The Second Annual Gingerbread Mega-Project!

Christmas is now well over and it's about time I posted about the Second Annual Jacqui and Jenny Gingerbread Mega-Project (this year featuring Sam and Ngoc Ha).

You may remember last year's mega gingerbread project, the Gingerbread Mausoleum. After that amazing piece of work, we had to think pretty hard about how to top it this year! Good thing we had a whole year to plan!

Well, ok, we didn't really think about it for a whole year, but it did come up in conversation occasionally with some thought and discussion. Despite all that, the big day snuck up on us pretty quickly and we were much less prepared and planned this year than we were for the mausoleum.

Thus, the day began with some sketching, measuring, and drawing blueprints.

Then, it was very important to gather up all the candy and potential decorations we had and take a photo of them before we started eating them *ahem* decorating the gingerbread.

Rolling out the gingerbread and transferring it to the pan was a challenge, so I rolled it right on some baking paper and then transferred the whole thing. That meant that someone had to hold the baking paper still while I rolled. This didn't happen with anyone else but for some reason whenever Jacqui was the holder we always ended up in this position:

Sam helped me whip up the icing. He was a much better helper once he put on the frilly pink apron.

It was very important to taste test the icing...

...and to test the functionality of the icing piping device.

As a result of all the "testing" a bit of sugar overload ensued.

At one point Sam was curled up on the floor in a sugar coma (and why don't we have a picture of that?)

Anyway, decorating the façade was finished and construction had to begin!

Meanwhile, assembly and decoration of various accessories was also happening.

And finally it was finished!

In case you're wondering, this is a Hanoi alleyway, complete with narrow, multi-storey houses with balconies full of everything imaginable, water tanks on the roof, crazy power lines going everywhere, fruit sellers and motorbikes in the lane, and old folks looking after their granchildren.

I don't know why there's a koala on the roof. Silly buggers seem to turn up everywhere!

When we got it to work we put Santa on the roof, but I guess I don't have a picture! He must've been eating a lot this year because overnight the roof collapsed under his weight. Oh well, that makes it a much more typical Hanoian house anyway!

So that was this year's gingerbread house. It disappeared pretty quickly so it must've been tasty! Now to start thinking about next year's Gingerbread Mega-Project....