Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Culinary architecture

Gingerbread houses are decorative, they smell good (as edible things tend to do) and they're a sure sign that Christmas is coming. Coming? As you can probably tell, this is a somewhat belated post about the making of gingerbread houses. I've been enjoying my Christmas presents and working on my holiday beauty sleep so much that I simply couldn't find the time to put up these photos. I finally managed to squeeze it into my busy schedule.

First you obviously need to make the parts. We baked these during our gingerbread baking stint the day before Christmas Eve.

Then you glue the parts together. The fact that melted sugar hardens pretty quickly makes it the professional culinary construction worker's favourite choice, and most importantly, I think it's the only kind of glue you're supposed to eat.

The ceremonial gluing of the chimney. It might look a bit sticky and wobbly now, but you can fix (aka hide) that with icing. This teaches us that covering up your flaws can sometimes be not only good, but even delicious.

Et voila!

5 comments:

DragonL said...

Again, quoting Y: "Wow, did your mom make that? Will they really eat it? What a pity..." (fakes crying)

As for myself, I want some. :P

Elizabeth said...

Very impressive! I've always thought it might be fun to make one of those houses, but then unlike dranoni, I could never bear to break it up and eat it.

Have you ever made panes of "glass" for windows? I saw a picture of a gingerbread church in a magazine. The "stained glass" was made from melted lifesaver candies (do you have lifesavers in Sweden?)

jg said...

We have breath mints, if that's what you mean. I'm not entirely sure what "lifesavers" are. I also have no idea what "dranoni" is.

Since pre-Christmas preparations are quite hectic, just keeping the house from toppling over is regarded as an achievement in itself. Hence no windows.

Although our physicist neighbour has been known to make some castles, or so the rumours say. I've never seen her creations myself.

Elizabeth said...

No, lifesavers are hard candies sold in rolls. Each candy looks like a boat life preserver, hence the name. They come in several different flavours.

Peppermint IS one of the flavours but there are fruit flavours as well. The fruit flavours would be the ones to melt for making stained glass.

candyfavorites.com - lifesavers

(So sorry, I just misspelled DragonL's name when I typed "dranoni". Hmmmm, a little too much Christmas cheer perhaps??)

jg said...

Oh, ok, I see. After consulting mom, I have it on authority that if we were to make any kind of glass pane, it would be out of leaf gelatine.