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| Gingerbread House 2011 plan 1 |
We often joke about coming into great money and buying up all the modern houses on the block, leaving all the century homes like ours..... ... ..
We would have a huge yard for the dogs, with mature trees, and open spaces for gardens. R would have his man-garage full of sleds and boats and tools he'll only use once. H wants to add both a swimming pool and skating rink - fine; only I insist the ice must flow around the yard and trees, which will be strung with lights. Within will be some lines for hockey, for scratch matches after dinner.
With houses removed to the east of us, our house would regain it's original view of the Lake, and the sunrise over the Sleeping Giant. I'll open that up into a sunken sunroom, with a large private deck for the master suite on top. Coffee, newspapers, dogs, deck chairs & blankets, and sunrises...
Getting a little carried away now: our gingerbread dream house will boast a sunny reading room added to our current study, with a tower _compete with spiral staircase for R_ to the observatory, where will watch the ships come and go waiting for the Giant to wave or maybe wiggle a toe. Some big cozy chairs for reading up there too - maybe a hammock...
R's man-garage will be made square, with a cute pointy roof - maybe large enough for a man-den above the garage, where he and the guys can talk about rocks and gear. He's lost nearly every inch of our house to girl stuff, he deserves it. I wonder if I can make a gingerbread boat? I'll get H to make some sleds...
We played with sugar last night, trying to make windows (sugar glass) and skating rinks. What I discovered is that we can probably pull off some sugar dogs, and other home-made candy decorations for our house: icicles, maybe some things for R's barbecue, spun sugar for tree decorations... It's going to be fun.
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I think it's important to make gingerbread houses entirely edible, and I like them to taste good too. Other than making my dough heavier for the construction pieces, I don't alter the recipe for the sake of aesthetics..., well, I should say I never have.. this year I might try less leavener in the dough for the main construction pieces. I'm hoping this will help keep the shapes I cut more precise, including open windows for sugar glass. (I don't think I'll do every window like this, maybe just the sunroom - or the sunroom and porches...and up in H's room..)
I have been thinking about this for months. grin
This year's barbecue will be bigger, and may even have a turkey on the rotisserie. R will be busy carrying rock candy out of the yard, while H will be slapping pucks into a net. The dogs will be pooping in the yard of course (except I ate all the poop: the macaroon chocolates we bought for poop..my favourite..yum..). I would like to be in a sugar glass greenhouse, if I can pull it off.
The biggest challenge with this year's gingerbread house is the size of the board we got to build it on. It was the biggest available (though I bet in a specialty store, or maybe in restaurant supplies at the Wholesale place, I could find a bigger board...). I'm wondering if we should just build it straight on the table anyway. We have two spare tables floating around our dining room right now, which is ridiculous, but true. The spare kitchen one, which we use to add on to our 12 seater when we have more than 12 people here, is the perfect size for the house, yard, man-garage, and my greenhouse...
And I can't forget the cupcake stand that H wants somewhere in the yard. Right. I think the table is it.
I wish I could time-lapse the construction of this....HMMMMMMMMM..
Updates will follow. Gingerbread 2011
Fantastic! I've only made one gingerbread house in my whole life and that was when I was five and I did more of the eating than the making ;) I can't wait to see pictures of this - it's going to be EPIC :)
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