How To Making Winning Gingerbread Houses
The smell of gingerbread is a wonderful part of Christmas, and a festive gingerbread house is a centerpiece decoration, second only to the tree, in many homes. Few people realize that they are easy to make.
I have won prizes in our local gingerbread contest for many years. Last year, my creation won first place. Under threat of bodily harm, my husband and son also participate, and my son always wins second or third place, even though he has the unfortunate habit of eating all his best candies and having mainly gumdrops left over for decorations.
I’m going to share with you ways to make a show-stopping gingerbread house, even if you think you have no talent in either baking or art.
I’m going to write these tips with contests in mind, but you can use these ideas when making gingerbread houses for your home or friends, too.
This isn’t an article about how to bake the gingerbread houses, however — it’s an article sharing ideas about winning gingerbread contests.
One Caution:
When making gingerbread for a contest, you don’t have to worry about taste. The gingerbread isn’t eaten; it’s for show. However, home gingerbread houses often get nibbled. So don’t worry about flavor when making a house for a contest, but bear it in mind when making one for family and friends. For example, many people have a dislike of black licorice, but it’s a very useful decoration for contests. Flat rectangular gum pieces work well as “shingles,” but really aren’t very tasty when eaten with a piece of gingerbread. Keep taste in mind only for home gingerbread creation.
The following questions and answers will help you make that winning house:
What Is the Best Gingerbread Recipe?
For contests, sturdy walls are a must, so the best recipe is one that you can handle but that bakes up rock-hard. There are many recipes floating out there on the Internet. Stay away from any that have lots of butter, oil, sour cream, or eggs as ingredients — they will make the gingerbread too soft. I personally buy gingerbread cake mix — in with the regular cake mixes — and then add an extra cup of flour to each box and make up the recipe on the back of the box that tells how to make “cut out” gingerbread cookies from the mix. Seek out recipes that are for “cut out” gingerbread cookies. These are sturdy.
What About Icing?
For icing, I use what’s termed Royal Icing. It dries rock-hard. It’s like a gluey white cement. You can use either egg whites or meringue powder (available at your local big-box discount store, in the wedding area near crafts, or at your big hobby stores in the candy-making area).
For the meringue powder, follow the recipe given on the container. For the eggs, I use this recipe:
3 egg whites, room temperature
At least 2 pounds of powdered sugar (two bags)
Sprinkle of cream-of-tartar (from spice aisle in grocery store) (optional)
Beat the egg whites with your electric mixer until frothy (still liquid).
Start adding in the powdered sugar.
Add one bag total to start with, perhaps 1/2 cup to a cup at a time. Keep whipping. If icing is too stiff, add a few drops of water. If icing is too liquid, add in more powdered sugar.
It takes about 10 minutes to get the icing to the point where it will make stiff peaks that don’t fall down when the beaters are lifted up and out. Turn your mixer OFF before lifting the beaters to check.
The Most Common Reasons People Don’t Win
One: The gingerbread creation was not placed on a sturdy board, causing it to fall or crack.
I can’t tell you how distressing it is to see people crying at the entrance to the contest, holding a piece of cardboard with a flattened house on it. Worse is seeing trampled gingerbread and candies on the doorstep, knowing someone’s creation slid off an unstable surface right at the very door of the contest. You must get a piece of strong wood, such as a solid plank or thick plywood, to build the house upon. I have used planks intended for woodburning, as well as 3/4-inch-thick slabs of plywood, for my houses.
Two: Some rule was broken. When entering a contest, make sure you comply with all the rules, even those that strike you as foolish. Otherwise, your entry may be declared ineligible on some point. As an example, our local program requires that everything used above the base be edible, with the exception of lighting systems. As a result, a fabulous entry that had two suckers as lampposts was deemed ineligible, because of the rolled-paper sticks on the suckers.
Three: The entry was too small. Even a perfect tiny house is not going to be able to compete against a much larger but less well-made house.
Four: Not thinking like a judge. This is where knowledge of past contests can help you. What has won in the past? Do the judges favor local landmarks rendered in gingerbread? Do they reward over-the-top decorations such as sprigs of live rosemary stuck in clumps of icing to look like real trees? Locally, our judges seem to like what seems to me to be stomach-churning combinations, such as the rosemary or clumps of cilantro stuck here and there as garland (which wilts and looks terrible after the judging, by the way), or heavy use of gum or jawbreakers as decorating items, or dyed stale tortilla chips used as shingles, or uncooked pasta as pavers. None of this strikes me as appetizing, and I don’t use what I regard as non-holiday food in my creations, but many times, the winners have.
Design Ideas You Can Use
I have had good luck in what I call “the whimsical angle.” I have no talent in making replicas of famous buildings — the precision is beyond me, and I want to have fun, not struggle over math. So, I make strange “houses.”
I also don’t want to make really big gingerbread houses. I might have quite a large board that I put the house on, but the house itself tends to be in the small to medium range. To make up for a small house, in order to win, you will have to add quite a bit of landscaping — trees, bushes, snow, walls, arches, walkways.
My Family’s Ideas That Won Prizes
Woodland scene, with “mushroom” houses and purple flowers all over everything, along with sugar ladybugs.
Falling-down Old Abbey, with elves and lots of holly berries and holly leaves. This idea is excellent if you have had a mishap with your original plan — turn it into a “ruin” with leaves and berries climbing up all over, sort of like ivy. This is what I did when my dogs and humidity conspired to knock down my original castle.
“Clock” with Mice — tall rectangle with clock face on it out of gumpaste (see below for gumpaste molding information).
“City Mouse and Country Mouse,” two little houses, one fancy, one rustic, with two mice meeting in the middle with “gifts” for each other.
Penguin Wedding — Long rectangle house with a free-standing gingerbread arch in front of it, with penguins tying the knot under the arch and lots of other penguins standing around watching.
Santa Ahoy — Santa stands on the deck of a simple gingerbread boat, with icebergs with snowmen on them “floating” in a sea of pale blue icing.
‘Tis the Sea-Son: Underwater scene with a little tiny house and an octopus outside of it, holding 8 candy canes as gummy fish come up to see. In the front corner, a gummy shark was taking a bite out of a gingerbread man’s leg. (Obviously, my son’s idea of a funny entry.)
Other Ideas That I Have Seen Win:
Color Scheme: Make your house, use white icing only, and use many different candies all in one color family — red is an excellent choice.
Leftover Halloween Candy: I saw a “farm” using left-over Halloween mallow pumpkins take second-place. There were pumpkins all over the place, and the roof of the farmhouse was all candy corn.
Stadium: Mixed colors of non-pariels looked exactly like a giant crowd of sports fans sitting in a horse-shoe shaped stadium, as seen from the famous blimp! The “astroturf” was green sugar.
Dollhouse: The gingerbread house was open along the back and had decorated “rooms” on display.
Windmill: Lots of icing flowers blooming in the snow made this a winner.
Winning Touches You Can Copy
First and foremost in angling for a win would be the ability to sculpt gumpaste, many times called sugar-paste or fondant. It is available pre-made in most hobby stores. While edible, it is terrible-tasting alone. The fabulous edible flowers you see on so many expensive wedding cakes are formed of gumpaste. No one tries to eat them, except for a few hardy (or foolhardy) children. Many fancy “European-style” cakes are covered with a sheet of rolled gumpaste. I’ll share with you that in Europe, after they get a slice of cake, they roll the gumpaste back and away from the actual cake part, and don’t eat it! It’s just for looks.
In consistency, gumpaste is like a smooth play-dough, and comes in various colors and in blocks of white, which can be tinted with food coloring or painted with food coloring once sculpted and molded.
Sculpting is what has won me a place in many contests. Mice and penguins are easy to do, and by sitting them in a mound of icing to secure them, I avoided the difficult task of sculpting feet or back paws. Making elves was my most ambitious sculpting project to date. Since the figures formed of gumpaste aren’t sturdy, you will need to put in a piece of uncooked spaghetti or a pretzel stick inside of them as an armature of sorts. Flowers and berries are easy to make, and don’t need any reinforcing.
My quick-trick for sculpting is to have just the head and upper torsos of elves or animals peeking out of the windows of the gingerbread houses. No one can see that these are just half-figures.
Another winning trick is to get a set of gumpaste letter cutters (like tiny cookie cutters) and roll the gumpaste out to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out a message, such as Happy Holidays, and place the message at the front edge of your creation.
I Just Can’t Handle Sculpting Gumpaste. What Else Can I Do to Win?
Buy Marshmallow Figures: If gumpaste molding seems to be too much trouble, ready-to-use marshmallow figures are getting popular. Even regular grocery stores are carrying them now. You can choose from Santas, snowmen, trees, and so forth — they are colored and shaped already, are very lightweight, and they are detailed and eye-catching.
Glitter. Edible glitter adds a wonderful touch to your entry. I sprinkle it all over (the clear food glitter).
Non-pariels: These are those tiny little balls you often see sprinkled on Christmas cookies. You can get them in bottles of all one color balls. I get the white and sprinkle it all over every bit of icing while it’s still wet. It gives a really eye-catching texture to your “snow.”
Rock Candy: I use the white rock candy to stand in for ice. It really looks like ice lumps.
Sugar cones: These are the pointy ones. Place them upside down and frost with white or green icing. Then sprinkle on non-pariels. They look like fir trees!
Colored Sugars: These used to be rare but are all over the place now, even in the world’s biggest super-stores. They look wonderful sprinkled onto wet icing or even just spread out for pathways.
Dragees: Interestingly, the State of Texas, where I reside, will let its citizens buy Everclear, which is some sort of fortified alcohol that makes vodka look tame — but it won’t let us buy these pretty silver and gold-coated little candy balls called “dragees! So if I want them, I have to drive over the state line or have a friend who lives in another state send them to me. They are fantastic for gingerbread houses, giving a rich metallic touch to the decor.
Pressed Sugar Lay-ons: Use “sugar lay-ons or layons” as your search term, and you will find sources for these colorful items. The ladybugs and tiny gingerbread people I use are pressed and molded superfine-sugar which has been airbrushed to get a professional look.
Strange Candies: You can help your chances of winning by using candies that aren’t familiar. For example, many of the German gummy candies are just now showing up on grocery shelves and in mall candy shops. They are excellent for roofs, making walkways, and just generally are eye-catching (such as the gummy cherries, each with a leaf — great as shingles). Fake rocks are also a favorite — they really look like pebbles or rocks, but are usually candy-coated chocolate (and expensive).
I Thought the Contests Were About Gingerbread!
Now you are catching on, friends. Gingerbread is the base and basis, but it seems to be the extra decorating or the cutesy “hook” that wins many local contests.
