A few days ago a friend asked me about the Gingerbread house in the post below...
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| here's what you saw... |
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| ...and here's what you didn't! |
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| Erecting the walls |
That’s
right, I admit it, I cheated and used a (gasp!) pre-baked kit. This included a (near
useless) cardboard base, four gingerbread ‘walls’ and two ‘roof’ pieces, an
industrial quantity of icing and some sweets to decorate. The first thing I did
was ditch the flimsy base in favour of a solid cake board and replace the
garish sweets with some tubes of my favourite treats, Jelly Tots and Fruit
Pastilles. Next I mixed up a small amount of the icing adding water a little at
a time until I achieved a stiff, toothpaste-like consistency. Assembling the
house was the trickiest part of the project so I tackled it in several stages. First
I applied a line of icing with a pallet knife to the edges of the walls and
attached them to the front and back of the house, tidying up any icing that
squashed out with a clean knife for a neat finish. I left the base to set for a
couple of hours before attaching the roof in the same way. I joined one side
under the other rather than at the edges for extra stability (using what I’m reliably
informed is a butt joint rather than
a mitre joint- see I told you there
was engineering involved!).
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| Creating a lattice work roof |
Now
for the fun part- the decoration! I mixed up some more icing and filled the
piping bag provided, I didn’t like idea of just spreading the roof with icing
so I piped a series of straight lines at 45 degree angles creating a pretty
lattice effect. Where the lines intersected I put a Jelly Tot. Around the edges
of the roof and walls I piped a series of dots, applying even pressure then pulling sharply up and
away leaving a little point. I created the icicles that line the bottom of the roof
using a similar technique only pulling down and away more slowly to form an
elongated tip. This step is a little tricky so it's a good idea to practice first.
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| Decorating the front & back |
I
created the front and back of the house by roughly sketching out the design I
wanted and transferring it freehand to the gingerbread. I drew the windows and
doors applying steady, even pressure to the piping bag and finished them off
with a mixture of Jelly Tots and Fruit Pastilles. Around the base of the house
I piped some more dots and stuck Jelly Tots around the base, I finished the
whole thing off with a light dusting of icing sugar through a sieve. And it was
as arduous simple as that! Now for the totally gratuitous 360 degree
photos!
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| Ta-da! |
