Thanksgiving Cabin -Fall Gingerbread House Recipe
Kids love to play with their food so why not let them? This is the easiest gingerbread house recipe you will ever find. And these Thanksgiving Cabins make the best kids’ table activity.
Spend the morning creating a beautiful house while snacking on a fruit plate and Pumpkin Coffee Cake. You can make it the night before and you won’t have to worry about breakfast.
Another option is to make this Healthy Pumpkin Pie Smoothie Recipe. It’s a great idea to go with the fall pumpkin theme that’s easy to make so you can focus on having fun with your kids and making memories.
If your kids don’t like pumpkin then try this Eggless Banana Bread instead. Both the pumpkin cake and banana bread are a huge hit at my house!
Thanksgiving is such a fun holiday. You get to eat as much as you want and then lay down for a nap… unless you have kids then naps are only in a nonexistent utopia world. Sometimes I dream of that world.
I have some ideas for you if you’re lucky enough or unlucky enough to be hosting Thanksgiving at your home this year. I have some great ideas for you to not only keep the kids busy but also make the most memorable Thanksgiving kid’s table.
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What You Will Need
- Vanilla Wafers( that’s Vanilla not Nilla)
- Royal Icing (this is my recipe with video)
- Knife and cutting board
- Silicone Mat (linked)
- Plates to hold your cabins
- Pretzels
- Sprinkles
- Candy Corn
- Pumpkins
- M&M’s
- Cupcake Pan (to hold your sprinkles & candies)
Thanksgiving Cabin -Fall Gingerbread House Recipe -Video
Thanksgiving Cabin -Fall Gingerbread House Recipe
The first thing you will need to do is make this Royal Icing Recipe (linked). The Royal Icing is what will hold your house together it’s sort of like yummy edible glue.
Once your icing is made you will open your vanilla wafers and start making the sides and roof. So line up the vanilla wafers in groups of three. You will need six total groups, four for the house, & two for the roof.
Lay your wafers down and line them up so that they are even. You will need to ice them together with the icing (see the picture below) to do that the middle piece will need icing on both sides. That way the top bottom and middle all have icing on them but not the outside. They will dry better if you lay them down, but I have also found it to work well if I ice them and immediately do all four sides.
To glue all four together at the same time you will need to attach them by adding more icing. This will help hold each side of the gingerbread house up (sorry vanilla wafer house).
I like to hold it in place for about thirty seconds or so. Just long enough for the icing to squeeze into the wafers.
The ROOF! Line the top edge of two sides of your house with icing then add one side of your roof leaning gently add the other side and let them lay on each other. They will be touching at the top one a leaning a little more than the other.
Set aside and let it dry for a bit. If you let it sit too long (such as a day or two) a layer of the vanilla wafers tends to peal off. You can ice it back on or eat it… totally up to you.
If you want to be adventurous, you can gently cut your wafers in half and either make a tiny house or even a chimney.
Here are our cabins drying, the boys were drooling over them, and to be honest I was a little too. These Thanksgiving Cabins are SO GOOD!
DIY Edible Campfire
To make your edible Campfire you will need:
- Small Pretzel Rods
- Red Fruit by the Foot
- Royal Icing Recipe
- Scissors
- Plate to dry on or
- Silicone Mat (linked)
Start out by breaking a few of your pretzels, because you want different size logs for your campfire.
Add a dab of Royal Icing to the plate or Silicone Mat and lay a few pretzels logs ontop. Try and make it look like a real campfire.
Unroll your fruit by the food and cut it into fire flames. So a zig zag pattern should work well. Lay it on top of your campfire logs and feel free to add a small dab of icing again if need be. Set aside and let dry.
Add your dried campfires to the from of your cabin and let’s get the table started.
How to decorate a Kids Thanksgiving table
Use brown craft paper as the bottom layer. That way the kids can not only color is they want but its an easy clean up if you have a spill. Set some crayons in a jar for optional coloring.
Each kid should get their own Thanksgiving Cabin complete with a campfire. Set the pretzels in a cute jar, put the icing in small snack size bags so everyone has their own. The candy should be set in the middle of your table so it’s easily accessible by everyone. If you use a cupcake pan its not only cute but also saves the kids from having to keep up with lids.
We loved these Thanksgiving Cabins so much we made them twice this year. Even my 14 year old liked making them. He was only in it for the sugar but hey we had fun together.
I love these cabins mainly because you can’t mess them up! Seriously, they always look cute, kids are always going to love making them and eating the cabins.
Have fun with your kids one afternoon and surprise them with some edible cabins. You can even have a competition for the best decorated house.
Have you ever made a house out of vanilla wafers?
