Gingerbread house demolition site

Last year I made a gingerbread house at Christmas for my godson, George. This year, as he's a little older, I decided I would bake and construct the house, and then help George to decorate it.

Last year's gingerbread house...

...and this year's demolition site...

I thought this would mean letting go of my perfectionist tendencies and desire for everything to be 'just so', and I was right. But I needed to relax even before George came close - the construction was a nightmare, and it looked terrible without any Jelly Tots came close. George's mum is expecting, so I couldn't use Royal icing because of the raw egg, so just normal icing sugar and water it was. This was just not stable enough, and it was impossible to keep the walls and roof in place.... One of the roof panels snapped in half and I nearly had a breakdown.

Broken gingerbread house roof

However, although George did say "It's broken!" the minute he saw it, I don't think the roof issues stopped us having fun covering the house in sweets and chocolates. We had a great evening making a right mess, and it was night not to worry about whether all the sweets were lined up neatly.

Looking pretty

A great tip I learned a couple of weeks ago when baking gingerbread is to roll out the dough on baking paper, preventing the terrible sticking to the work surface that can ruin many a roof tile.

Someone was eating more chocolate buttons than he was sticking on the house...

Merry Christmas!