The Fresno building

by Marie
(Fresno,CA)

Front View

Oh boy, I get these crazy ideas of what to do to "impress" the boss. So this year I decided that I would make a replica of the building I work in out of gingerbread. The construction process went ok accept that my fiance (who is a contractor) could NOT understand why the windows were not perfectly squared when they were pulled from the oven. I tried to explain that gingerbread is not wood so in spite of his perfect scale drawing, the windows were not going to be exact.
He failed to see the "fun" in it.

Anyhow, the biggest challenge was the large window sections which we had to make individual molds to make. I melted a ton of jolly rancher candies and poured into the molds. There was a LOT of cussing going on as there were many times when the candy windows cracked as they were being removed from the molds. This meant, more melting, another setting up of the mold and pour and wait for it to harden. Next time, I'll try to figure out a way to make a full mold rather than sections if I need a large window again. Then again, getting it out of the mold also is a PAIN!

All the gingerbread and frosting was made from scratch but it's not really an "edible" recipe. It smells fantastic but it dries into a hard cookie to construct with so it's more like ginger-brick.

The frosting was made with Wilton's recipe for Royal Icing. No real eggs, just meringue powder,water,and powdered sugar.

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Dec 13, 2008
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Great Job!
by: Jana

Loved your story---had me cracking up this morning. Very ambitious of you to recreate the workplace and nicely done on your part!

As for squaring up the windows again--when you take the gingerbread out of the oven you can replace your pattern over the baked piece while still warm and using a sharp knife trim around the pattern again--really helps square things up again when you go to put the walls together and also makes your windows nice and sharp looking.

For the jolly ranchers you could try a couple things next time instead of making molds...One: bake your pieces, trim around the pattern again as I mentioned above and then place a jolly rancher or two in the window opening and put back in the oven just until the ranchers melt (or you could put crushed ranchers in there as well to help speed up melting process. Or, two: place some jolly ranchers on a baking sheet and let them melt into individual puddles. When hardened peel them off and place over your windows from the back (using icing around the edges to hold them in like window glaze). If you use a Silpat to melt the jolly ranchers on they peel off easily once they reharden. Also, for more ideas you can check out the "Candy Windows" link to the left for other ideas.

Hope you keep on making houses, or buildings as it were--nicely done!

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