Thursday, December 9, 2010

No-Bake Gingerbread Houses For Kids

No- Bake Gingerbread Houses For Kids Reviewed by Eileen Hanley for Bookpleasures.com


By: Lisa Turner Anderson

ISBN: 13: 978-1-4236-0590-4

ISBN: 10: 1-4236-0590-X



Publisher: Gibbs Smith



The idea of a no bake gingerbread house is intriguing because I know firsthand that making gingerbread houses can be a daunting task. Just making the gingerbread takes time and the recipe will need to be adjusted to accommodate the sections of the house. Handling the gingerbread is tricky, and its weight works against little hands being able to help with this project.

The No-Bake Gingerbread Houses For Kids takes a lot of the woe out of this fun project.

The author begins the book with directions on getting started, where to build the house, how to use cardboard and waxed paper for the bottom and the spreading of icing as grass or snow to make the house look neat and finished.

The houses are primarily constructed of graham crackers with some recipes using vanilla wafers, Necco wafers and vanilla sandwich cookies, molasses cookies, etc. For each house a specific type of icing is recommended and the term”glue” is used in relation to securing the crackers and cookies into a shape.

This is not just a book for reference during the holiday season but spans the calendar, i.e., Easter Bunny House, Mermaid Palace, Tiki Hut, Dracula’s Castle and many more delightful creations. There is even a Dollhouse!

Each recipe includes a diagram for the crackers, wafers and cookies, a choice of frostings and each specific candy required for decoration. I really liked how specific the diagrams were for each recipe showing where to break off or cut through the graham crackers.

The photography is wonderful and this alone would entice you to attempt one of these houses. Most children will require some adult assistance to construct one of the houses, so this book would lend itself not only to parents but to scout leaders and educators.

Lisa Turner Anderson is an avid crafter with a passion for dollhouses. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.