How to Make a Graham Cracker House
Ranked #13,252 in Food & Cooking, #225,491 overall
Make a Graham Cracker House!
Graham cracker houses have been a holiday tradition in my family for over ten years. Each year we gather 8-10 builders, spread out a table full of candy, and keep the mixer going all day. It's a blast!
Here, I've laid out step-by-step instructions on everything you need to start a graham cracker house tradition of your own, from the supplies you'll need and how to make the icing to building the actual house. I hope you'll have as much fun making houses as we do!
Because of the nature of the activity, I recommend this for ages 10 and up.
Here, I've laid out step-by-step instructions on everything you need to start a graham cracker house tradition of your own, from the supplies you'll need and how to make the icing to building the actual house. I hope you'll have as much fun making houses as we do!
Because of the nature of the activity, I recommend this for ages 10 and up.
What You Will Need:
Supplies to have on hand.
- One free calendar day.
- One box of honey graham crackers per house you intend to make. Buy name brand, not generics as generics tend to break more easily.
- Recipe and ingredients for gingerbread house icing (see below) and a good mixer. If you plan on making more than one or two houses, make sure you have a heavy duty mixer on hand or you might burn it out.
- Candy and decorative food (see below).
- Kitchen supplies: butter knives (for spreading icing on corners), steak knives (for cutting grahams), spatulas, large bowls, wet rags, and paper towels.
- Cake decorating supplies: pastry bags and tips. If you're working with little kids, Pampered Chef makes great little icing squeezers.
- Powdered sugar and sifter for snow when you're done.
- Sheets of white 1/4" or 3/16" foamboard, small sheets for each house or large sheets cut in halves or fourths.
- Styrofoam compartment take-out dishes for displaying candy.
- Spacious flat work area: a rectangular dining room table works best.
- Extra hands to hold walls and roofs.
- Christmas music!
Supplies You Will Need
These are my recommendations for good supplies.
Great Holiday Music!
You can't make houses without cranking up the holiday tunes! Here are some new and old favorites.
White Christmas
Try to forget the fact that Bing Crosby probably n more...0 points
Mary Did You Know?: 17 Inspirational Christmas Songs From Today's Top Country Artists
2007 holiday compilation subtitled: 17 Inspiration more...0 points
Mannheim Steamroller: Christmas Song
2007 holiday treat from Chip Davis and Mannheim St more...0 points
Christmas with the Chipmunks
20 classic Christmas tracks from the 5 time Grammy more...0 points
WOW Christmas: 30 Top Christian Artists and Holiday Songs
It was only a matter of time before the folks behind more...0 points
Now That's What I Call Christmas!
The title doesn't lie, even if it does sounds like more...0 points
Time-Life Music: Treasury of Christmas - Holiday Memories
Even though it includes some of the same songs, this more...0 points
The Christmas Collection
Amy is pulling out all of the stops with a 2008 co more...0 points
Candy and Food Essentials
While the type and variety of candy and decorations you buy are entirely up to you, I've found that certain things work particularly well and are always in demand.Be prepared to have on hand:
- M&Ms: regular and/or holiday colors
- Big and small marshmallows
- Gum drops: get a lot! Green ones are great for trees
- Gummy bears (for people!)
- Small pretzels: regular twists, sticks, and waffle grids (great for windows!)
- Sugar wafers (doors and windows)
- Peppermint swirls hard candy
- Cereal: shredded and frosted wheats, graham cereal, fruity cereal (great for roofs)
- Red licorice twists or lace
- Tootsie Rolls
- Chocolate chips
- Coconut
Also useful are: Goldfish crackers, vanilla wafers, caramel squares, colored cake sugars, colored marshmallows, lollipops (small or flat are better), peppermint twists, colored Tootsie Rolls (can be used like clay), chocolate kisses, decorative chocolate swirls, and nonpareils.
You can find many more unique and useful candies to add to your collection at specialty shops and bulk food stores.
Step 1: Prepare Your Work Area
It is a good idea to have everything you'll need out and organized before you start making icing.In your kitchen, make sure you have all your supplies for icing out and ready to use; you'll need to whip some batches together fast.
In your building area, place your foamboard bases out on your worktable, one for each builder. If you have large foamboard pieces, now is a good time to cut them in halves or fourths.
Open all of your candy, pretzel, cookie, and cereal bags and dump a moderate amount into the sections of each styrofoam tray. If at all possible, arrange these on a table close to but separate from your building table. Make sure you save your bags for storage later.
Prepare your pastry bags, lay out your spatulas and knives, and make several dishcloths damp and ready to clean up icing drips.
Get out trays or cookie sheets and open up your boxes of graham crackers. Sort them into piles of whole pieces and pieces that have broken into smaller sizes. Try to get as many whole pieces as you possibly can.
Get out a cutting board and cut roof supports, two for each house. The best way to do this is to gently draw a steak knife from the tip of the graham cracker's middle crease to the bottom edge corner, not pressing too hard, until there is a score in the cracker. Then with your hands, break along the score line. Repeat for the opposite side until you have a triangle.
Arrange the basic amount of graham crackers needed for each person on their foamboard: 8 whole grahams for walls, 4 whole and 2 cut-longwise for the roof, and 2 cut roof supports. If you want to get more architecturally complex, add the extra pieces now as well.
Standard Pieces
Step 2: Make Gingerbread House Icing
The glue that holds everything else together!
There are several different ways to make gingerbread house icing, or "glue" as we call it. In my experience, the simplest ways are usually the best. You want an icing that will harden quickly, but yet be firm enough to support the weight that it will hold.Family Fun's Icing For Your Gingerbread House (with instructions on how to substitute out the egg whites)
Gingerbread House Icing from Cooks.com
It is a good idea to have one designated person to keep the icing coming because once you start working on your houses the demands for icing will rise. In my family we typically make a double batch at a time, and for 10 people doing larger houses that can often lead to 14-16 batches a day! (That's where a good mixer comes in.) Your needs will depend on how many houses you are making and how much "glue" you use for each: be prepared to be overstocked on icing supplies because a trip to the grocery store can halt production.
When you've made a batch of icing, it will usually go down fast. But if for some reason there is a lull in the building process, make sure you set a wet paper towel over the top of the icing bowl to keep it from drying up.
If you're making your graham cracker house to eat, make sure you substitute out the egg whites in the icing!
Step 3: Glue the Pieces of the Walls, Roof Pieces, and Roof Supports Together
Now that you have all your pieces laid out and the icing made, it's time to call in your builders!
Before you start gluing anything to the base, you must first glue the pieces of each wall, roof piece, and roof support together into larger sections. (See diagram below for how each piece should be glued.)
With a loaded and tipped pastry bag, squeeze a thick tube of icing along the edge of a piece, then set it face down on your foamboard base. Press the joining piece into the tube of icing. It will overflow the middle of the two pieces; this is good. With your finger or a butter knife, gently spread the icing down on the back of the cracker, being careful not to spread it too thin.
Take one or two small scrap pieces of already-broken graham cracker and spread a generous amount of icing over the face of them. Press these down over the seam of the joined pieces, being careful not to come too close to any edge. If you are working on the roof pieces, keep a 1" margin around all sides.
Let your pieces harden for at least 10 minutes before proceeding to Step 4.
Before you start gluing anything to the base, you must first glue the pieces of each wall, roof piece, and roof support together into larger sections. (See diagram below for how each piece should be glued.)
With a loaded and tipped pastry bag, squeeze a thick tube of icing along the edge of a piece, then set it face down on your foamboard base. Press the joining piece into the tube of icing. It will overflow the middle of the two pieces; this is good. With your finger or a butter knife, gently spread the icing down on the back of the cracker, being careful not to spread it too thin.
Take one or two small scrap pieces of already-broken graham cracker and spread a generous amount of icing over the face of them. Press these down over the seam of the joined pieces, being careful not to come too close to any edge. If you are working on the roof pieces, keep a 1" margin around all sides.
Let your pieces harden for at least 10 minutes before proceeding to Step 4.
Standard Arrangement
Step 4: Put Your Walls Up
Slide a butter knife underneath one of your newly glued pieces and gently rock to pry the piece loose from the foamboard base. If you can lift the piece without it folding or breaking at the seems, you are ready to put up your walls.Gently lift all of the pieces off of the foamboard base and set all aside except for the walls. Make sure you have a good supply of icing at this point, because if you run out in the middle of putting up the walls you're in trouble!
To build the walls, first squeeze a thick tube of icing on to the bottom of one wall section. Make sure the icing seam in the middle is running vertical. Now, place the glued edge where you want the wall to sit on your base, with the glued support side inward.
Have a friend hold the the wall upright while you take an adjoining wall and squeeze a line of icing on three sides: the bottom and two side edges. Place the wall support side inward onto the base adjoining the first wall. The two walls should be able to stand alone for a few minutes, but just to be safe take a half-cracker and icing it on all edges, pressing it diagonally to brace the corner inside.
Repeat these steps until you have a four-sided house. Let harden for 10 minutes before continuing.
Step 5: Glue On the Roof
For this step, you will need more than one pair of hands, so make sure you have a friend standing by.With your pastry bag, squeeze a thick tube of icing on the top of each standing wall and roof support edge. Working quickly, take one roof piece and squeeze a tube of icing along the longest side. Carefully press the roof piece onto the slope of the roof supports with the icing edge to the peak.
Have a friend hold the glued roof piece in place while you squeeze a thick tube of icing on the peak edge of the second roof piece and press it onto the opposite slope.
With both hands, gently push the roof pieces together so they meet at the top. You will need to hold them there in place for at least 5 minutes until they begin to harden.
For larger houses, you may need to make extra roof-supports inside the middle of the house to minimize sagging.
If you find your roof piece won't sit on the supports right, it's probably because one of the seam braces on the inside of the roof piece is rubbing. Take it off and turn it support side up. With a steak knife, very gently score a cut line a half inch from the edge of the offending seam brace. Once the edge is off, re-icing and try again. Repeat as necessary until the roof sits flat.
If a piece breaks, either replace it with a new one or use graham scraps and more glue to make it secure.
Step 6: Decorate Your House
Now comes the fun part!
With your pastry bag or butter knife, spread icing in large areas over one wall at a time and add windows, doors, and any other wall decorations. The icing will harden and leave everything in place with a nice smooth white wall behind it.
For doors, you could use sugar wafers or pretzels, striped gum or an icinged graham cracker piece. For windows you might try peppermint candies, Smarties, waffle pretzels, or chocolate squares.
For the roof, either work the same as the walls or in rows. Use shredded or frosted wheat for a great thatched look. For a shingled roof, you could use graham cereal, or wafer cookies. M&Ms, Smarties, fruit cereal and marshmallows make great candy roofs, or mix and match all of the above.
The sky is the limit: have fun!
With your pastry bag or butter knife, spread icing in large areas over one wall at a time and add windows, doors, and any other wall decorations. The icing will harden and leave everything in place with a nice smooth white wall behind it.
For doors, you could use sugar wafers or pretzels, striped gum or an icinged graham cracker piece. For windows you might try peppermint candies, Smarties, waffle pretzels, or chocolate squares.
For the roof, either work the same as the walls or in rows. Use shredded or frosted wheat for a great thatched look. For a shingled roof, you could use graham cereal, or wafer cookies. M&Ms, Smarties, fruit cereal and marshmallows make great candy roofs, or mix and match all of the above.
The sky is the limit: have fun!
Great House Materials
Great Books for Getting Decorating Inspiration
Get some decorating inspiration in these great gingerbread house books.
Step 7: Decorate the Yard
Now that you have your house done, it's time to start on the yard.Note: Before you decorate the yard, you might want to take a butter knife and damp cloth and scrape away the dried icing on the yard space of your base. Be careful not to cut into the foamboard itself. This makes a nice clean appearance for the next stage of the decorating.
For fences, line up anything that you have a lot of: pretzels of all kinds work great, as does candy corn, gum drops, and square cookies.
Bushes can be any color you want: gumdrops, toffee, caramels, lumps of green M&Ms in icing.
To make a pond, icing a circular area on the base and sprinkle on blue decorating sugar, or icing with blue icing. You could even fill it with blue M&Ms. Add Swedish fish or goldfish crackers and a teddy bear sitting by fishing.
To make an evergreen tree, try piling green gumdrops with icing, or M&Ms a layer at a time. You could also icing an ice cream cone and cover with a green candy of your choice.
For a shed, simply use small graham cracker pieces to make a little building. Then, fill with Tootsie Rolls as logs.
If you would like to add people, try using gummy bears!
Great Yard Materials
Let it Snow!
When you're all done with your house and yard, put powdered sugar in a sifter and shake lightly to "snow" on your house and yard.
I'm All Done: What Now?
When you're all done with your house and yard, take a deep breath and give yourself a big pat on the back. You did it!
Now, it's time to clean up.
You will not want to keep any of the icing left over, and if you used egg in your icing, throw away any leftover candy that has icing on it.
Any non-icinged leftover candy can be poured back into bags to save for next year. Leftover cereal can either be eaten or frozen in bags for next year. You can also freeze any whole graham crackers left over, although I wouldn't bother to freeze the leftover pieces.
To clean icing off the table, take a warm rag and make the work area generously wet. It will need to soak for a couple of minutes to soften the icing before you wipe it off. If you got any icing on the floor or carpet, you'll likely have to get down and soak and scrub a bit, though warm water seems to do just fine with no staining (unless you used colored icing). Almost certainly you'll need to vacuum up all the crumbs and candy that have fallen on the floor!
When you're all done, make sure you remember to get pictures of each person holding their house. If you continue the tradition throughout the years, you can go back and look at your early houses and admire how far you've come.
You can now eat your house, or display it for awhile. In my family, we've kept houses on display for a year until the next batch were made. Just make sure you keep it well out of the reach of children and pets!
Now, all that's left to be done is stand back and admire your amazing work. Good job! Take a break: you've earned it.
Now, it's time to clean up.
You will not want to keep any of the icing left over, and if you used egg in your icing, throw away any leftover candy that has icing on it.
Any non-icinged leftover candy can be poured back into bags to save for next year. Leftover cereal can either be eaten or frozen in bags for next year. You can also freeze any whole graham crackers left over, although I wouldn't bother to freeze the leftover pieces.
To clean icing off the table, take a warm rag and make the work area generously wet. It will need to soak for a couple of minutes to soften the icing before you wipe it off. If you got any icing on the floor or carpet, you'll likely have to get down and soak and scrub a bit, though warm water seems to do just fine with no staining (unless you used colored icing). Almost certainly you'll need to vacuum up all the crumbs and candy that have fallen on the floor!
When you're all done, make sure you remember to get pictures of each person holding their house. If you continue the tradition throughout the years, you can go back and look at your early houses and admire how far you've come.
You can now eat your house, or display it for awhile. In my family, we've kept houses on display for a year until the next batch were made. Just make sure you keep it well out of the reach of children and pets!
Now, all that's left to be done is stand back and admire your amazing work. Good job! Take a break: you've earned it.
Take a Break and Watch a Christmas Movie!
Hey, you've earned it! Put a log on the fire, fill your bowls with popcorn, and kick back and relax.
It's a Wonderful Life (60th Anniversary Edition)
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 10/31/2 more...1 point
Alvin & the Chipmunks - A Chipmunk Christmas
"AL-VIN!!!" You needn't wait for the hol more...0 points
The Original Christmas Classics (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer/Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town/Frosty the Snowman/Frosty Returns/Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol/Little Drummer Boy/Cricket on the Hearth)
Rudolph the red-nose reindeer santa claus is comin more...0 points
A Charlie Brown Christmas
This half-hour Christmas show is one of the truly lovable more...0 points
The Muppet Christmas Carol - Kermit's 50th Anniversary Edition
The muppet characters tell their version of the cl more...0 points
The Christmas Shoes
Two stories converge as young Nathan learns his mother more...0 points
A Christmas Story (Full-Screen Edition)
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/30/2008 more...0 points
White Christmas
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 10/16/2 more...0 points
Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas (Disney Gold Classic Collection)
Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 09/19 more...0 points
Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Deluxe Edition)
Under a thick carpet of green-dyed yak fur and won more...0 points
Christmas Child (A Max Lucado Story)
A life-sized nativity leads a man to learn about h more...0 points
Christmas Unwrapped - The History of Christmas (History Channel) (A&E DVD Archives)
From santa claus to the christmas tree this is an more...0 points
Miracle on 34th Street (Special Edition)
Edmund Gwenn is Kris Kringle, who takes a takes a job more...0 points
Graham Cracker Gallery
Now that you've made your own spectacular graham cracker houses, it's time to show them off! Upload photos of your best houses to your Flickr account and add them to the list, then vote up your favorites.
Please, pictures of houses only. No identifiable faces. All submissions are subject to approval.
Tell Me What You Think!
submit
-
Reply
-
AmateurAtHTML
Dec 3, 2010 @ 12:45 pm | delete
- This is a wonderful idea. I've made gingerbread houses, but never a graham cracker house. Great for Pre-K and Kindergarten kids for sure!
-
-
Reply
-
MisterJeremy
Nov 30, 2010 @ 5:33 pm | delete
- Great idea! We are going to do a simple version of this at our preschool Christmas party. Blessed.
-
-
Reply
-
peter9983
Mar 25, 2009 @ 7:00 pm | delete
- Very nice lense, keep it up !
Peter
magic of making up review
-
-
Reply
-
d-artist
Feb 5, 2009 @ 6:51 pm | delete
- great lens...5*
-
-
Reply
-
CherylK
Nov 11, 2008 @ 3:14 pm | delete
- I love this lens...think I'll try this project with my grandchildren! Beautifully written...you're a natural.
-
- Load More
by seili
seili
I'm a fiction writer and illustrator. Most days you can find me hard at work in the far future. Check out my site: hollyheisey.com more »
- 3 featured lenses
- Winner of 3 trophies!
- Top lens » How to Make a Graham Cracker House
Feeling creative?
Create a Lens!
Explore related pages
- The Gingerbread House The Gingerbread House
- Gingerbread Houses Gingerbread Houses
- Christmas Food Christmas Food
- ★ HOW-TO Gift Wrap | Creative Packaging & Gift Wrapping Ideas ★ ★ HOW-TO Gift Wrap | Creative Packaging & Gift Wrapping Ideas ★
- Christmas Paper Crafts Christmas Paper Crafts
- How To Do Japanese Gift-Wrapping How To Do Japanese Gift-Wrapping
