gingerbread house

Last night I made my first ever gingerbread house. With a little help from my friends and from foodnetwork.com, of course! It turned out well, except that after a while it became clear that it was structurally unsound. The roof was collapsing and one wall was leaning inward as we put more and more candy and frosting on. However, the acessories were fantastic--a mailbox, a dog, a snowman, a frozen pond with ice skaters doing figure 8s, and even a gecko on the roof. Some part of it had to be egyptian, after all! Some in our group are highly unimaginative and did not see twizzler bites on end as rose bushes, but rather as parking posts, or the ice skaters built from twizzlers and m&ms were seen as fire hydrants! We worked with what we had--homemade gingerbread, homemade frosting, imported m&m's and twizzler bites, and some "local" gummy lizards. It was excellent. We even "sifted" some powdered sugar over the top so it looked like snow. I haven't had so much fun in a while. More pictures are in my photo albums, the link is to the left. Christmas party is in "Cairo 5." There are also new pics in "Cairo--Cooking and Eating".