It’s become a tradition of mine to make a gingerbread house every Christmas season. As usual, I turned to Teresa Layman’s books Gingerbread for All Seasons and Gingerbread: Things to Make and Bake for templates and inspiration. This is what I ended up with:
Below is the back:
The fondant snowman is all edible except for the toothpick as his nose.
To make the icicles, use a #2 piping tip and use flood icing. For the recipe see here.
Begin at the roofline and pipe a enough of a bead of icing so that it adheres, then squeeze and pull. Let go of the pressure when you’re happy with the length of the icicle and gently pull down.
I made the back and interior of the the house a bit more whimsical with royal icing ‘run-outs’ or ‘flood-work’. {Basically royal icing piped on parchment paper or acetate paper. If you’d like to use acetate paper, make sure you lightly coat it with shortening/lard}.
As usual, I couldn’t resist using disco dust
The inside was pretty basic with a Christmas tree, candy gifts and some sticker-inspired flood work.
I seem to get a lot of questions regarding the trees every year. They’re so simple to make!
Begin with ice cream cones of any size. Various sizes look nice as well. You can gently break your cones or stack them to make the ‘trees’ larger or smaller.
You’ll need to use a thick or stiff icing for the trees. I used Teresa Layman’s
Holding the cone by the tip, pipe stiff green ‘stars’ using a #18 tip. Any star or leaf tip works really and you can pipe small, tight stars or larger, longer ones. Whatever your preference. Begin at the base, piping one row at a time, and work your way upwards until you almost reach the top.
Since you need a place to grip the cone, stop piping near the tip and let the icing dry. Once it is firm, you can gently hold on to the bottom of the tree and finish the rest. Voila!
This tree has a little bit of icing sugar dusted over it as well.
I did end up entering the house into my first competition.
Every year our local museum holds a Gingerbread House Competition to raise money for Christmas Cheer - a charity for local families in need.
I ended up with silver in the professional category, representing the school where I teach and Sweetopia.
First prize went to Cakes by Design with their adorable house and figurines.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the award ceremony as I was in class with Peggy Porschen, but I was able to get a few shots of the other houses when I delivered my house. I loved Whoville and so many of the unique ideas!
Happy gingerbreading if you decide to make one this year!
xo,
Marian
I love this site, I am 14, and I used some of your amazing ideas for my Christmas Gingerbread house, instead of Christmas colours, I used light pastels
Thanks
@ Bella: I love it! You’re welcome to post a pic on my Facebook fan page if you’d like. I’d love to see it.
So glad to hear from you!
How did you make the bushes on the window ledges?
@ karli: I used little holly sprinkles and adhered them with royal icing, using tweezers.
I absolutely love the houses!
hey the houses look so kool!!!
but how did you do the ledges on the doors!!???
Hi@ gemma: Do you mean the holly sprinkles on the windows? Or do you mean the lines on the doors? Those were done before the dough was baked. I used a knife to ‘score’ the lines into the dough, and then baked it. Voila!
Hi, the gingerbread houses look so amazing, and I love how you did your trees! This is the first time on this site and I will SO visit it again:) Thank u!
Beautiful, what a nice custom to do. Is the house after the holidays still eatable??? Do the houses actually get to be eaten?
Thanks @ Kelsey. =)
@ claudia: Lol. So true, often times the houses are left uncovered for weeks, and the gingerbread gets hard and stale. Still okay if you dunk it in hot chocolate like I did as a child, but not the best I’m sure!
If you’d like to eat it, the best thing to do is to wrap it up in cellophane right after the icing has dried. Here’s a photo of houses wrapped up:
http://sweetopia.net/2009/11/bombay-sapphire-gin-gingerbread-houses/
And whether or not they get eaten, well that’s up to the person who recieves them. =)
I can’t tell you how much I love looking at your gingerbread houses~ they are perfect! I am inspired to do another one this Christmas…in 8 months
Thanks for sharing!!
I know this is an old post but I am IN LOVE with the whoville gingerbread village. I want to try that one next christmas for my son. Please can you do a tutorial or tell me where you got the ideas I saw two books listed above.