Halloween Haunted House Prep for the Grandkiddos

 

I am putting the horse before the cart, but if you want to find out how I made these graham cracker houses ( to use for Halloween activities for the grand kiddos) keep reading! 

My son-in-law and I are scheduled to take the grandkids to a pumpkin farm on Saturday to pick a pumpkin, go through a corn maze, all the stuff you do at such a place. 

When we get done with that, we will work on decorating the graham cracker houses.

I attempted to make graham cracker houses for the kiddos to decorate for Halloween. When you google Halloween graham cracker houses you get a bajillion websites to choose from about how to make them or correctly construct them.

I settled on the simple homemade haunted Halloween houses at melskitchencafe.com  Her experience with royal icing, regular icing, and hot glue was less than spectacular. She presents a burnt sugar method of attaching and constructing the houses. 

Cutting the graham crackers takes a little finesse, but using a serrated knife on a flat surface, works out pretty good. There were a few that I obliterated, but I finally did get the hang of it. 

After you separate your graham cracker pieces and trim up pieces to be used in the roof, you heat 1-2 cups of sugar over low to med heat. Don't stir, don't move the pan, nothing.   It takes about 15-20 minutes but you will have lovely caramelized melted sugar to use for "glue".

You do have to keep a watch on it as it may start to melt too fast and start smoking.  Just move it off the burner and into the garage so you don't set off the fire alarm in the house. :-)

And, remember that the burnt sugar is hotter than fire and will burn the crap out of your fingers.  This is probably better left to adults to do or super responsible teens. 

The sugar turns a lovely brown and is a bit messy to work with. But, it glues those graham cracker pieces together wonderfully. They do not budge, slip or move an inch! 

I still need to run out and get some candy for decorations. M & M's, licorice and a couple can of frosting.  I  constructed enough houses for the neighbor kids to come over and decorate.  I'll post the after-pics when the kids finish them.

Oh, I am passing by Winn Dixie today too.  They have Maxwell House coffee on sale again for $4.99.  You really can't beat that price.  Any savings will be negated by the candy I am buying for the Halloween houses, but that's the way it goes. Lol.

Should be fun for all!