Thursday, December 6, 2007

Gingerbread Church


My daughter and I made this gingerbread church complete with "stained glass" windows and a little bell in the bell tower. We've never tried a church before and I thought it turned out rather well.

My daughter handled all the drafting. She got out paper and a ruler while I mixed up the dough. I discovered I was out of molasses, so dark corn syrup had to do. To create the stained glass effect, I rolled the dough out on cookie sheets lined with greased aluminum foil. Then I cut the excess dough away from the wall pieces, and lastly cut out the delicate windowpanes using templates my daughter designed and drew. She smashed up Jolly Rancher candies with a hammer, and we carefully spooned the crushed candy into the windowpanes. Bake for fifteen minutes at 350 degrees Farenheit, and then cool completely before removing the foil. Spectacular!

I used an egg white based frosting to glue the house together, but all the decorations were made with ordinary shortening based icing. I like the way the roof turned out, with just the suggestion of shingles. Next year we can cut a hole in the bottom of the board and run a light up inside.

1 comment:

Frozen Cacti said...

Very cleaver use of Jolly Ranchers. It has inspired me to be more creative with our gingerbread making attempts!