Every year we make ginger bread houses as a family. This year we will have 5 children making them! We arrange them in a little "village" and the kids just LOVE it. I have a recipe that is awesome for the gingerbread - it's bullet proof! One year while I was dismantling our village I decided to just knock off the royal icing and keep all the parts and see if we could use them next year. It worked! This will be the 4th year for some of the houses. Each year I make at least one new house to add to the village and replace any pieces that broke while dismantling the year before :) Also, I hot glue the houses together. The glue dries right away, not in an hour or so like royal icing. Then we use the royal icing to decorate. I use the old school royal icing recipe - egg whites. Since we don't eat our houses we don't have to worry about the potential problems with raw egg. It dries fast and is HARD. Works like a charm! Thanks for all the tips on piping on parchment paper- that is genius! I printed it all out and it is going in my ginger bread house folder! You all at KAF totally rock! I so enjoy your blog.

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