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Say hello to the 2018 National Gingerbread House Competition 3rd Place Winner!
“Reindeer Playing Poker”
I’m still reeling from the experience and basking in my 15 minutes of fame. Who knew gingerbread would be my big break?
I’m super excited about the way it turned out and completely floored with my 3rd place finish. I’ve never competed in the competition before and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
For those of you not familiar with the National Gingerbread House competition, let me break it down for you.
- It’s awesome. This year was the 26th year in existence. Check it out.
- It takes place at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. Totally beautiful resort. You should go.
- Any and all are welcome to compete and the categories are: Adult, Teen, Youth, Child.
- All creations must be 100% edible (except the base) and 75% gingerbread.
- A Top 10 is announced for each category and of those Top 10, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place are awarded ribbons and prize packages.
- It’s awesome.
As I mentioned, the entire creation must be made using edible materials. Of those materials, 75% of them must be gingerbread. That makes the competition very challenging. And, I love a good challenge. The base itself does not have to be edible. I made mine using a piece of plywood fixed on the underside with four bun legs. I added a thick wooden trim around the edges and finished it off with a wooden plaque displaying my entry number, lucky A508. I stained all the wood to give it a nice rich look.
The floorboards on top of the base are actually made from construction grade gingerbread. I rolled out and baked some large pieces of construction grade gingerbread into rectangles. Then I stained them with Wilton food colors.
I cut them into planks using my scroll saw and pieced them together to give the effect of a real wood floor.
The rug is braided construction grade gingerbread. I made one batch of gingerbread and colored half of it a dark brown. Then I rolled out individual strands and hand braided them together. Over and over and over again.
The process was tedious and time-consuming. I had to keep everything refrigerated to prevent the gingerbread from drying out and cracking. When I had the look I wanted, I actually baked the whole piece in the oven to make it come together and harden up.
The whole process took about 20 hours and stretched over 2 weeks of time. AND… when I finally pieced everything together, the rug was too small! I momentarily panicked and then just decided to add another braided layer of fondant and paint it gold. Fondant is way easier to braid than gingerbread, but I was going for the gingerbread wow factor. I think the judges appreciated the effort.
All the furniture is made from gingerbread with a few fondant/candy embellishments. I baked the gingerbread into the basic shapes I needed and used my power tools to sand and smooth the surfaces.
For the table, I baked it in four pieces. I stacked two pieces together for the base and secured them with tylose glue. I rolled and baked one column to use at the center of the table. I secured that to the base using cinnamon sticks and bucatini pasta as pegs and edible glue as an adhesive. I baked the top of the table as one piece that I secured using the same method as the base. I used my Dremel to smooth all the edges and make it look as realistic as possible. Then I used some Wilton food colors mixed with cheap vodka to stain the gingerbread to give it a real wood look. I don’t have any great process photos.
Once my table dried, I used an edible lacquer to give it a bit of a shine. Then I colored some fondant green, rolled it out, and cut it into a big circle. While the fondant was still pliable, I put a washcloth over it and used a fondant smoother to firmly press down on the surface. This gave the fondant a textured look that was similar to felt. I let the fondant dry out for a few days. Then I placed it on top of the table and secured it with my edible glue.
For the chairs, I used a similar process to the table. I baked all my pieces in the basic shapes I wanted. Then I used my scroll saw to get more defined edges. I used my sander and Dremel tool to smooth everything out.
As for assembly, I will break down the process, but it’s not necessarily how I would do it again. I used the bucatini pasta as pegs and assembled the chairs much like the table. However, the delicate nature of the pieces was too much for the pasta to handle in some cases. I had a lot of snapped pasta. If I could do it over, I would probably try to bake the backs of the chairs as one giant piece, including the legs.
I used some sanded pieces of gingerbread to create the seat cushions. I glued them on to the seat and backs of each chair.
Then I stained all the chairs using the same process as the table.
As for the “leather”, I colored some more fondant and textured it to my liking. I rolled out the fondant and cut out the pieces I wanted. Then I crumpled up some tin foil, opened it back up, laid it on top of the fondant and rolled my rolling pin over it to create visible grooves. I used my edible adhesive to glue the fondant right on to the gingerbread.
Before the fondant dried, I used hundreds of small white sugar pearl sprinkles and pressed them into the fondant along all the edges to give the appearance of studded pins. Then I painstakingly painted each and every one of them a gold/bronze color. It was miserable but totally worth it.
The reindeer are made with gingerbread covered in modeling chocolate. I baked a bunch of deer heads, bodies, arms, legs, and antlers. Then I sanded them all down to my desired specifications.
I assembled the reindeer bodies using my bucatini pasta peg method and covered them in modeling chocolate. I molded the chocolate to give the reindeer some interesting features and make them look more human.
I painted the gingerbread antlers with white royal icing.
Getting the reindeer to sit exactly the way I wanted was very challenging. The logistics were a bit of a nightmare and I might add a blog post about the process, but I won’t bore you with the details now. The important thing is that I made all of my adjustments before I glued anything or added the modeling chocolate. The modeling chocolate dries hard and is not easily manipulated without some disruptive efforts.
In the process of constructing the larger parts of my piece, I also made a lot of tiny little details. I created cigars out of tiny gingerbread logs and paper mache wafer paper that I painted with food coloring.
I baked and sanded down a piece of gingerbread that I stained to look like an ashtray. The plate and carrots were made from gumpaste, and the green carrot stems were strings pulled off of celery and dried.
The pretzels are tiny bits of dyed, shaped, and baked gingerbread, while the napkin is modeling chocolate.
The coins (or chips) are made from gumpaste and painted with metallic edible paint. The cards were printed using an edible printer onto wafer paper and adhered to a very thin layer of gumpaste. The Moscow Mule mugs are made with fondant wrapped in wafer paper and painted.
The limes are fondant that I layered, rolled and sliced.
The liquid is piping gel, and the ice cubes are smashed isomalt nibs. I even added tiny little fondant leaves, though I’m not really sure why. I think I saw it in a picture and thought it would be a nice touch.
I was afraid my reindeer would look a little plain, so I added some fondant bridles with fondant buttons that I painted gold.
I even gave one reindeer a cigar case made out of modeling chocolate with a matching button. I wanted each of the reindeer to have an item that identified their individual personalities. One had the cigars, one was eating carrots and pretzels, one had on a watch (made with fondant), and the last one had a monogrammed bag sitting on the floor next to his chair.
I can’t even begin to estimate the number of hours this project took me. There was a lot of trial and error, some major stress, too many nights with not enough sleep, and a really big learning curve. Near the end, I swear I was telling myself (and my husband) that I would never put myself through this process again. Then I got to the competition…
But first… let me back up a little. First, I had to transport the darn thing in my car 3.5 hours to the Grove Park Inn. Let’s just say… it didn’t go well. 240 miles to my destination. The entry broke on MILE 1! No joke. I was making a turn and one of the reindeer just toppled right over and he and the chair broke into about 10 pieces.
I called one of my “gingerfriends” who is a veteran competitor. She talked me off the ledge and offered to help me in the triage room as soon as I arrived at the hotel. Shout out to Linda, because she was my rock and I don’t know what I would have done without her that day. I ended up just wrapping the whole thing in a beach towel and driving like a snail up to the mountains.
I arrived at the hotel and went immediately to the triage area for repairs, where I spent the next three hours. The Food Network was there filming the event for their show, Gingerbread Giants. They immediately descended on me with their camera crew and producers. Broken gingerbread is like reality television GOLD. So I did an interview and tried my best not to look like the frazzled, sweaty, dehydrated, hungry mess that I was at the time.
When I finally managed to piece everything back together, I had to get it through registration, professional photography, and onto the judging table without any catastrophes. I’m not sure how I managed it, but I did.
The judging took place the next morning and the awards ceremony was later that night. I caught glimpses of some of the other entries and there was some super impressive stuff.
My favorite was this BOSS treehouse (Meghan Morris).
I felt honored to be there competing with some really talented individuals and my expectations were low, but hopeful. There seemed to be a bit of a buzz about the Reindeer Playing Poker. Probably because my wreckage was on display right at the entrance of the registration room. So, everyone that arrived to drop off their creations had to walk right by the woman frantically trying to make major repairs.
I did a bunch of interviews with different networks while we were waiting to be let in to the ballroom for the awards ceremony. I couldn’t tell you a single thing I said. I was nervous, excited, and totally overwhelmed.
When they finally let us in to the ballroom, I got a seat right up front. I scanned the other entries and tried to figure out which ones would get into the Top 10. I was up to about 18 when they started announcing finalists. They did kids, youth and teen categories first. By the time they got to the adult category, I was jacked up. And when they called my number, I freaked! It was all a blur and suddenly I’m standing at the finalists table with nine other people and their freaking awesome pieces of edible art. The event coordinators went back through the kids, youth, and teen categories again to announce the Top 3 in each one. Then they were back to us. And then they were announcing 3rd Place and I saw a photo of my piece up on the projector and I had my hands up in the air and I know I looked surprised because the Asheville Citizens Times got a photo of the very moment.
Total genuine reaction. I was definitely not expecting to place at all. AND I GOT 3RD! I still can’t believe it.
So yeah… needless to say, I will be competing next year. I’m totally hooked. Gingerbread rocks! And so do all of the people involved in that event. There’s a whole network of individuals who pride themselves on sharing ideas and recipes. It’s the reason I competed, and the reason I was competitive. I learned so much from so many people in such a short period of time.
And tonight… I WAS ON THE NBC NIGHTLY NEWS!!!!! Watch it. I’m the one who says it took me at least 300 hours. The national news y’all!
Two of the local news stations back home in the Raleigh area contacted me for interviews. I went to the ABC 11 studio to record an interview with Barbara Gibbs last week, and I have a live interview scheduled next Saturday morning with WRAL. I did at least two interviews with the Food Network and a demo for their show. So, hopefully I’ll get to see myself on that. Brag session over. Thank you for indulging me.
Stay tuned for some more in-depth tutorials. Thanks for reading and check out the other Top 10 winners below!
FIRST PLACE
SECOND PLACE
TOP 10
Other Cake Decorating and Gingerbread Posts:
Construction Grade Gingerbread Recipe (for building, not eating)
Gingerbread Recipe (for eating and building)
Reindeer Playing Poker – National Gingerbread House Competition 3rd Place Winner
Santa’s Gingerbread Mountain Chalet
Cardinal Family Christmas – Gingerbread Birdhouse
Gingerbread House Construction Tips
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