This year Andrea and I took on a new venue with our little gingerbread habit. The Festival of Trees has been a huge fundraising tradition in Utah for over a decade now. People from all over enthusiastically donate decorated Christmas trees, quilts, gingerbread houses, wreaths, wood crafts, goodies, etc. All the items are then auctioned off or sold through the week and every penny is donated to the Primary Children's medical center.
So not exactly a competition, but we were excited to do a little good. Since we have been doing large projects for three years now we decided to take another crack at the castle. Using the same pattern as before, we implemented our bits of acquired wisdom that we have picked up here and there, and I think we came up with a much higher quality finished product.
This picture was the inspirational starting point. No sense doing the exact same castle....blue! no, pink! blue! (I know I'm a Disney nerd, but I was just having a sleeping beauty moment there.)
The finished gingerbread pieces. Notice the improved shape of the cylinders. Wrapping the dough around a dowel, and then rolling the whole thing in tinfoil helps keep the shape. Beveling the outside edges with the dremmel was also a new technique for this castle.
Since we now live three hours apart and the venue was close to in the middle, Andrea and I met at the Expo Center to decorate. (I assembled the raw pieces the night before driving up.) In hindsight, we realize this was not the best idea. Case in point: Royal icing and cotton snow don't mix well.
I poured the candy lake and river the night before as well.
*Note to self: blue food coloring added to hot sucker syrup always turns green. Figure out how to make water that doesn't look algae infested.
We used fondant dusted with powdered sugar for snow this time which turned out quite nice.
Lighting was another new addition. The castle is constructed on top of a styrofoam board, which worked well for supporting the led lights.
Last time we painted the turret tops with food coloring gel and water. The sugar cones warped and uncurled from the moisture. So this year we rolled our cones with blue fondant. Our technique could use a little refining, but the general idea I think is a good one.
A fancy ribbon around the edge to finish it off, and voila! We are done!
We got word today that the castle sold for $120.00. It feels great to know that we were able to make a difference with our gingerbread delirium this year!
