Yesterday morning, when I lifted the 14" baked section of roof and it started to bend, I knew I was in trouble. As I continued to lift and test the other 6 baked pieces--and they ALL bent--several words that are usually washed out by a mouthful of soap floated over my head.
Bending was not part of the GingerBread equation.
Bending did not follow the First Law of Gingerbread House Construction.
Bending was not good for architectual construction principals, especially construction designated to stay upright for 2 months.
In a panic, I called my Rotary Club contact person looking for advice. Turns out she wasn't making a house....she was making a gift basket. And she wasn't even sure if she would bake any gingerbread men for it.
Yet here I was, constructing--large-scale--something I've never done before, using a strange recipe that supposedly hardenes (ha!) and hoping it held together with Royal icing, yet another recipe I'd never made. What part of "boy, are you a sucker" was I missing?
With panic rising exponentially higher, I called my contact person's contact person. I knew that soft gingerbread was not going to get me to the finish line of this "fundraiser for a good cause" competition. You can't build a house with walls that gently flop down. Soft gingerbread was BAD.
Turns out this person couldn't help me with my problem because she wasn't making a house either! But she did share with me who my fellow bakers would be:
*the head of the culinary division for a local college
*the head of the culinary division of the local community college.
*a bakery owner for 30 years who also teaches cake decorating at Michael's
oh...and
*a former winner of the Food Network Gingerbread competion.
After hanging up the phone and pounding my head on the counter a few times, I simply decided to re-bake the finished 7 pieces and add significantly more dusting flour and longer baking times to the remaining 10 pieces.
And they hardened! Kneeling, I whispered words of thanks to St. Calumet, Patron Saint of Baking Powder. Of course, the roof and wall edges now looked like flashpoints from an arson scene, but hey! they don't bend.
So I called back my competition contact person last night to let her know that Yes! I would be able to deliver a house...one that actually existed in three dimensions!
That's when she said: "I can't wait to see how you decorate using your theme."
Huh?
When I replied that I was content simply to construct an upright house, and wasn't really planning on doing much more than that, her disappointment was actually palpable through the phone line. "You aren't going to leave it that ugly brown, are you?"
I didn't have a theme for my gingerbread house entry. I was a monster.
She gently suggested that I could add some Disney characters or go with our local NASCAR fetish or just use lots of candy. Then she mentioned an entry last year that displayed Fred Flintstone inside his "stone house" sitting in front of a stone TV... that worked!
"Bending Wall Panic" was immediately replaced with "Lack of Theme Panic" like a vacuum that sucks all the air out of your lungs.
Mentally tortured, I twisted and turned in bed last night. I didn't want to use Disney. I'm not a Disney kind of gal. I stood in front of my bookcase full of children's books and looked for inspiration.
At 2:30 a.m. I found it: I'm still using the candy house I displayed before, but the outside yard will be decorated with....ta-da!...
"Calvin and Hobbes" and his Snowman House of Horrors!
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/Finer_Kitchens/Calvin_SnowmanHouseOfHorror.jpg
Bending was not part of the GingerBread equation.
Bending did not follow the First Law of Gingerbread House Construction.
Bending was not good for architectual construction principals, especially construction designated to stay upright for 2 months.
In a panic, I called my Rotary Club contact person looking for advice. Turns out she wasn't making a house....she was making a gift basket. And she wasn't even sure if she would bake any gingerbread men for it.
Yet here I was, constructing--large-scale--something I've never done before, using a strange recipe that supposedly hardenes (ha!) and hoping it held together with Royal icing, yet another recipe I'd never made. What part of "boy, are you a sucker" was I missing?
With panic rising exponentially higher, I called my contact person's contact person. I knew that soft gingerbread was not going to get me to the finish line of this "fundraiser for a good cause" competition. You can't build a house with walls that gently flop down. Soft gingerbread was BAD.
Turns out this person couldn't help me with my problem because she wasn't making a house either! But she did share with me who my fellow bakers would be:
*the head of the culinary division for a local college
*the head of the culinary division of the local community college.
*a bakery owner for 30 years who also teaches cake decorating at Michael's
oh...and
*a former winner of the Food Network Gingerbread competion.
After hanging up the phone and pounding my head on the counter a few times, I simply decided to re-bake the finished 7 pieces and add significantly more dusting flour and longer baking times to the remaining 10 pieces.
And they hardened! Kneeling, I whispered words of thanks to St. Calumet, Patron Saint of Baking Powder. Of course, the roof and wall edges now looked like flashpoints from an arson scene, but hey! they don't bend.
So I called back my competition contact person last night to let her know that Yes! I would be able to deliver a house...one that actually existed in three dimensions!
That's when she said: "I can't wait to see how you decorate using your theme."
Huh?
When I replied that I was content simply to construct an upright house, and wasn't really planning on doing much more than that, her disappointment was actually palpable through the phone line. "You aren't going to leave it that ugly brown, are you?"
I didn't have a theme for my gingerbread house entry. I was a monster.
She gently suggested that I could add some Disney characters or go with our local NASCAR fetish or just use lots of candy. Then she mentioned an entry last year that displayed Fred Flintstone inside his "stone house" sitting in front of a stone TV... that worked!
"Bending Wall Panic" was immediately replaced with "Lack of Theme Panic" like a vacuum that sucks all the air out of your lungs.
Mentally tortured, I twisted and turned in bed last night. I didn't want to use Disney. I'm not a Disney kind of gal. I stood in front of my bookcase full of children's books and looked for inspiration.
At 2:30 a.m. I found it: I'm still using the candy house I displayed before, but the outside yard will be decorated with....ta-da!...
"Calvin and Hobbes" and his Snowman House of Horrors!
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/Finer_Kitchens/Calvin_SnowmanHouseOfHorror.jpg
