Make a cute house out of tennis biscuits

Are you looking for a fun activity to do with the kids? They’ll have a blast decorating a delicious cookie house. While you can use any cookies to make the structure of your house sturdy, we’ve opted to use tennis biscuits. It’s a good idea to ice the biscuits together in the morning and decorate it later in the day. This allows the “walls” and roof to “cure” so they’re a little stronger.

Ingredients for the structure

• 200g packet Tennis biscuits
• 1½ cups of sweets like Smarties, Jelly Tots, or Astros

For the icing

• 1 1/3 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 1 egg white
• ½ tsp lemon juice

Method

1. For the icing, beat together all the ingredients until light and fluffy. The icing should have the consistency of toothpaste. If it’s too stiff, add more lemon juice. If it’s too runny, add more icing sugar. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a small, round nozzle.
2. Use the icing to “glue” a biscuit onto a 10cm square cake board to make the floor of the house. Pipe a thick strip of icing onto two opposite sides of the biscuit and stick two biscuits onto the floor to make the walls. Prop the walls up with two glasses, if necessary, to prevent them from falling over before the icing has dried. Repeat with three more houses. Set aside for about one hour to harden.
3. Pipe a thick strip of icing on the top of the two walls. Glue two biscuits together to create a roof and balance on the two walls to form a house. Repeat with the other three houses. Set aside to harden for two hours. Decorate as desired using the sweets and icing.

Top tip

• Store these houses in an airtight container. They will keep indefinitely but will lose their crunch after a few days.
• Dust icing sugar over the houses to look like snow.