This was a first for me and my family. I bake and decorate cakes as a hobby but gingerbread has always been, well, just cookies around our house to decorate with a little royal icing and raisins. Well, using some structural secrets from a favorite cake web site, we came up with this one! Both the house and Emerald City are gingerbread. The tornado is rice krispie treats molded and covered with six (6) pounds of royal icing. We entered it in our local Rotary sponsored Gingerbread Extravaganza and it will be on display through Christmas. Sure hope it holds up (no pun intended).
Because this question has been asked so many times, I will try and explain how I made the tornado and house on top. I bolted a PVC pipe to the bottom board using a pipe phlange(sp?). The pipe was cut at a slight angle on top and I bolted a small 5" x 7" metal plate to the angled top. This was tricky but I got help from the friendly people at my local Lowes hardware store. The base (floor) of the house was then superglued to the metal plate and I attached flat mini chocolate bars underneath to hide the metal plate. Hope this explanation is clear>
Dec 01, 2010 Rating
Question! by: Emily
Okay, I have to make a gingerbread house for culinary arts, and i was wondering if you could explain to me how you did the house, like what did you do to support the house. please let me know asap/
Jul 10, 2010 Rating
Wow!!!!!!! by: Carmelo Ricarde
I'm actually making a wizard of oz cake and was looking on line for inspiration and your photo just blew me away! Is there a dowel under the tornado and house? That looks amazing!!!
This is absolutely awesome! What an inspired idea!
Would you mind letting us in on the "structural secrets" you used to construct this? It's amazing that you got the house to stay supported on the krispie tornado. Is there some type of support hidden within the krispie? And is the house on a piece of cardboard or just free-standing on the tornado?
Really - a brilliant idea! I'm delighted just looking at it.
Aug 28, 2009 Rating
Emerald City ? by: Judy
I made the Emerald City (EC) out of gingerbread cookies I baked and glued together with royal icing. Then I covered the EC with melted green apple Jolly Ranchers. It worked great and really made the EC shine. The only problem we had was at the event!!!! They didn't keep the temperature of the room controlled properly and everyone's sugar windows and my EC melted. It wasn't a pretty site. :-( On a good note, the house didn't fall and I was really really happy about that.
Aug 28, 2009 Rating
what by: Anonymous
what did you use to make emerald city???
Aug 18, 2009 Rating
Oh my gosh! by: Kami
That is so awesome. I was searching for ideas for our county fair ( the theme is wizard of oz)and I am gonna try this as a decorated cake. WOW Hope I can pull it off. You did an incredible job!I have never seen anything so fun and creative!
Dec 08, 2008 Rating
Spectacular! by: Isis
This is so over-the-top creative! You chose such an energetic moment in the story--I'm a huge Oz fan and this is a tremendous creative effort. Congrats on a well-deserved win. Thanks for the inspiration.
Dec 02, 2008 Rating
Wow! by: Melanie
Awesome house!
My family tends to think I'm crazy. Getting them to work together on anything besides driving to Olive Garden is impossible.
Now, you have given me a tool to inspire them!
Have a great Holiday!
Nov 27, 2008 Rating
Wow! by: Elizabeth
Amazing! Congratulations on your win, Judy. I googled to find a method to make a gingerbread house for my kids this Christmas. Your effort has me panicking.
Nov 25, 2008 Rating
It's a winner! by: Judy
We attended the Preview Party tonight, and low and behold we won, "Best in Class Amateur - Fantasy". What a rush! We are sooooo ready now for next year, already.
