This years Gingerbread House stands over 12 inches tall and features 3 dimensional shutters on cathedral-style windows, two brick chimneys, a covered front porch complete with stairs and potted plants! The little fence and peppermint stick posts are the finishing touches that tie the house together.
For a holiday look I added wreaths to all the windows by baking rounds of dough and gluing on colored sunflower seeds and silver dragee balls with lots of royal icing. The window panes are made of crushed butterscotch candies that are baked right into the cut out dough.
The entire house is sprinkled with powdered sugar for snow and lots of glitter for sparkle. This house took two days to construct: First Day: bake all the pieces and start decorating. Second Day: construction and finishing touches. Here is a link to last years Gingerbread House for comparison. This years house is based on the basic template of last years house with different windows, front porch and extra 3 dimensional touches, all thanks to my Dad's great construction skills. Here is a link to my very first Gingerbread House. Happy Holidays to everyone and thanks so much for looking at my posts!
You can find all the info on how to make the gingerbread houses here: http://goodiesbyanna.typepad.com/blog/2009/12/gingerbread-house-how-tos.html
The icing is called Royal Icing and is a combination of meringue powder, water and powdered sugar. This icing can be made very thick and is used to glue the house together as well as the decorations. Good Luck!
To: asarpieri@hotmail.com
Posted by: Goodies By Anna | 12/29/2012 at 11:46 AM
Amazing! I make lots of gingerbread, never made my own house before though, this has given me the kick up the bum i need to make one! Is the white icing just icing sugar and water? anyway of getting it thicker?
Posted by: Jen | 12/29/2012 at 05:55 AM
Thanks Cindy! This was my third gingerbread house so a lot of the building kinks got worked out this time...cant wait to come up with one for next year, my dad is a great gingerbread architect!
To: asarpieri@hotmail.com
Posted by: Goodies By Anna | 02/20/2011 at 05:37 PM
Wow! Amazing.
Posted by: cindy harris | 02/19/2011 at 05:16 PM