After visiting Germany and Austria several times during the winter festive period and seeing the glorious Lebkuchenhaus displayed in the windows of bakeries and sweet shops, I resolved that one day when I was spending relaxing Christmas at home, I would make my very own Gingerbread House. This year was that year, and I'd been reading various websites for the last few months, and some good friends in Germany sent me over some genuine German Lebkuchen spices to help me on my way, but at home only Daddy knew, just incase it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.
A few days before Christmas my sister and I were indulging in a look around The Good Shop in Worthing when she turned to me and whispered conspiratorially, "Don't tell anyone, but Boyfriend and I are going to make a gingerbread house for Christmas day!". My world briefly crumbled, then I recovered my composure and said that I had been planning one for ages and that she could make one if she wanted, and that would be okay because mine would be better anyway! Amid this sisterly rivalry, House-Off 2011 was born, and we spent the next few days trying to psyche each other out with jokes such as, "I wonder if I could make candy hay to put in the hay loft of my gingerbread stable block" and "Do you think the inhabitants of my gingerbread house would prefer a hot tub or swimming pool?". Except I wasn't joking.
On the day before Christmas Eve I rolled out acres of gingerbread (following a recipe from the BBC Good Food website), cut it to the rough size for baking, and then used my templates to cut the final shapes as soon as they came out of the oven. On Christmas Eve I made up the icing and assembled my masterpiece, doing the decorative icing after it was structurally sound.
First, I pieced together the hot tub as a practice, and because it needed most time to set as later I would waterproof it interntally with melted white chocolate, and as my joints were less than neat, it benefitted from a milk chocolate outer covering too. I filled it with blue curaรงo to give it that "Come jump in" look.
Next up was the dog kennel. By now I'd realised that the icing set faster than I could work, so I softened it very slighted with some warm water. I assembled the walls and let them set while I coated the hot tub in chocolate, then added the roof and some decorations.
While I was steeling my nerves for the house itself I worked to improve my icing accuracy by decorating a small copse of fir trees, the herd of reindeer, a couple of snowmen and Mr and Mrs Santa. These fab cookies were made using some stand-up Christmas cookie cutters I had bought (furtively) in the cook shop where House-Off broke out. I didn't roll the pastry out thin enough, so some post-baking cookie carpentry was in order to make them fit together - I thought were worth the effort though.
Time was ticking and I could delay the main event no longer. With a certain amount of nervousness and several boxes of sugar and flour to act as supports, I iced together the walls of my house, iced the chimney onto the roof, and then the roof onto the house. I was getting more confident with icing by now, so did some more decorative icing around the edge of the roof to make icicles, and around the Foxes Glacier Mint windows for some festive cheer, then carefully added the kennel, hot tub and stand-up cookies to the scene. I'm pretty pleased with it - I think I might have found a new hobby!
And here they are together for comparison. I think they are both good, but in different ways. I think mine has a more Austrian mountain village look to it, while Sister-Girl's is a more fun 'Hansel and Gretel' style. Roll on next year, when there really will be a stable block!
