Here's to edible royal icing!

This will be me tomorrow making edible royal icing and making edible royal icing and making edible royal icing. For the YM/YW combined activity, we are going to make gingerbread (aka graham cracker) houses and we need royal icing.

How much royal icing you ask? Well, I thought twenty cups with one cup per bag and two icing bags per station (we are planning 10 stations) but when I read that one pound of powdered sugar makes three cups of icing, it gave me pause. That's seven pounds of powdered sugar. Might I be overshooting the mark? I will need to contemplate this. One half cup of icing in a baggie hardly seems adequate, even if there are two per station. But realistically, how big can a graham cracker house be? I don't think any of them will be building Chartres cathedral ala graham crackers.

Do I have seven pounds of powdered sugar in my house? Short answer: no.

Why royal icing? Because it holds like cement and a good graham cracker/gingerbread house needs to be cemented in place.

Why edible royal icing? First, there is no doubt that the YM will eat the icing. And second, because there is also inedible royal icing made with egg whites. The edible kind requires meringue powder. Let's hope I can find meringue powder here in the local stores.

I had planned to buy icing from the bakery at the local market but I never did arrange for it and it will probably be cheaper to make it. (Don't those sound like famous last words?)

My good sister-in-law C helped me get the graham crackers and candy at Wal-mart on Saturday. We have gum drops, mini candy canes, mixed hard candy, Skittles, M&Ms, and mini marshmellows. Then we the candy horders at our house have contributed our ancient candy from the house--LOTS of Tootsie Rolls, and also suckers, caramel, packages of candy like red hots, Skittles, mini M&Ms, gummi Life Savers, Cracker Jacks, sour Skittles-- just about anything one might see in a trick-or-treat bag--and each group of house makers will get one STUFFED sandwich baggie full of these tooth-breaking delights.

"Let's go on with the show!"