Gingerbread House Decorating...a la Surfas

Americas - USA West Los Angeles
#1

In previous years, a treasured family tradition was to book a spot with @Les_Surfas store for their Gingerbread Decorating party. For a super reasonable fee, we’d get a fresh-baked (and pretty delicious) blank house to use as a canvas. The store would not only provide all the icing/frosting, but copious amounts of candy and decorations…in addition to snacks and refreshments for the families. Since Surfas is not an option this year, does anyone know of an experience similar to this? I’m getting to that point in life where my kids are quickly getting older and this may be one of the few solid ways to spend some quality holiday time before they ditch our house for greener pastures…so something like this still appeals to them.
Also, before the fun/judgement police shows up…I have zero desire to bake and construct my own gingerbread house in addition to building the icing/frosting and decorations. That would make the experience considerably less fun for me, so decorating parties/classes need only apply.

Thanks!

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#2

Do you do it for the decorating part, or do you want something you can eat later? I know you said classes only, but I buy the gingerbread house kit from Costco. The house is already prebaked, and it comes with bags of royal icing. It’s a decent sized house too. You use the icing to glue the house together, and all the icing and candies are included for decorating. They are around $10/kit, and I buy two, so my nephews come over too and we have a little gingerbread house decorating party. They take one home and we keep the other.

We don’t eat the houses though, so I can’t speak for the taste.

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#3

@boogiebaby The Surfas one was good enough to eat a week later on Christmas Day. It was extraordinarily fun to do something together as a family, but really the biggest bonus was the house was delicious enough to have with some hot cocoa or caramel apple cider Christmas morning as we were all waiting for breakfast. I feel like I may be asking for a needle in a haystack because the $40 Surfas experience was like no other.

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#4

Are you in the OC? A high-end (I assume) cooking school in Santa Monica offers some holiday-themed classes (none for gingerbread houses, though), so perhaps a local cooking school might offer something similar?

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#5

Gloria’s on Culver Blvd in Del Rey might be worth calling.

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#6

Thanks, @paranoidgarliclover! Distance is okay so long as it’s about a 30 minute drive from home (excluding traffic). I wouldn’t mind coming into the city as part of the adventure with the kids.

#7

Check out Williams-Sonoma. A friend went a couple years ago and it sounds like a similar experience.

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