The Gingerbread Project (Palmabella's Passions)

The Gingerbread Project

I have never made a "structure" of gingerbread. I've made gingerbread cookies, muffins, and cheesecake, and when teaching, of course my class made the graham cracker houses, but I wanted to try something small, and not too involved. I decided before tackling a house or building, to build a cookie box.

First I made some snowflake cookies, frosted them with royal icing, and did some easy piping.

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Then I made a paper pattern of the four "walls" of my box, and taped it together for a 3-D model (so I could measure the base/bottom of the box).

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I prepared a batch of "construction gingerbread" (sturdier than regular cookie dough), and used my paper patterns to cut out 4 walls and a base. I used a scalloped cookie cutter to cut a "window" in each side. Then I "glued" a piece of rolled fondant on the back of each wall to cover the window.

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I iced a little trim on the four sides, and let them dry completely (while we were away last weekend).

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Finally I put my box together. I read a gingerbread tip, that if you are not planning to eat the building, you can use a hot glue gun to build a structure. I was anxious to finish, and decided that was a good idea. It worked! Then I iced "dots" on the edges so no glue is visible.

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Now my snowflakes are in a cookie box!. Next year...maybe a BIG HOUSE, (but I will start in August!). You know me: "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!"

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