Gingerbread Houses, Our Style

I can't let the winter end before saying something about the traditional project we worked on this year: gingerbread houses. Traditional, in the sense that many people make them each year; it's not our tradition. I don't think I've ever made a gingerbread house before. It just seemed like a Christmas-y thing to do. But since none of us are overly fond of stale, cardboard-ish gingerbread, we decided to make not-so-traditional rice crispy treat houses.

So after mixing up 9 bags of marshmallows and 3 huge boxes of rice crispies, we tried to decide what we wanted them to look like. Team 1, Paul and Evelyn, went for the traditional look. But that wasn't cool enough for Team 2, (Mark and myself). We had to be different, and professional about this thing. First we discussed it. After convincing Mark that Neuschwanstein was out of the question, we moved onto architecture drawings with a plan B. (Plan B: we each draw what we want it to look like, and then duke it out.)

Mark designed a Tudor style Castle, and I, an English style cottage: so we compromised - and made a Tudor-ish looking English cottage. Mark was responsible for the foundational work (I helped, but it was to be his fault if anything didn't work), and I was to do the decoration, under his supervision, of course. And of course, I was elected head and body of the cleaning crew. (Did you realize that if you wash the pans in scalding hot water immediately, they don't get too sticky?)



The first problem we encountered, after agreeing on a floor plan, that is, was that there is a reason why gingerbread houses became the most popular: rice crispy houses can't support support any weight whatsoever. Overcoming this obstacle, there was of course the usual; the icing was the wrong consistency, the squabbling over the positioning of doors and windows. . .





When we finished it, we weren't at all happy with it, as you can tell, I'm sure. I always post pictures of things I am ashamed of on the Internet for the whole world to see. . .