Review: Pre-Baked, Pre-Made Gingerbread House Kit by Wilton
This year close to everyone in my family came home with different gingerbread house kits. My brother bought some extremely difficult sky scrapper of a kit, and me and my boyfriend went simple for only $9.99 at Linen’ n Things. We purchased 2 Pre-Baked-Pre-Made Gingerbread House Kits by Wilton.
With my brothers huge kit, and our 2 smaller kits, we knew that once we were all done putting together and decorating our kits, we could slap them on to one base and create a Gingerbread type town.
The Wilton Pre Baked, Pre Made kit came in sections that we had to use icing to get together. I knew from past experiences with Gingerbread kits that putting the house together is the hardest part. Usually the roof slides off or caves in, or a wall ends up falling just as you apply the final piece.
With time though, I was able to get my house together with ease. I was surprised.
After using the icing to hold the house together, my next steps were to simply decorate my house, and the cardboard base for scenery.
I started with the roof by adding some thin rows of icing, and adding on some candy.
My options were decent. The kit came with fruit slices, peppermint swirls, a bag of hard candies that remind me of runts, and a bag of sweet tarts. The kit also came with a pre-baked gingerbread snowman, and a gingerbread tree.
After decorating my roof and adding the candy I wanted to it, I worked on the tree and the snowman. I lined them both up with icing, and added a few candy drops to add eyes and bulbs to the cookies.
They ended up coming out looking okay. Nothing spectacular seeing how the candy that was included was sort of cheap, and tacky in color.
After decorating the cookies, I went back to add details on the gingerbread house. I added a window and a door, and lined them up with candy. My next plan was to fill the baseboard with some icing and sprinkle some crystal sprinkles that we had bought separately to the floor. It was supposed to give it an icy look.
The icing though just couldn’t finish the job. This happens every year. Companies who make these kits never add enough ingredients for the icing. The house never looks as good as the one on the box, due to the fact that you lack another bag of icing.
If you look at the photo included you can see mounds of icing on the roof, and the house. Trust me, there is not enough icing to put nearly half that much on the roof, unless you plan on making your own icing…which we weren’t planning on doing.
The kit does though come with plenty of decorative candy. You will even have extra candy, so it is okay to let the kids chomp down on a few pieces, no need to blow a hissy fit on them for eating some of the candy.
Overall:
The Wilton Pre Baked, Pre Made Gingerbread house was relatively easy to put together. However it lacked enough icing to finish the house, and the surrounding base. Out of all the Gingerbread homes I’ve put together in my time though, none of them ever have enough icing, so I can’t point the finger and say Wilton is the only kit with not enough icing. My brother who bought a XL kit also did not have enough icing to complete his house the way he wanted it.
My tip for anyone looking to build a pre-made gingerbread house is to start small. Only use very thin amounts of the icing at first… if you have any leftover then go back and make it thicker. You’re going to need every last drop.
Although it is not the best looking gingerbread house in the world, for only $9.99, it’s a pretty good bargain. You have fun doing it, and it’s great for family time. Kids love getting in on gingerbread house making. So it’s worth it’s price in my opinion.
Where To Find:
We got this kit at Linen n Things. It is also available in a number of other stores. I have seen it in CVS, Eckerd’s and supermarkets.
