This gingerbread house was inspired by a book written by Aaron Morgan and Paige Gilchrist titled Making Great Gingerbread Houses.
Click here for basic construction procedures.
What I liked about this house were the unusual pieces…the awning was made by baking dough in the half circle pan that I purchased special, then cut smaller into 1/4 of a dome. The front part of the shelves were baked over a soup can lined with parchment paper.
These are all the pattern pieces baked in gingerbread.
For the stone look, I rolled out white fondant and used a bubble mold that imprinted the fondant.
I mixed different stone-like gel colors on a paper plate and used a paper towel to “stain” the fondant.
For the wood grain clock tower, I mixed brown gel color to the white fondant and rolled the the wood stamp onto the thin fondant.
I further colored the indentations with darker brown gel color using a paint brush to make it look like wood. The fondant is attached to the gingerbread cookie with royal icing.
I like to hide “treasures” within the gingerbread houses, so I stacked 20 peppermint-filled chocolate cookies in the clock tower structure. Another construction tip – I assembled the three walls to the clock tower with royal icing and let it dry overnight to become super hard. Then I added the roof the next day – and let it dry overnight before adding any added weight (candy). I propped up the roof using tools and cans so it wouldn’t slip out of place.
As you can see I didn’t make the roof pieces large enough, so I filled in the edges with royal icing. I used Fruit by the Foot for the roof of the clock tower.
I was happy to have Leslie help out for two days of fun (since Garrison couldn’t be there this year). Look at the mess we made! She’s very good at lettering and at creating the tiny little flowers and sweets.
The little platters are Necco wafers and she used Dots for the flower pots.
I put flow icing on the inside walls and let them dry before assembling.
I placed the little lights inside and used royal icing to hold into place. Here is the top view before I added the roof.
Inside the flower shop and sweet shop we used chocolate bars for tables and pretzels for table legs.
The candy cane pole is stable by drilling 1/2 hole into the board underneath and then securing with royal icing. The back view shows a large picture window so you can see inside better. The battery packs for the lights are hiding under rectangular cookies on the sides.
This picture shows the lighting better. Those are chocolate “rocks” in the front with Boston baked beans on the pathway edge.
That’s peanut butter cereal and chocolate cereal puffs around the edges.
The Christmas trees are made from ice cream cones (upside down). I used a utility knife on the sugar cone to make them different sizes.
As always, the best part for my family is eating it!