This Christmas, I really wanted to make a gingerbread house and was inspired by the
one made by Ichigo in the anime
Yumeiro Patissiere. Here's a breakdown of all the different features of the gingerbread house I made:
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| Yumeiro Patissiere's Gingerbread House for Ringo |
House:
The house itself was actually from a prebaked gingerbread house kit I
got from Walmart. It didn't come with a chimney so I baked my own along
with the cookies and "installed" that element.
Roof: The
rainbow at the top of the roof was made with Sixlets, while the pink
border was made with M&Ms. I covered the roof with icing (which was
included in the gingerbread house kit) and attached the cookies and
Sixlet accents.
Chimney: To get the snow on top of the
chimney, I added milk to some of the icing to loosen it up. I then
spooned it on top of the chimney and let it drip down. It's important to
add the milk in tiny increments until you get the proper consistency.
You don't want it to be too thick because it won't drip and you don't
want it too loose because it will flow too much down the chimney. As a
rough gauge, when you spoon and drop a drop of icing into the bowl, it
should take about 8-10 seconds to "melt" back into the rest of the
icing.
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| Yumeiro Patissiere Gingerbread House Roof and Door |
Door: The door was made with a
Biscoff cookie cut into the proper shape. I was going to use a graham
cracker, but since the Biscoff cookies were open, I just used that to
avoid opening another package of cookies. The doorknob was made with a
chocolate chip (with the tip cut off for easier sticking) and the decorative border was made of little bits of
Airheads that were rolled into balls. Airheads don't come in yellow, so I
had to dye the white Airhead with some yellow food coloring. To make
things easier, you can use yellow Starbursts or Laffy Taffy instead. I
thought I still had some at home, but either someone ate them or they
got thrown out so I had to improvise and make my own. You can also use nonpareils, but I only needed a few and didn't want to buy them. Not to mention, Airheads are a whole lot cheaper than nonpareils. :)
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| Yumeiro Patissiere Gingerbread Hose Window |
Window: The window was made just like the door. I used pretzel rods to make the grid pattern.
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| White Chocolate Hello Kitty Figures |
People: I don't have the skill or
patience to make little fondant people so I used white chocolate and my
Hello Kitty ice cube tray to make white chocolate figures. When they
solidified, I used a toothpick to carefully cover the clothing area with
icing. I then added some blue sanding sugar to add some color for the
clothes. I also used melted chocolate to make the eyes.
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| Gingerbread Candy Christmas Tree |
Tree: To make the tree, I first made
a parchment paper cone and stuffed it with extra parchment paper to
make it sturdier. I placed gingerbread around the cone and baked it with
the rest of the cookies. To make the leaves, I flattened some green
gumdrop stars and cut out diamond wedges. When the cookie was cool, I
covered the tree with green icing and adhered the candy wedges. When
that was hardened and dry, I added the red Sixlets for the apples.
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| Wooden Fence for Gingerbread House |
Wooden Fence: To make the wooden fence, I stuck pretzel rods in a marshmallow base and used icing to adhere them all together.
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| Gumball Fence for Gingerbread House |
Gumball Fence: The gumball fence was made with blue and pink gumballs on the same marshmallow base as the wooden fence.
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| Gumball Apples |
Apple Border: The apple border was made with large red gumballs dipped in icing. To make them more stable and not roll around, I shaved off a little bit of the gumballs so there was a flat bottom surface. I stuck a toothpick through the gum part and then dipped them in the loosened icing and then added green Airhead stems before the icing dried.
So there you go! All the different elements of my
Yumeiro Patissiere gingerbread house. It took me several days to complete and cost about $30 to make with all the different candies. Pretty crazy... kinda stressful... but loads of fun! I hope everyone has an Extraordinary Merry Christmas!
