In The Gingerbread Book by Alan D. Bragdon (available at my local library) lies a pattern that is perfect for a Gingerbread Turkey Centerpiece for Thanksgiving.
For those of you not quite ready to embrace the CHRISTMAS spirit (BECAUSE THANKSGIVING IS A HOLIDAY THAT COMES FIRST!) this might be a wonderful gingerbread/craft option to tackle.
I made the turkey in 2012. I think I was sick and bored out of my mind at home, so I decided to craft (and I washed my hands a lot and didn't hack on the gingerbread).
I loved this little turkey. The pattern is smaller, so it's not a huge project. It's not intimidating either, so it's a nice place to start if you're new to gingerbread.
It's also a great way to use up some Halloween Candy...if you don't want to eat it all for some reason...
Here's what I made:
I had extra gingerbread dough, so I made the pumpkin cookies.
I also didn't really have a base in mind that was small enough for this turkey (like I said, I just got this idea while home on a sick day) so you can see I only covered part of it with ground animal crackers left over from our 2012 Halloween House. You're supposed to be looking at the turkey anyway :-)
Everywhere we go with our pieces, someone asks, "Do you sell those?" or "I wish someone would teach me how to build a gingerbread house."
Our friends, naturally, asked too.
Below are some photos of early instruction when we collaborated to build 1 house in an all-day start-to-finish venture that is messy and fun.
I first worked with my friend's daughter. We made a suburban split level.
She was so nervous it would fall! But our creation was a success under Gingerbuilder guidance. I love the roof and fence!
Next, I created with a coworker. She wanted SNOW. LOTS OF SNOW. I
don't know why we even bothered putting cereal on the roof. :-)
This one was so scary to deliver to her house. It weighed a ton and we thought it would break! But it held together; so much so that her family couldn't break it after the holidays with just their fists!
Lots of creative candy-work in this house. Check out the cute mailbox!
Gingerbread building is also a time-honored family tradition. So I introduced it to my family too. My niece, sister-in-law, and mother built this festive chalet.
Check out the mess on the table. Gingerbread building can get very messy.
I love the red and green theme going on here.
and that snowman just cracks me up. Too cute!
Building a house can take several days or weeks if you go at it alone. We find it's so much more fun (and time efficient) to work with friends and family. It makes the time fly and makes your holidays memorable.
Gingerbuilders is currently working on a 2-3 hour Party Plan that offers each guest the chance to decorate a personal house and learn about the process without the mess and fuss of going at it all on your own. Please contact us if you have ideas!
For better specifics on how to build a gingerbread house, please check out our other blog posts.
Also, don't forget to follow us via email or other method. Thanks for reading!
~Steph
You spend hours days designing and creating your gingerbread masterpieces.
Now what?
Erin already told you how we feel about the edibility. So, do you do it? Do you eat it? Do you give it away and let somebody else decide?
This Gingerbuilder (Stephanie) has 20-30 hungry third graders that delight in destroying and devouring our pieces every year.
Faces were blurred to protect the innocent, so please pardon the creepy children photos to follow.
So what do YOU do with your gingerbread creations?
Better yet, what can WE do? If you have fun ideas on how we should lay our art to rest, let us know! We want to make a video montage of gingerbread houses being destroyed. That's the best way for holiday fun!
Share your ideas via comment or email! and don't forget to subscribe for more gingerbread antics and general baking tutorials to come!
Now that competition season is over, I’m here to offer you
an insight into the makings of our “Christmas Came to WhoVille” house.My lovely partners had a hilarious night of “brainstorming”
on the theme of our first competition: WhoVille.I, unfortunately, left my phone at my sister’s
the night before and missed every message regarding the “brainstorming” evening
(mostly just drinking wine and eating cheeses).SOOOO, the creative credit really must go to those two. They wanted an alternative to the boring, overdone though adorable, traditional scene
from WhoVille, and came up with a play on words that I absolutely love. We
split the houses for baking this year. Steph baked the “Who Dey” house using
the humidity proof gingerbread recipe.
Erin baked “The Who Chalet” using her traditional gingerbread
recipe.
I used the humidity proof recipe for the “Doctor Who’s
T.A.R.D.I.S.” and about lost my mind doing so. The dough was so dry that it would NOT come
together. Stephanie had the same problem. We each added more honey and a small
amount of water to make it work. I waited to do the curved pieces at Steph’s because
they tend to break in transport when they aren’t assembled (Okay, I tend to break
them! We’ve already covered that.)
The really cool thing is that we were able to use the baked
pieces to curve the gingerbread exactly how it needed to be.
We even trimmed the gingerbread while it was still hot to
the exact size we needed.
We bought all our baked pieces to Stephanie’s and proceeded
to destroy her kitchen. I made a batch
of marshmallow fondant, a process that will get its own blog post later. We
covered each house in fondant this year, a first for the Gingerbuilders. Steph
and Erin took some cake decorating classes this fall and learned some useful
tips; like mixing fondant with gumpaste to make it dry harder and wearing gloves
while coloring fondant to prevent your hands from getting stained.
* Something we learned this year, if you cover the pieces in
fondant, you need to allow for the extra thickness of the pieces. I would say
it added about a ¼ inch to the thickness. This affected the T.A.R.D.I.S.construction the most.
We wanted to make a snowy mountain behind the town.
We went
through 4 batches of Rice Krispy treats!
We wanted to use Rice Krispy treats for the Christmas tree
in the town center, but we ran out.
Necessity being the mother
of all invention, we mixed shredded wheat with the marshmallow and voila:
Christmas Tree!
You may remember the marshmallow in the microwave video we
posted a few weeks back. That was from this gingerbuilding day.We used a few new candies this year, the best
and most delicious being Nerd Rope!
We used Winterfresh gum on the windows of
the T.A.R.D.I.S., which had a very intense fresh smell.
We made
tiny Christmas trees by covering Bugles, of all things, with a leaf tip. It
turns out they are not just for making scary fingers and snacking, anymore.
We
used the leaf tip on the big tree, as well. Then, we covered it with tiny candy canes and a melted yellow
Starbust star. We used mint lifesavers to create wreathes for our town.
We love
adding little details;
like a pile of undecorated wreathes and candy canes next to
the tree as if the Who’s are still decorating,
street signs to other towns,
and a bow tie and fez to our Doctor "Who."
We are really proud of this year’s creation, I hope you
enjoy it! If you have any questions about materials or methods we used, feel
free to comment. Just because Christmas is almost here, doesn't mean we are done until next year. Make sure you subscribe to our blog to hear more of our antics and helpful tips.
It seems to be one of the more controversial topics amongst gingerbreaders... make it strong, or make it edible.
Personally, I'm of the mind that gingerbread houses should be both completely edible and completely delicious. They should smell like nutmeg and cinnamon and ginger. You should have to fight the temptation to break off a piece and surreptitiously pop it into your mouth. Edible on a technicality doesn't cut it for me.
But the competition circuit is a little different. I respect that it's different, and we'll play by the rules, but there is something so charming about a slightly lopsided, piled with icing and obnoxiously colored candy, spicy smelling gingerbread house.
Is it impressive that people can make such realistic creations using edible substances? Heck yeah it is! But is my 4 year old son going to want to eat a piece of salt dough held together with tylose? Probably not.
As a team, I'd say Ginger Builders strives to strike that perfect balance between beautiful and edible (see Stephanie's peppermint creation!) With the exception of a few elements in a few of our creations (wrought iron fencing made of dried pasta, for example) or creations have always been traditional gingerbread, perfectly edible, and perfectly charming.
So what do you think? Where do you stand on the Great Gingerbread Debate?
Gingerbuilders had lots of peppermint candies, so I decided to put them to good use and decorate a house using only peppermint (and a smidgen of candy wafers.)
This gave us brilliant ideas for themed houses. More on that to come.
I was fortunate enough to get a snow day from work on a Friday, so I occupied my day mixing dough, letting it rest, then later rolling and building.
Meanwhile, I set to work giving my house some siding. I had all of the tools I needed...
In talking with the other Gingerbuilders, we decided to use candy windows from here out. The surface of melted candy is smoother than cut gingerbread. Plus, then the windows really glow! I put a Christmas tree inside the windows of this house, but it's not easy to see.
The swirly peppermint Christmas Tree was a great find! And the peppermint path made a LOT of noise in my blender, but I think it's quite welcoming.
Another seasonal candy win was the snowman who greets you at the door.
I like pumpkin as much as the next guy. I LOVE my mother's pumpkin pie. I like pumpkin bread with walnuts. I made a pretty tasty pumpkin pasta sauce this year with sage and browned butter. (Versions are all over Pinterest.) But I started to get overwhelmed when social media truly showed me my pumpkin options. We can make ANYTHING pumpkin.
Now, when I search pinterest or instagram for #gingerbread, I see the same inundation of holiday flavors. But pumpkin was *soo* last month. It's time for the new holiday!
Gingerbread has a long history. I'm glad to see it re-invented, and apparently trending. But sometimes, I like my cheesecake to taste like cheesecake, or my coffee to taste like coffee...sometimes.
Other times, I do appreciate the holiday treats. I haven't ordered a gingerbread latte...yet...but it will happen. I've accepted this.
I've always had different hobbies. From dollhouses to archeology, I've
just always had interests that were a little different from most people I
know. I was incredibly lucky that my parents always encouraged these
unique hobbies though. In the 7th grade, they bought me a beautiful doll
house kit (the doll house still proudly sits in my dining room to this
day). They didn't talk me out of studying archaeology in college. And
when I got the crazy idea one Christmas that I wanted to build a
gingerbread house, rather than saying "maybe some other time" the bought
me a book, The Encyclopedia of Gingerbread, and my dad even helped me
create my very first template.
So a few years ago when my friend Stephanie mentioned that she wanted to
learn how to make a gingerbread house I very enthusiastically agreed to
help her learn! I remember being really impressed with the design she
picked for her first house. There were lots of little accents and
special touches she had wanted to add. It was so much fun having one of
my best friends creating this delicious, little masterpiece with me!
Even better was the next day when our friend Megan wanted to join in on
the fun so we just went ahead and made another house.
We're all incredibly humble, so after congratulating ourselves on our
talent and creativity, we decided we couldn't wait another year to
collaborate to build another house. So we made The February House which
celebrated many of the forgotten, non-Christmasy winter holidays. There
were a few more creations before we decided, after only a year of
gingerbreading together, to submit a house to an ACTUAL gingerbread
competition. We came in 2nd place at our very first competition with our
beautiful "Luster of Midday on Objects Below". I was very pregnant, and
very tired for the creation of "Luster", but Megan and Stephanie had
learned so much, they really took the reigns for that project. I wasn't
the teacher any longer... we were teammates.
The truly incredible thing about our trio...each of us has our own
strengths and weaknesses. We each have a unique perspective. Megan has
such an eye for detail and a steady hand that can bring that detail to
life. Stephanie had this innate ability to visualize an entire project
from start to finish. I'd like to think that I'm "the idea person" but I
can't claim that exclusively... so let's just say I'm the comic relief
;-)
The three of us together have managed to work together remarkably well
and still have so much fun together. I hope you all enjoy going on this
journey with us.
and second place is what our 2011 castle received at our local gingerbread competition. The theme for the year was "Winter Wonderland". We went with the wonder theme and created a castle. Lots of silver, lots of shiny, and titled the piece "The Luster of Midday on Objects Below."
We were beat out by an "Alice in Winter Wonderland" clever creation. It was sloppy, but had good sugar work. (Erin can talk more about our competitor later.) :-)
Keep in mind how clever the judges thought the play on the theme was. This will come in VERY handy when we reveal our 2013 entry...
This year was the first year we covered our gingerbread in anything. We covered it in icing, then dusted it with pulverized blue sprinkles and sugar.
We also lined everything with icing stars. Pretty pretty. Stylized and Whimsical are our two favorite words.
This was a rainy and muggy year. We had to wait a LONG time for the icing to dry. We also melted (I think jolly ranchers) for the windows. This was different. By the time of the competition, they had melted off. Note to self: stick to clear peppermint candy or butterscotch.
This was also the first time we really used fondant. Erin hates the taste, so we (Megan) made a yummy marshmallow fondant, which we used to cover round rice krispy treat towers. (We hadn't quite mastered round baking gingerbread yet.)
Turrets are clearly ice cream cones sprayed with Chef Duff's edible silver spray.
As the icing queen (NOT ice queen) I added little candles.
We melted jolly ranchers again and some clear peppermint (sugar free, oddly enough) candy in aluminum foil to make our lake. Over that, we built our sweet covered bridge. This is the same bridge from our Greedo house, and we just loved it so much! I would expect to see it appear again and again in our pieces.
The roof snowflakes are a German candy. Their texture is something like Jesus wafers in church. Always keep your eyes open for new and creative treats!
The tree is rice krispy treats covered in that pulverized sugar and silver spray. I really like the look of it.
We also made a different tree, just so show how creative we could be. :-)
We decided to make the horses 2-D and curved warm gingerbread straight from the oven to form the carriage.
Megan's talent molded us an adorable snowman from Marzipan. He, too, started to melt from humidity by the time of the competition, but we held it together.
Placing second in our first competition is definitely something we're proud of. I can't wait to try a more detailed castle plan!
I love our Gingerbuilder Team!
