by CoombeMill
31 October 2012 12:53
Accepting a Challenge
When Helen from and set a challenge to create a Halloween Gingerbread house, I joined in with the banter on twitter and found myself sucked into participating. Armed with a Tesco Recipe recommended by Helen, I set off to create my masterpiece.
1. The Easy bit: Making the Dough.
The recipe is very simple and I will use it for gingerbread biscuits for shaping again.
Simply mix the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda with the melted butter, sugar and syrup
Once mixed, kneed and divide into 6 equal balls. Roll each out to 5mm thick and cut to the shape of your house. I used the Tesco template but you can create your own.
I used roughly crushed boiled sweets for the windows and door and popped it in a medium oven for 8 minutes. I had so much dough left I made a base for my house and some reinforcing beams in case of areas of weakness developing in the assembly! When I took the base out I roughly assembled the cooled house section on the warm base top create a grove in the foundation to help the house stand.
2. The tricky part: Construction
Going against the advise of my tweeting experts who from experience swore by chocolate cake covering, I boldly ploughed on with my own idea of thick butter icing for my cement, largely since I already had all the ingredients to make this! It proved to be very easy to work with and my house came together a treat. It was in retrospect not the best option since it never fully sets and after a few hours of decorating and carrying outside to photograph the roof was beginning to slip!
3. The Creative stage: Halloween decorations
I rummaged through the trick or treating bags hidden ready for our Coombe Mill Party games on 31st October and came across some Halloween Haribos. This and some red and black icing writing tubes formed my decorations all stuck on with more butter icing. A scarily delicious gooey mess masquerading as a Gingerbread Halloween house!
4. The fun part: Destruction by eight children
Do join the gingerbread challenge, link up to the blog hop with your entry and see some of the other amazing creations on display by some truly awesome baking goddesses!
I am also linking up with Tara over at Sticky Fingers where the theme this week is Frightful!