The GingerBread House 2023

 

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas around here. The photo above is of our lobby where this week the area will be filled with folding chairs and an a keyboard will be moved in front of the window on the right for several musical events on the calendar. The space is bigger than it looks in this photo and will hold 75 of us, mostly behind the gray sofa and off to the left. The door you see in far left leads to our activities room and the building you see through the window on the right is where I live. It's not much of a walk and the sidewalk is heated but this time of the year I prefer to walk across the underground parking garage to get over to this part of the campus. The piazza between these two buildings in like a wind tunnel coming off the lake and taking the outside route in the winter calls for a comb and a coat that I don't want to bother with. Way too many people in my building go across without a coat but, in my opinion, that's just asking for trouble should you fall or forget your key. A coat isn't going to prevent you from falling or getting locked out but it will keep you from freezing to death while you're waiting for help to arrive. Someone falls here in the independent the living buildings every week.

Time to get down to business and that business, today, is to do a show-and-tell on the gingerbread house that I built for the contest this year. I started buying candy before we got the kits and that was a mistake because the kits the management provided were smaller this year so I over bought. The first thing I acquired was a jar of tiny cupcake candy which was my inspiration for the theme and color scheme for what I'm calling the Cupcake Cottage. 

Before the kits arrived I built the platform for the base using two thicknesses of cardboard covered with freezer paper that I use to protect my drafting table when I do art projects. If I'm smart I'll save the base for next year's house because it was time consuming starting with tracking down a box, cutting out what I needed, taping two layers together, breaking the rest of the box down and taking it to the recycling room.

The kit and the base.

I got the bright idea that is would be easier to decorate the gingerbread house before I assembled it. But that turned out to be giant mistake because the weight of the taffy I put on the roof made it impossible to keep the roof sections in place while the frosting dried. So ended up taking the heavy taffy off and replacing it with some disassembled candy spikes that were made out of marshmallow-like disks.

With the taffy.

Second attempt without the taffy

Finally, I got the roof to stay in place but I cut down some candy canes to use for posts on the four corners of the roof to help support the weight. I didn't trust the Royal Icing to hold the roof on. It was another bright idea of mine to use Royal Icing instead of the stuff that came with the kit because I forgot to factor in the fact that I've never used it before and I wasn't sure how quickly it sets up. Thankfully, I made it in small batches and by the time I was finished I could see why my great-niece loves working with it. She makes the most beautiful cookies, better than the professional ones you pay $4 a piece for. 

The candy spike in the front of the above photo is what I ended up using for the roof but before that I had the bright idea that I could make the spikes and candy canes stand up and tower over the house by inserting them in a half a potato but the potatoes kept weeping and the frosting wouldn't set up underneath or on them.

Above is the front of the house and below is the backside. That snowman is a Peeps. I bought two packs and used just the one guy. I bought Peeps Christmas trees, too, but the color was too bright for the rest of the candy so I used ice cream cones. I did put a Peeps tree inside the house that is visible through the partly open door.

You can see the roof supports good in this photo of the back.

This is the side yard and those are pretzels for the windows. I saved some from last year's house project so I wouldn't have to buy another bag for just six 'panes'. They make cute and quick windows.

View from the top.

Those gummy worms are what I planned to used whole on a bigger house kit but I ended up cutting them up to use for siding bits and on the peak of the roof. The sidewalk is Necco's broken up with crushed shredded wheat used to fill in the cracks...the latter saved from last year's house so I didn't have to buy more cereal just for a teaspoon full.

I'm disappointed in the way this house turned out---mostly with the roof because I couldn't get the messed-up frosting under the heavy taffy off to start completely over. The Art Professor did a bombed out house in the Gaza Strip. My writing group friend took first place last year and stepped up his game this year by adding lights inside the house, sugar spun window panes and a swimming pool outside. No way can I beat him, but that's okay. He's very creative and a purist.

Speaking of being a purist, I had hoped this year they'd go by traditional gingerbread rules that everything has to be eatable. Again, they didn't have any rules other than we're not supposed to reveal who made what so it doesn't become a popularity contest. But it comes out. When we deliver our houses we have to go through the lobby where someone always sees and tells. One contestant is obsessed with the fact that we don't have to sign our ballots. She thinks someone will stuff the ballot box voting for their own house. And let me just say that that's the only way her house could win. She used yarn for the siding on the house and buttons on the roof. The roof is sitting on next to the house, unattached and off to the side because she, too, was having trouble get the frosting to hold so she named her creation Tornado House. 

Building the houses is about so much more than just the final results. Yes, it's a friendly competition. But it's also about the conversations we have during the planning stage when we bounce ideas and tips off each other. It's about the houses being on display and everyone trying to figure out what ingredients were used---Golden Grams, sugar cubes and coffee grounds to name a few that were new this year.  I'm predicting I'll take second place. Again. Third place---I'm guessing---will once again be the chefs' gingerbread house even though their window trim is falling off and piling up around the base of the house which just goes to show even the professionals can't always judge the holding power of Royal Icing.

Until Next Wednesday. ©