18 3 / 2012
It’s been a few weeks since I posted. This is a quick little cottage I did to test out some new plans, blueprints and recipes. I’m also putting it through a little “crash-test” to see how durable some things are – so I didn’t spend too much time obsessing over the decorations and details. But I think I may use this same house plan to do a little Easter bunny cottage.
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07 3 / 2012
Recipe Experiments
For the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with different gingerbread recipes. The things I’m trying to achieve are maximum durability (duh), minimal spreading while baking, and better adherence of icing to the baked pieces. One of my favorite recipes has always been the one from Gingerbread for All Seasons - it’s super simple, rolls out easily, and stores beautifully. But the dough spreads out a fair bit in the oven which can create complications for certain structures. It’s seeming like substituting some vegetable shortening for the margarine helps reduce the spreading - but might make it a little harder to work with. Currently, this is the recipe variation I am working with:
EverythingIsGinger Test Recipe
6 ½ cups flour
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ginger
1 tbsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
¾ cups light corn syrup
¾ cups dark corn syrup
1 ¼ cups light brown sugar
½ cup Crisco® vegetable shortening
½ cup margarine
Mix dry ingredients. Combine margarine, shortening, corn syrup, and brown sugar in a large saucepan on the stove until margarine is melted. In mixer, add sugar mixture to dry ingredients. Roll out on parchment paper to 1/8 inch thickness. Bake for approx 15 minutes or until dark-golden brown at 350 degrees. (I lean towards overcooking a tiny bit to make it a little tougher)
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24 2 / 2012
I’m thinking about doing a Gingerbread Junk House as a future project. Think it would be cool to do one with lots of old trash and crap – or maybe crawling with cats. These are just some images I have been pulling for inspiration. They are all beautiful in a lonely kind of way. 1. Abandoned Blue House, 2. Old House in Tennesse, 3. Houston Texas Old Ward, 4. Old Green House, 5. Old White House, 6. Old Shack with Bird House
25 1 / 2012
Beautiful bird cookies. This is making me rethink my plans for the birds on my Gingerbread Lovebirds’ House. Hmmmm….
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24 1 / 2012
The Gingerbread LoveBirds’ House - minus the birds. Birds are being hatched.
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23 1 / 2012
The Gingerbread Lovebirds’ House is built, and now I am starting work on the gumpaste birds. So I found a few amazing examples of avian-inspired cakes - all so different and all so awesome. But, ugh….all this culinary talent annoying.
Olivia the Owl Cake from Case de Cupcakes, Birdhouse Cake from MyCakeSchool.com., Gumpaste Dove Cake, and Birdhouse Cake by Highland Bakery.
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17 1 / 2012
I’ve been looking for examples of awesome fondant and gumpaste birds. At the moment there is quite a population of Angry Birds online, but not as many “real” birds. These are a few examples I found – and as much as I love the über-realistic ones I think I am trying to do slightly more stylized, cuter birds for my Gingerbread LoveBirds’ House. Wilton gives a nice little tutorial on the first blue bird shown – I think you could use this as a starting place to build other birds too.
