Review: El Peto Gluten Free Gingerbread Kit

Last year we planned to make gingerbread cookies from scratch but unfortunately my daughter and I ended up with the flu, and the gingerbread never got made.

This year I contemplated buying a mix but I decided gingerbread is, in general, a lot of work and with so much going on right now I was afraid to have a repeat of last year.  I also realized I can't find my cookie cutters anyway. :)

I've been aware of El Peto's kit for some time but I'd never seen the kit in person and didn't know where to get it.  El Peto posted on their facebook page that the gingerbread house kits were available at Bulk Barn so I sent my husband to find one.

He called stating that they were $16.99 each - ouch - but typical of gluten free food unfortunately.  After hemming and hawing for all of 30 seconds I decided that the experience of decorating a gingerbread house was worth the cost of the kit.

Here is a picture of the front, and back of the box.  You'll notice it's peanut free.

Here is a picture of the contents of the box:

Overall it was nice to have a pre-made option and I might buy it again for that fact.  The instructions on the package seemed to be a little off because it did take more than 1/4 cup of water to moisten the icing enough to get it all wet in order to mix it.  It was also hard to make my daughter wait 30 minutes after putting the icing into the piping bag before putting it onto the house, as per directions.  It wasn't a big deal but it is something to be aware of if you have little ones who are REALLY EXCITED. lol.

My main complaint about the icing is that it dried quickly and was difficult to use.  As someone who has decorated many birthday cakes, piping icing is not a foreign experience to me but I had a lot of difficulty trying to get this icing to go where it was supposed to and to stay there.  Eventually I grew frustrated and literally just squirted it at random all over the house.  That seemed to work a bit better. lol.

The pieces of the gingerbread house itself did not match up size wise.  It wasn't a big deal overall but one end was much larger than the other making it difficult to hold the house together in general.

Overall we had a great experience assembling the kit and the gingerbread itself is pretty tasty.