How to win Gingerbread Houses
The smell of gingerbread is a wonderful part of Christmas, and the gingerbread house is a festive centerpiece, second only to the tree, in many homes. Few people know that they are easy to do.
I have won prizes in our gingerbread contest for many years. In the year, my creation won the leadership. Even husband and son share the risk of bodily harm, and my son always wins second or third place, even though he has an unfortunate habit of eating all the best candles and most of the gum for decorations.
I will share with you ways to prevent gingerbread house display, even if you think you have. no talent or cooking or art.
I Write these tips with competitions in mind, but you can use these ideas when making gingerbread houses for your home or friends too .
This is not an article about how to bake gingerbread houses, but – an article sharing ideas about winning gingerbread contests.
One reason:
When you make ginger for the competition, you don’t have to worry about the taste. Gingerbread is not eaten; it’s a show But the ginger-bread houses are often tinned. So don’t worry about making the flavor home in the competition, but keep it in mind in family and . For example, many people are tired of black licorice, but it is a very useful tool for competitions. Flat rectangular pieces of gum work well as bars, but they really don’t taste as good with a piece of gingerbread. Flavor in mind only for a homemade gingerbread creation.
The following questions and answers will help you to make your home attractive:
What is the best Gingerbread Recipe?
For competitions, strong walls are a must, so the best recipe is one that you can handle but that is baked on a rock. – hard No one on the internet can trigger a more sad one. Stay away from anything that has lots of butter, oil, sour cream, or eggs as ingredients. Gingerbread too soft. I personally will mix the ginger cake — into a regular cake mix — and then add an extra cup to each box of flour and set recipe< /a> on the back of the box that tells you how to make a “excus” cookie from the gingerbread mix. Look for recipes that are for “cut out” gingerbread cookies. These are valid.
What about the village?
For icing, I use what is called Royal icing. It dries rock hard. It looks like white sticky cement. You can use either egg whites or meringue powder (available at your local big-box discount store, in the wedding area. crafts, or your large hobby stores in the candy-making area).
Meringue powder, recipe in container. This recipe is for the eggs;
3 egg whites, room temperature
At least 2 pounds of powdered sugar (two bags)
spread cream of tartar (from the spice aisle in grocery stores) (optional)
Beat the egg whites with your electric mixer until frothy (still runny).
Start by adding sugar to the powder.
Add one bag at a time to start, maybe 1/2 cup at a time. Save the lashes. If the glaze is too hard, add a few drops of water. If the icing is too runny, add more powdered sugar.
It takes about 10 minutes to get the ice to the point where he will make hard peaks that do not fall when they are knocked up and out. Turn off the sink before lifting to check the bottom line.
The most common reasons don’t win people
One: The creation of gingerbread is not placed on a firm board so that it falls or cracks.
I can’t tell you how annoying it is to see people screaming at the door of a fight, holding a cardboard coin with a flattened house on it. Worse is seeing trampled gingerbread and candies on the threshold, knowing that someone’s creation has slipped from the unstable right on the very threshold of the surface. competition You need strong wood, such as solid board or thick plywood, to build a house. I used boards for chopping wood, and 3/4-inch-thick boards of plywood, for my houses.
Two: Some rule was broken. When entering a competition, make sure you follow all the rules, even the ones that seem silly to you. Otherwise, your entry may be declared ineligible at some point. For example, local software requires that everything used above the base can be edited, except for lighting systems. For this reason the legendary entry, which had two dishes as lamps, was considered ineligible, because of the paper sticks in the dishes.
Three: The entrance was narrow. Even a perfect small house will not be able to compete against a much larger but less well-made house.
Four: Not thinking of the judge. This is where knowledge of past struggles can help you. What has he won in the past? Do the judges like the local boundaries rendered in gingerbread? Do over-the-top decorations look like live rosemary sprigs stuck to fern vines to look like real trees? Instead, our judges look like what seems to me to be gatherings of the stomach, like sea dew or cilantro fern, like a string (which by the way falls down and looks terrible after the trial), or heavy use. gum or cheeks as a decoration item, or dyed or dyed tortilla chips tortilla used as breadcrumbs, or raw pasta for pavers. None of this sounds appetizing to me, and I don’t think I’ll use it as a non-holiday meal in my dishes, but I have several winners.
Design Ideas you can use
I am fortunate in what I call “the corner of choice.” I have no talent for replicating pictures of famous buildings – precision is beyond me, and I want to have fun, not struggle with math. So I make other people’s houses.
I don’t even want to make gingerbread houses really big. I have a fairly large map that I put in the house, but the house itself tends to be in a small to medium size. To complete the small house to win, you will have to add enough landscaping – trees, bushes, snow, walls, arches, walks
My Family Ideas Award Winning
A forest scene, with “mushrooms” with houses and purple all over everything, together with sugar ladybugs.
The decline of the Old Abbey, with elves and lots of holly berries and holly leaves. This is the best idea if you had a mishap with your first design – turn it into a “ruin” with leaves and berries climbing up from all sides, like ivy. I did this when my dogs and humidity conspired to destroy my original castle.
“Clock” with Rats — a tall rectangle with a clock face on it from the gumpaste (see below for gumpaste crown information).
“City Mouse and Country Mouse” two little houses, one fantasy, one country, with two mice in the middle with “gifts” for each other.
Penguin Wedding – A long rectangular house with a gingerbread house standing free in front of it, penguins tying the knot under the arch and lots of other penguins standing around watching.
Santa Ahoy — Santa is standing on a simple gingerbread boat, with icicles with snowflakes “floating” on them in a pale blue sky.
It’s the sea-son: Underwater scene with a small house and an octopus outside it, holding 8 candy canes as gummy fish come up to see. In the front corner, a sticky shark was taking a bite out of a gingerbread man’s leg. (Of course my son’s idea of entry is ridiculous).
Other ideas I’ve seen Win:
Color Scheme: Make your home, use only white wine and use many different candlesticks all in one color family. red is the best choice.
LEFTOVER HALLOWEEN CANDY: I saw a “village” using leftover Halloween pumpkins to lead the second place. Pumpkins were all over the place, and the roof of the farm was a whole cup of corn.
Stadium: Mixed colors The non-match looks exactly like a huge crowd of players sitting in a shoe-shaped stadium, as if from a famous blimp! “Astroturf” was green sugar.
Dollhouse: The gingerbread house was open at the back and had decorated “rooms” on display.
Mill: A lot of flowers from the village in the spring snow made this winner.
Reconciliation Touches Effingo
First of all, the opportunity to make a dubious profit would be sculpted gumpaste, many times called sugar or fondant. It is available pre-made in most hobby shops. Until there is a lot of fear, it is in the throat. The fabulous edible flowers that you see on so many cute wedding cake toppers are formed from gumpaste. No one tries to eat them, except a few stubborn (or foolish) children. Many people think of the cake as “European-style” covered in a rolled sheet of gumpaste. I will share with you that in Europe, after they take a slice of cake, they roll up the gumpaste and move away from the cake itself, and don’t eat it! It’s like propaganda.
Consistency, gumpasta is like a light dough player, and comes in a variety of colors and in blocks of white, which it can be dyed with food dye or painted with dye, and at the same time it can be faked and shaped.
It is a sculpture that has won me a place in many competitions. Mice and aptenodytes are easy, and by sitting them on the rampart to catch them, I avoided the difficulty of carving the feet, or hind feet. Making a dryad was an ambitious modern sculpture project for me. Since the gumpaste shapes are not solid, it will be necessary to insert a piece of raw spaghetti or pretzel stick inside, as a kind of armor. Flowers and berries are easy to make and don’t need any reinforcement.
A quick trick for me to sculpt is to have only the head and upper torso of elves or beasts peeking out of gingerbread house windows. No one can see that these are only half figures.
Another nice trick is to draw a letter of gumpaste (like small cookie-cutters) and roll the gumpaste to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out a message, such as Happy Holidays, and place the message on the front of your creation.
I just can’t beat Gumpaste Sculpting. What else can I win?
Buy Marshmallow Shapes: If clumping gumpaste seems too much trouble, ready-to-use marshmallow shapes are popular. Even regular grocery stores carry them now. Santas, snowmen, trees, and the like – they are already colored and shaped, they are very light, and they are accurate and eye-catching.
They shine Edible glitter adds a wonderful touch to your entryway. I sprinkle it all over (the food sparkles and sparkles).
Non-parelles: These are those little balls that you often see sprinkled on Christmas cookies. You can have them in bottles of all colors. I get an album and spray it over each piece of paint while it’s still wet. It gives a really eye-catching texture to the “snow”.
Rock Candy: I use white rock candy to stick on the ice. It really looks like ice cubes.
Sugar cones: these are sharp. Place them upside down and frost with white or green icing. Then sprinkle in the pariels not. They look like fir trees!
Colored sugars: these are rare, but they are all over the place now, even in the biggest stores of the world. They look wonderful scattered in the wet lane or even just spread out along the roads.
Dragees: Interestingly, in the State of Texas where I live, its citizens buy Everclear, which is some kind of fortified alcohol that vodka makes him look tame – but let’s not drive or have these beautiful silver and gold balls called “drags” over the public line. A friend who lives in another state, send them to me.
Pressed sugar lays: Use “lay sugars or lays” as your search term, and you’ll find sources for these colorful items. The ladybugs and little gingerbread men we use are pressed and shaped with superfine sugar, which is airbrushed to get a professional look.
Mira Candies: You can help your chances of winning by using candies that are not familiar. For example, many German gum candies are now displayed in major and in mall candy stores . They are excellent in the roofs, making walks, and generally catching the eye, like gum cherries, every leaf, like bushes. Fake rocks are also very popular – they actually look like pebbles or rocks, but are usually chocolate tossed candy (and expensive).
I thought of Gingerbread fights!
Now you get it, friends. Gingerbread is basic and basic, but it seems to be an extra or cutesy “hook” that wins many local competitions.
