Gingerbread House: 2009

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

This may come as a surprise, but this was my first gingerbread house. Unless of course, I did one as a child and don't remember - but this was the first I'd made on my own. We didn't have the family tradition of making gingerbread houses every year like a lot of people, so I sort of took on this challenge with a childlike glee. Well, that and the perspective of a project manager.

I knew I didn't want to do a candy-covered gingerbread house. I'd taken some architecture and design classes a long time ago in college, and I knew that if I could make a model of it, I could construct it out of gingerbread. I felt oddly confident in the face of it, even though it was my first time. I spent several hours looking for the right structure (I wanted to do a bridge but was told it needed to be a house of some sort), and it was down to an igloo and something Asian. I really liked the igloo idea but thought that the roundness might be difficult to manage, so I went for a multiple-story Japanese-inspired building that I'd found on a software design site somewhere. The drawing was made for a video game scene, and you can see the original image in the foreground of the pictures below.

Once I had the structure in mind, I set about to create some models. The first one I did was out of newsprint. I approximated the different pieces I'd need for all the levels (and the two roofs) and taped it together to see if I had the proportions about right. Once I did that, I built a more careful model out of foamcore and stick pins. I assumed (rightly so) that I wouldn't be able to bevel the edges of the gingerbread so it was important for me to see if I could make it stand on its own. After spending a week looking at it, I pulled apart and used the formcore shapes as templates for the gingerbread.

I had been following a lot of the commentary about the two original recipes provided on the Daring Bakers forum and decided I needed to make some adjustments of my own to make this one work. It would be tall and likely very heavy, so the gingerbread would need to be tough and sturdy. I found a recipe in Julia Usher's Cookie Swap that was designed for this kind of heft, and I decided to give it a try. I'm happy I did, it was a dream dough.

Once I got all the pieces baked, I set about assembling. I didn't want to overdo it with candy so I ran to our local Asian market to get supplies. I made the windows out of rice paper, and used nori and pretzels on the roofs. A few Pocky and Piroulines made it onto the landscape, but for the most part you're looking at a lot of royal icing and a little bit of fancy sprinkles. Oh, and stick pins. Just like with the foamcore model, I decided I could use the stickpins to hold things in place while they were drying and remove them afterwards. That worked pretty well, actually - but I found that by the time I'd put so many hours into it I just wanted to burn it down - so I left a few in. I made sure the basic structure could stand on its own, in any case.

In the very end, this didn't quite turn out to be what I had envisioned, but I'm really happy with it. There are pieces that I love. The river, I love. The rocks were completely spontaneous, and they look natural to me. The tree too. The house is pretty good. It's not candy-coated, it was a lot of fun work. I found myself trying to solve these teeny little problems, and before I knew it I'd spent 6 - 7 hours a night tinkering. Just before I placed the final piece on top I noticed that the lower roof had collapsed - but nobody else I showed could tell. Guess that was a success, then.

I promised T that if I made a gingerbread house, he could destroy it when I was done. Next week we're taking it in the backyard and placing it on the firepit where it will meet its destiny.

PS: Turned out there was a burn ban the week I wanted to burn the house, so I let the dog destroy it instead.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

More Info

• Add new comment
• Printer-friendly version