A Good Gingerbread House Icing Recipe

       As it turned out, we did have some young visitors over the holidays, to whom I proposed we make gingerbread houses. This idea was well received, and we were able to find some end-of-the season gingerbread house kits at CVS. 
​      Before we started working on the houses  I made some extra icing/glue, 

​...as there's never enough icing in the kits, and my past experience has been that the icing that's provided tends to be rather second-rate, dense, gluey not in a good way, and hard to work with.
        For those of you who would like a good gingerbread house icing recipe, here's the one I use:
        Gingerbread House Icing

         2 egg whites (I accidentally put three eggs in the above photo, but you only need two)
         1 tsp cream of tartar
          3 cups powdered sugar
         In a large clean bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer at medium speed.
         Add powdered sugar in small amounts, mixing well on high after each addition.           Beat on high speed 4-5 minutes or until mixture thickens.
         Refrigerate, covered, until ready to use. You may need to stir icing to soften it before use.
         As always, this icing did the trick.

    The final creations, one fairly minimalist, while the other a more traditional gingerbread style.

    However both fit in fine with our holiday decor.

      Our visitors stayed for a few days, and so while they were there we decided to have a big Christmas breakfast, 

...and later a big Christmas dinner.

      And we gave  thanks for our visitors and our belated Christmas, which  really did feel nonetheless like Christmas.