Tips for Buying Materials for Gingerbread Houses

Making a gingerbread house doesn't have to be an expensive Christmas craft. There are things you can do to help with the costs. These tips can help you have a fun and cheap gingerbread house the whole family can help create.

Tips For Buying Ingredients for Gingerbread Houses

This section is basic common things you should do when getting ready to start your baking for the gingerbread and making any of the candies or icings.

Make a list of ingredients

The basic ingredients for gingerbread houses are the same throughout recipes. There may be a few different requests for items like molasses, butter, and brown sugar.

For instance, some recipes will tell you to use molasses while others may call for unsulfured molasses. The reason for these differences could be due to altitude, making a harder gingerbread when baked for the house, or ingredients the creator of the recipe prefers over other items.

Be sure to have the ingredients for any candies you are going to make yourself. This can help you when you are getting ready for this step of the process.

Have everything on hand

This is one reason I started with the list of ingredients. You may think you have ground ginger on hand, but don't because you used the last of it on another recipe for dinner.

This is why you should check what you have on hand before going to the store. You may have flour, but do you have enough for the recipe you are going to use?

Tips For Buying Materials for Building a Gingerbread House

Not everything has to be bought for making a gingerbread house. There are things you can use, like templates, that you shouldn't ever have to buy. You may also find things on hand so you don't incur an extra expense for this Christmas time craft project.

Templates for a gingerbread house

You don't have to but a template for cutting out a gingerbread house. There are plenty of them free online. For instance, you will find two gingerbread house templates in this free ebook 23 Gingerbread House Designs and Recipes. There's also recipes to go with the templates.

Decorations for a gingerbread house

When buying the candy for the gingerbread house, buy the cheapest you can find in stores. Even dollar stores have several of the candy items needed for less than most grocery stores. The same goes for pretzels, sugar, coconut, graham crackers, and the royal icing.

Cutting and decorating materials

Don't go overboard buying piping bags and tips for decorating and gluing your gingerbread house together. Since most of the decorating and gluing of the house together requires royal icing, you could possibly have issues with the house and the icing will dry in the bag causing larger headaches.

Using cheap Ziploc style bags and parchment paper can cut your costs and headaches during the building process. This way you can use smaller amounts of the royal icing while building and decorating your house without having to work in a rush. If you feel the need to buy tips for creating different textures for you house, buy the plastic ones in a bag. These are cheaper than the metal ones. Besides if you don't get the metal ones clean or dried they have a tendency to rust.

A cheap pizza cutter, utility knife, or plain cutting knife would work fine. No need to buy items you may only use a few times. I would suggest getting a small box and place all your decorating materials in it for future items like the gingerbread house.

For the cardboard bottom, use a sturdy box like a banana box. The heavier the box it is less likely to collapse when you go to move house and scene, if you choose to build one.

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Free Gingerbread House Patterns