White and Gold Gingerbread House

It's GINGERBREAD HOUSE time!!! (aka, my favorite family tradition of the season).



Every year around the beginning of December, my little family (even before we had kids!) would gather together and make gingerbread houses. We started with graham crackers and a tube of frosting, and have now graduated to using my favorite Wilton Gingerbread House kits.

Yes, I know homemade is best, but these houses taste delicious, and hold up perfectly. Plus, they come with some super darling decorations to make my life easier, and more fun, while decorating gingerbread houses with the kiddos!

This year, I decided I wanted to do one of my own before going crazy with the kids. I knew I wanted a specific color theme, and to keep things simple, but elegant. Most of my house is decorated in white (heck, even my house exterior is white!), so I knew going with white was a no-brainer for me. Add in a touch of gold, and seriously, such a gorgeous gingerbread house was born! 

I wanted to explain how I achieved the different elements of my White and Gold gingerbread house, so here we go! 

First, every single piece of my house can be found at Walmart. Seriously, they are KILLING it this year with all the darling decorations and embellishments. And another plus - they are all at a really low price. Win win! 

TIP: decorate your walls and roof before assembling. 

Yep. 

Makes life so much easier. 

Here's how: 

GO FOR GOLD: 

I knew I wanted the entire gingerbread house to be GOLD. But how? Oh yes, this is where the Color Mist Gold Food Coloring Spray comes into play. Pretend it's spray paint. Easy, right? Lay each of the pieces out on parchment paper, and lightly spray each piece with the gold mist spray. The shimmer was absolutely gorgeous, and I loved how it turned out! It took the rustic brown of the gingerbread base to an elegant one-of-a-kind gold base to build my gingerbread house on. 

ROOF: 

For the roof, I piped on the royal icing, leaf by leaf, then used a clean paintbrush to pull in the frosting to the center, creating a really gorgeous holly leaf design. I used the Wilton white large circle sprinkles to make white holly berries. I let it dry completely before assembling. 

WALLS: 

I spread on a layer of royal icing on the side walls, then dumped all my white nonparelis (small circle sprinkles) on a large plate. Then I pressed the wall (frosting side down) on the sprinkles over and over again, making sure to coat the entire wall. I let it dry before assembling, as well.

FRONT: 

I used the same technique as the front of the house as I did the sides - frosting in the shape of the door, then pressing it into the plate of white nonparelis. Let it dry, then pipe the rest of the details on. 

I also used the cute Wilton snowflakes and gold sugar pearl sprinkles as decor. 

ICICLES: 

What I loved about the icing the gingerbread house came with, was the fact that I could use the circle piping tip and provided piping bag to easily squeeze out little icicle decor. I didn't go with the traditional icicle lines, but more like a swooping garland, with little gold "lights" on the trim. The frosting held up like a dream, and turned out absolutely gorgeous! 

TOP IT OFF: 

With what frosting I had left, I added some "snow" to the top of the house, with a few sprinkles of the edible gold Wilton star sprinkles. It added a special magical shimmer to top it all off. Loved it! 

SNOW FOR DAYS: 

I love how the outside yard turned out. The snow bank was made up of the royal icing without a tip, then sprinkled with crystal sugar Wilton sprinkles and nonparelis. The texture was such a dream, and kept with the whole white and gold theme. 

Overall, I LOVED how this gingerbread house turned out! I also love that everything I used (and much, much, more) can be found at my local Walmart. I mean, easy peasy is what I'm all about during the holiday season. 

*This post is sponsored by Wilton, but all opinions and texts are my own. Thank you for letting me work with the brands I love in order to make Baking with Blondie possible. :)