Perfect Decorating Frosting

If you plan on decorating gingerbread/graham cracker houses this month, you are going to thank me for this.  Truly, this stuff makes all the difference between dripping, loose candy and awesome decorating fun.

I always thought that decorating frosting was all the same.  Oh no, my friends.  I've been enlightened.

• 1 lb powdered (aka confectioners) sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 1 Tbl cream of tartar

Whip all ingredients together until stiff.

The roll of each ingredient: You can control how stiff your frosting is with the egg whites.  I whipped mine for a couple of minutes and had a perfect consistency.  The egg whites also act like cement when dried.  The cream of tartar is to help with the humidity once it dries so it will stay dry.

I actually made the graham cracker houses last minute since I ran out of dough and steam for the real McCoys.

 You'll see later that these didn't quite dry enough for the grabby, rough hands of a 3 year old, 

but they stayed together without too much holding in place during construction.

 For the bigger kids I actually made gingerbread dough for the first time, and used this ceramic mold my mom gave me.  It might be an antique, or at least as old as I am.  I was surprised at how much it really was like a bread dough, kneading in the last 4 cups of flour.  

Such supple dough.

 That frosting even held together these heavy pieces.

 Place it in a ziplock bag with a rubber band and snip just an eighth or quarter of an inch off the corner.  

Not letting the graham cracker house dry long enough=

 But don't feel too bad, because her architecture disaster just meant there was more time to just EAT the candy.  And eat she did.  Clover thought she had gone to heaven.

 I am surprised that nobody went to bed with a tummy ache.

 I just needed more orange candy ;)