Sunday Sweets: Gorgeous Gingerbread
December 14, 2014 Time for my annual roundup of gingerbread house Sweets!
So while you're cursing that pre-made store kit this season - you know, the one with the gumdrop border? - just think: this is a gingerbread house:
;)
(By Mike's Amazing Cakes)
It's not even fair, I know. Although using trail mix for the stone work? Genius.
Here's another cool idea: the roof panels are laced together with ribbon!
;)
(By Anna and Maria Correct Gingerbread)
And that delicate piping looks like fine embroidery work. SO PRETTY.
For you architecture buffs, check out this Frank Lloyd Wright design:
;)
(By Garden Melodies)
And this perfect New York Brownstone:
;)
(By Kitchen Table Scraps)
It even has wee snow-covered trash cans!
But I'm always a sucker for classic Victorian styles:
;)
(Baker unknown. Anyone recognize it?)
Are those pumpkin seed shingles? Niiice.
But maybe you're tired of houses. Maybe you're more in the mood for... a gingerbread typewriter?
;)
(By Baked Ideas)
Can you imagine setting all those cookie keys?
Or for those of you dreaming of a white Hoth-mas:
;)
(By Catalano Restaurant)
Gingerbread AT-AT!
This gingerbread advent calendar is a fun idea: you get to eat one piece per day!
;)
(By Himes-Mezes Kucko)
And the tealights make it a beautiful centerpiece!
A bird house is still a house, right?
;)
(By Haute Sweets)
At first I thought it was covered in fabric. Then I realized that's all piping! WOW.
And finally, for something completely different, here's what happens when a custom toy designer tries his hand at gingerbread houses:
;)
(By Paul Kaiju, featured here. Even creepier designs at the link!)
It's a Monster Gingerbread House! Ha!
Welp, happy house building, everyone. Remember to go easy on those gumdrops.
Be sure to check out our Sunday Sweets Directory to see which bakers in your area have been featured here on Sweets!
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Reader Comments (32)
Those are some talented bakers :D
Every year my daughter and I make a gingerbread house. In the past, I designed and made the structure and she did the decorating. This year, I found that this was definitely the way to go. Daughter went off to college and wouldn't be back in time to finish a house, so I built a brownstone (beautiful) AND decorated it (WRECK-WORTHY.) I also made a gingerbread menorah that looks as if it were decorated by a kindergarten class. I am an equal opportunity wrecker.
In conclusion, these are truly beautiful and depressing. I'm going to go sit in front of my tree and eat a dozen Christmas cookies...
Can't decided which one is the prettiest!! I would have a really difficult time cutting into one of these beauties! Such talent! Thanks Jen!
Oh, I LOVE these! Way better than cakes, and so detailed.
Oh, wow! Stupendous! One could switch out the trail mix with bird seed, and you'd have a treat for the birds! (They could even live in it for a while;and the little red one, too!) The brownstone instantly took me to Brooklyn, looking for Francie Nolan from one of my favorite books. Love how it's lit up from within...so lovely!! The Frank Lloyd Wright piece made me think of Simon & Garfunkel's song about him ("So long, Frank Lloyd Wright" in the Bridge Over Troubled Water album). I'm always blown away on Sundays, here!
lovely, but where are 1-4 on the Advent one?
Red-Nosed Reindeer AT-AT! Oh my goodness! My Star Wars freak of a boss would travel across the continent for one like that!
Beautiful "houses". Anybody know where numbers 1-4 are on the advent calendar? I can't see them anywhere!
Yikes! That last gingerbread house could belong to Krumpus , Santa's Evil Enforcer on very naughty children.
Breathtakingly beautiful!
I can't find 1-4 on the Advent Calendar either and it's really bugging me!
I saw the At-At last year!! It's part of a fundraiser for Habitat For Humanity put on by a local hotel.
Check out more info here:
http://www.laurelpoint.com/christmas-2014/gingerbread.htm
Best Sunday Sweets EVER!
Rudolph, the red-nosed AT-AT
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.
All of the other AT-ATs
didn't dare to laugh or call him names
Because he'd shoot them down if the did...
Yay! Gingerbread post! These are all awesome. But y'all keep posting these [i]after[/i] I do mine for the year. Still, lovely inspiration!
The typewriter one reminded me of the scene in the Sesame Street Christmas special where Cookie Monster eats his typewriter while typing a letter to Santa because the typewriter reminds him of cookies! This one really IS cookies!
The Gingerbread At-at is great for a Life Day celebration!
Very nice work all around.
I confess, though: when I roll out gingerbread cookies at home, they're never embellished at all-- beyond maybe being placed on a colorful napkin over the plate. When I eat ginger cookies, I want to taste them. Just don't care at all for that brittle, too-sweet icing.
I also love the soft gingerbread (cake) recipe from the old NYT cookbook. I swap out half the molasses for honey, ramp up the spice, and still end up with something so deliciously dark that it looks like chocolate cake when it comes out of the oven. A little whipped cream or vanilla ice cream will do for topping.
Speaking of gingerbread and wreckage, I felt real dismay seeing the Pepperidge Farm™ Gingermen covered in fine red sugar. First of all, their holiday makeover happened way earlier than it should have. Second of all, now the poor fellows all look like they have sparkly rubella. [sulks] Just put a Santa hat on the package, and stop fixing things that aren't broken, commercial bakers! Please!
I think you count down on the advent calendar, and at 4 days before Christmas, you start eating the animals and the Holy Family, then after Christmas go Godzilla on the whole stable. :)
You mean that second one isn't make of fabric? OMG. It doesn't even look like gingerbread, it looks like a sewing project. A gorgeous one.
The missing days on the Advent tree bugged me too. To mollify the shrieking OCD monsters I came up with the rationalization that days 1-4 have passed and been eaten! There! Now I can get on with my day.
gorgeous - as always. but that advent calendar is a fave. love that it takes a very traditional format, but puts just enough of a spin on it. all of them too pretty to eat, tho.
The third cake is Fallingsugar, not a doubt of it.
Frank Lloyd Wright's original Fallingwater was well named. The flat roof always leaked terribly.
These are awesome. Wonderfully talented bakers.
If I had purchased the Advent tree, the missing four days would have been eaten on the way home.
I know that two days at least have been eaten on that calendar...there are little ribbons at each cookie, and two extra ribbons. Plus two more candles without cookies.
Beautiful!
The Missing Numbers Mystery:
I assume that in Hungary, advent calendars are traditionally given to children on the eve of Saint Nicholas' Day, which means December 5th.
Gorgeous ginger bread houses! But all I can think is that here in an Australian Summer they'd just be covered by ants in about 10 seconds. XP
I make a gingerbread "house" for the office every year. It ends up looking like it was decorated by a kindergarten class, but my co-workers seem to enjoy it. Being in an office full of archaeologists, I make it so all of the candy has to be "excavated", and a journal be kept. My favorite so far has been a castle, with 6 towers manned by graham cracker Bad Piggies, opposite of a toy catapult manned by Angry Birds. My boss may have gotten tired of the catapult after a while, though.....
Oh my gosh, I would LIVE in that first one!! The cinnamon stick window framing? The (fun-size) Hershey bar shutters? The Pirouette columns?? The Kit Kat crossbeams?!?! So much clever detail! It's AMAZING!!
I guess I am in the minority, or maybe it's just my distaste for fondant, but I don't find cakes that look like other things particularly appetizing. These are certainly well-executed cake "statues" but they kind of leave me cold. Just my opinion. In the same vein, if the current bridezillas would stick to traditional-ish wedding cakes they might not end up with the hideous monstrosities that you've pictured! I love this site and I also dislike cupcake-cakes. They make no sense whatsoever. Keep up the good work.
In Anchorage, the head chef of the local fancy hotel has been making a gingerbread display (started as a house, now a whole village) for 35 years.
http://www.adn.com/slideshow/photos-anchorages-captain-cook-boasts-gingerbread-village-unlike-any-other-alaska
Hi the Victorian house with the pumpkin seed roof is my creation from the Belleville illinois gingerbread contest the back side was open and all of the rooms had wallpaper and were decorated with gingerbread furniture :)