My Inspiration

After searching the internet for hours with no luck, I played with the notion of just doing something simple and easy. So, I opened up my gingerbread house book and found nothing that really caught my eye. In frustration, I jumped back on the internet, and within seconds, I found the house. My perfect gingerbread house.

It was a cookie reconstruction of the Haunted Manor, a haunted house in Disneyland Paris, and it had been created by a man named Ray Keim. He had gone all out with details, creating an amazing haunted gingerbread house, though instead of gingerbread, he used sugar cookie dough with extra flour, and brown coloring paste. (Which he claimed had better consistancy, but I decided to use gingerbread instead anyway...) Below is a picture of his haunted manor.

        I absolutely LOVED how cute it was, and was tempted to create a haunted gingerbread house, but decided against it once I browsed through his gallery of pictures of the replicas people had made, and found numerous and equally fascinating houses that were decorated as just simple gingerbread houses. And as if the house weren't fascinating enough, Keim had broken down the instructions into easy to read diagrams so you could know exactly what you were doing every step of the way. :)

       So now that I had my idea, it was time to start the tedious measuring and baking stage of gingerbread house making. Since I didn't have access to a printer, I had to shrink the instructions by a certain percentage, actually use a ruler and measure the peices on my computer screen, and then multiply it so it would come out at twice the size it was on my computer. After that, it was two hours dedicated to measuring and cutting out all of my patterns on graph paper and recruiting my boyfriend, Matt, to help me make over three big batches of gingerbread.

                The next day was all about cutting the gingerbread and baking it. (Which, if you have ever made a semi-complicated gingerbread house, is without a doubt an all day affair.) All the pieces seemed well measured, and things were looking up. Now it was just assembly (UGH), and after that, it would be decorating (the best part!).



Here's an introduction to the mayhem... :)

         For the past 5 years or so, my step mom's family has had a tradition of getting together for the holidays and creating gingerbread houses, and though I have only had the privilege of joining them for the past two years, it didn't take long for me to get completely hooked to the process.
       The first year, I was completely overwhelmed. Everyone seemed to know exactly what they were doing and all the talk of patterns, blueprints, fondant, and roofing material seemed to fly straight over my head, so when I was handed a book full of different kinds of houses, I instantly picked the most simple house I saw and hoped I could keep up with everyone else. Once the day arrived though, I found that it was a fun, creative way to celebrate Christmas. My gingerbread house turned out lovely and I counted down the days until the next year, when I could challenge myself and try something a little harder.
        So the next year rolled around (which would be last year) and I had my very own book of gingerbread creations. (Many thanks to Jan Ferguson for a wonderful Christmas gift.) I flipped through it, picked the biggest, most difficult gingerbread house I saw and had at it. Instantly, however, I was burdened with rolling and cutting tons of dough, and rushed through it, not taking the time to properly measure everything or make sure thre dough was even. That resulted in numerous complications in piecing the walls together, and even MORE complications with getting the roof to stay. Eventually, the walls were stuck together with about a POUND of frosting, and the roof was held up with a wooden stick. (Not to mention the can of beans I accidently left inside of my gingerbread house after I put the roof on.)
        Now it's that time of year again, and I've decided that I am going to put everything I have into the details of this gingerbread house. I did alot of looking online and I found the perfect house (which I will elaborate on in the next post) and you can join me on my triumphs (and failures) of creating this years gingerbread house. :) Below are a few pictures from the house I made last year...