In today’s post: Use chocolate graham crackers for the easiest way to make an adorable Halloween “gingerbread” house.
Making gingerbread houses is one of those amazingly wonderful holiday traditions…that always turns out WAY HARDER than you think it will. Homemade gingerbread tastes the best, but it’s a pretty big time investment to cut out and bake all the pieces. And constructing gingerbread houses with little kids is a sure fire way to get someone crying. Young kids are rarely patient enough to let the houses set up before decorating, which leads to gingerbread collapse and the aforementioned tears.
The solution? Graham cracker houses with a super simple design. You can put these together in no time and let them set up completely – then let the kids decorate to their heart’s content with no worries of collapse. These are so easy that we now make them for every holiday, not just Christmas. Here are our Halloween “gingerbread” houses:
Find 45 Halloween crafts for kids right here and learn how to make Paper Pumpkins here
Simple basic design, LOTS of decoration options. We used Halloween colored M&Ms for the roof, but you could try decorating with candy corn or other candy, or using white icing to create spiderwebs.
As I mentioned before, this version takes all the hard work out of building gingerbread houses.
- Making your own gingerbread tastes amazing. But it also takes long enough that I don’t want to do it more than once a year.
- Graham crackers are easy to cut to the right size for these houses. Using chocolate grahams gives them more of a Halloween look
- I put these houses together using melted chocolate chips, which means I didn’t even have to make royal icing!
- My simple assembly steps (included below) creates a sturdy little house which holds up well to all kinds of decorations.
If you are making these with small children, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND making the houses in advance by yourself. They will set up quite hard in the fridge in about 20 minutes, and then you can let the kids decorate them without any chance of them getting destroyed. If you are making these with older children, they can easily construct the houses themselves.
PRO TIP: If you are making these Halloween houses as a craft project only, meaning no one is planning to eat them, then just use hot glue to glue the pieces together! It’s super fast and they’ll set up almost immediately.
How to Make a Halloween Gingerbread House Video
Watch this video to see how to construction your own graham cracker “gingerbread” house:
Halloween Gingerbread House Instructions
Halloween "Gingerbread" Houses
Supplies
- 3 full sheet Graham Crackers chocolate if desired
- 1/4 cup Chocolate Chips melted
- Assorted Halloween Candy
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Instructions
- Evenly break each of the three graham crackers in half. This is easiest to do with a sharp serrated knife - use the knife to score the graham crackers and then break them in half.
- Set aside 5 graham cracker halves. Cut the 6th in half again and discard one piece. Cut the other piece into a triangle for a roof support.
- Place the chocolate chips in a baggie and melt them in the microwave (30 seconds at a time until melted). Snip a corner off the bag and use it to pipe chocolate across the bottom of the roof support.
- Place the roof support at the top of a graham cracker half, and lay down on a flat surface.
- Use melted chocolate to "glue" two more graham cracker halves on to form a roof. It can be helpful to use a cup to rest the first roof piece against until the second roof piece is in place (see video).
- Use melted chocolate to "glue" two more graham cracker halves on as walls.
- Chill the house for 15-20 minutes until the chocolate is hard (can be placed in the freezer for faster chilling). Decorate as desired.
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Becky says
The graph and look black are you using regular graham crackers because our are brown.
Autumn says
Yes, these are chocolate graham crackers!