030. Gingerbread Fest 2009

Saturday was Gingerbread Fest 2009. I talked a little bit about Gingerbread Fest in this post which included some of the pictures from the prep work my mom and I did Wednesday night. We started around 10am Saturday morning.

Bring on the photos!

We fueled up for Gingerbread Fest on homemade Belgian waffles. Mine was whole wheat, blueberry.

Nicki enjoying her waffle.

Alex not looking too happy about being awake or photographed.

You can't tell from this picture, but I loathe rolling out dough (of any kind). It find it incredibly frustrating, and it makes me want to cry. One time I almost through my rolling pin across the dining room while rolling out pizza dough.

Clearly, Nicki doesn't mind as much.

Nicki had to cut out her pieces. Look at that focus.

In case you're curious, this is what approximately $50 worth of Christmas themed candy looks like.

Various pieces in their stages of decoration/ construction.

The gingerbread chaos!

Nicki and Alex working on getting his house standing. Judging from the look on her face, I think Nicki has eaten too much of the candy and the sugar mania is starting to set in.

Building gingerbread houses is hard work so mom made us wraps to refuel.
Here's mine - turkey, cheddar jack shredded cheese, spinach and bacon bits. It was delish!


My mom is the gingerbread queen. She actually does this as a project with the students in her Culinary Arts (advanced foods) classes.

Shortly after the above photo was taken, the disposable pastry bag exploded in Nicki's hands. See the picture below for the end results of that.
This is the small, individual house I made to bring home with me. It's currently residing on my coffee table.
My house.

My mom's house.

Nicki's house. She did a Chicago Bears themed house. It's angry because the Bears suck this season.
Alex's house. Every year Alex makes it a point to build the ghetto/ white trash house. This year he went for the redneck theme.

The completed village.

This is about half the photos from the day; the rest of the pictures can be found in my Google Picasa album. Gingerbread Fest 2009.

Gingerbread Fest was kind of a mess this year. We had several broken pieces. My mom and Nicki's houses both broke, but those were able to be "glued" back together with frosting. I was not as lucky. I had to re-cut and bake the front of my house for the village as well as the front of the small house I made to take home with me. We also ran out of merguine powder so we couldn't make enough frosting to finish on Saturday afternoon. I ended up going back Sunday afternoon to finish things up with my mom.

I definitely consumed more sugar than necessary on Saturday, but I know it was less than in years past so kudos to me!

Despite all the trouble we had this year, we came out with a very nice village to display in my parent's living room.

I'm going to post the recipes for the dough and the Royal Icing as well as the template for the pieces when I get home tonight. I think it's a great tradition to start with kids or cousins or siblings! - I'm going to have to post this later. Apparently my mom didn't actually give me these recipes in the binder she put together for me like 5 years ago. I'll have to get them from her.

As a side note: After posting all these pictures, I am convinced I need blogging software. Anyone have any suggestions? The freer the better. I'm kinda broke right now.

027. It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

This is the first year in a long time I'm actually in the Christmas spirit and enjoying winter. Yesterday/ today is the first snow of the year. It's actually pretty disgusting outside right now. It was raining/ sleeting last night, and tomorrow the high is about 9 so it's going to be good and icy in the morning.

My Christmas tree is all decorated and lookin good. There's even presents underneath it.
Today started Gingerbread Fest 2009. Every year my mom, my brother, my other brother's girlfriend, and I get together and build gingerbread house. It's basically become an all day event. We each build our own house and then put them together on a ceiling tile to make a gingerbread village.

Tonight my mom and I went on our mission for candy. $50 later, we had everything we could need/ want. We also started baking the pieces. Oh yes, we do the whole project from scratch. Make the dough, cut and bake the pieces, make the Royal Icing - all of it. It really is a great time, and it's definitely a tradition I hope to carry on when I have my own kids.

Patterns for the various pieces. We're doing slightly larger houses this year because my mom left her usual templates at work.

Pieces laid out on the dough being cut out. Rolling out the dough is my least favorite part. I find it so frustrating. This year I just made my mom do it.

It's quite difficult to take a picture of yourself while operating a pizza wheel to cut out gingerbread house pieces. Trust me.

On the cookie sheet ready for the oven.

Finished product ready to be assembled into houses.

Saturday we're getting together to build the houses, and I will be taking lots of pictures!