Halloween Gingerbread House

We started the celebrations early and made this Halloween Gingerbread House today.

Elly did a great job sorting (and sneakily eating!) the smarties; it was her job to decorate the house once I had applied the icing...

I have only ever made one gingerbread house before, which I constructed in full before decorating. Big mistake! Much easier to decorate, then construct the house, as we did today.

We kept things simple this time, using just licorice and smarties;

And a bit of one red jelly snake for the Red-Back Spider on the other side of the roof;

I had intended on making a licorice spider's web, but there is nothing like being brought back to reality by a three-year old asking, 'Wouldn't it just be easier to make a spider, Mummy?'. Yes! Much easier.

After dinner, we gave it the 'sparkler treatment';

{The girls sang 'Happy Birthday dear Halloween'}

Then Nick did the honours and smashed it open!

What a short life, this little house had. And I believe, tomorrow a bag of Halloween Gingerbread pieces will take up residence in Nicks drawer at work...