Shingle-Style
Ann Bailey of Cary, North Carolina, never baked a day in her life until she decided to enter the National Gingerbread Contest. Bailey's inspiration came from a Shingle-style home in New Bern, North Carolina. Bailey used royal icing, marzipan, and gum paste to create this scene in a little over two months. A Dremel junior tool attachment, which resembles a sander, enabled this chef to sand out all the windows and doorframes. The shingles were laid using a ruler and a paring knife, to ensure that they were all about the same size. The topiaries and Santa figure were created with gum paste.
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Sugar Castle
The Sugar Castle, displayed in the historic Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco, took over 400 hours to create. Executive Pastry Chef Jean-Francios Houdre was inspired by European architecture and used a variety of tools for this construction, including X-Acto knives, glue guns, and rulers. The piece features a motorized base which allows the castle to slowly rotate. A hole in the base accommodates wires for the lights in the pulled-sugar-paned windows. Houdre recommends that you overbake your gingerbread for about 20 minutes, then leave it to cool in an open oven for about 45 minutes for a sturdier structure.
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Winter Wonderland Victorian Palace
"The tools I used were my X-Acto knife to cut out a pattern in foam board and in the gingerbread dough, my Skil saw to cut the platform for the stand, a mouse sander for sanding the plywood stand and the rough edges of gingerbread house, a drill to make holes in the platform to insert lighting, a jigsaw to enlarge holes in platform and to cut baked gingerbread,a Dremel to sand gingerbread edges and refine details. The gingerbread house took 180 hours to prepare and finish. The windows are made with gelatin."
Stephanie S.
West Palm Beach, FL
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Brownstones & Batali
"This was our submission for the San Diego County Epilepsy Foundation Gingerbread City 2008. It featured a row of brownstones on one side, Mario Batali's Babbo NYC restaurant on the other side, a flower shop on one end, and Mario's Italian Wine Merchants on the other end."
Denise J.
Coronado, CA
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German Christmas Pyramid
"Our gingerbread house is not a house but a traditional German Christmas Pyramid, a popular German Christmas decoration. It is similar to a carousel with several levels, often depicting Christmas motifs, such as angels or manger scenes. They are typically made of wood based on 4- to 8-sided platforms with a long pole in the middle serving as the axle. The spinning motion of the pyramid is achieved with the help of candles whose rising heat spins the propeller above. Our pyramid has 4 levels featuring a nativity scene, a toy train, Santa's sled pulled by three reindeer and angels. The ingredients we used included gingerbread, royal icing, marzipan, fondant and trimmed lasagna noodles for the propeller blades. In addition to typical baking tools we also used protractors, rulers, mini-handsaws, hobby knives a level, a tape measure and sandpaper."
Barbara A.
Florham Park, NJ
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Santa's Workshop
I used the normal kitchen tools, an X-Acto knife, some metal duct pipe, a ruler, PLUS a belt sander to make the edges straight and to smooth out some of the bumps.Maria S
Carmel, IN
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Swiss Chalet
Rebecca Russell, of Wedding Cake Toppers and Gingerbread, created her Swiss-chalet-style Bear House in less than a week using a variety of techniques and tools. In addition to traditional baking tools, Russell also used utility knives to cut roof shingles before baking to give the overall piece a more rustic appearance. Wood rasps and X-Acto knives were used to shave away distortion that takes place during baking. Russell uses a sturdy foam base and recommends protecting gingerbread houses from humidity by placing them in plastic bags and cardboard boxes when not on display.Enter the 2010 Gingerbread Contest for YOUR chance to win!
Forever Autumn
"This fall scene was fashioned after my favorite time of year and my childhood dream of having a tree house in my backyard. So now, as an adult, I finally built my own tree house! The tree trunk is made by stacking round gingerbread cookies with royal icing sandwiched between. The limbs are pretzels. I used a cordless drill with a small hole saw to drill holes to insert the pretzel limbs into. The trunk and limbs were then covered with brown fondant and painted with melted chocolate. The tree stumps were made the same way.
All the children are made with gumpaste and fondant and modeled after my nieces, nephews, and stepson. The dirt is ground gingerbread and vanilla cookies and the dried grass is shredded wheat.
I hope you enjoy my childhood dream!"
Amy W
Rincon, GA
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Enchanted Christmas Light
I made a gingerbread lighthouse with a mermaid and lots of sea creatures. Some tools that I used : an X-acto knife for cutting out all of the pieces and scoring the woodgrain into the rowboat and the pilings; a fine sand paper for rounding and smoothing both gingerbread and gumpaste; a metal ruler for cutting and measuring all of the main pieces as well as the individual bricks, shingles, and stones; a level to make sure the "rock" base was level. It was so much fun and it really gave me a healthy respect for builders of life size houses! Thank you!Mary E
Timonium, MD
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A Christmas Gingerbread Castle
"The gingerbread castle has gumpaste cupolas, royal icing green wreaths, rice paper banners, gingerbread soldiers and their ladies dressed in royal icing attire. The castle is surrounded by a moat and has rock candy rocks in the back. The castle pieces are all painted grey with thinned royal icing."Mary Beth E
Hampton, VA
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