of the plastic butter containers from the sisters and used them to hold the sides of the house up. I think I took two or three and stacked them up inside the house before putting the roof on.