The Citizen, 2007-12-20, Page 21(MS) -This holiday season youcould certainly bake up a batch ofgingerbread, draw house plans, anderect the next great masterpiece.
However, for many would-be
gingerbread house enthusiasts,
baking may seem like a chore, and
more pleasure will be derived from
the decorating aspect of gingerbread
house building.
Enter graham crackers. These
tasty cookie-crackers are a viable
alternative to messing with sheets of
gingerbread. They’re also easier to
handle and come in many flavours.
If kids will be involved
with gingerbread house decorating,
consider assembling the house
and let the kids have fun
decorating.
GETTING STARTED
Construct a gingerbread house
“yard.” Simply get a rectangular
cake board or thick piece of
cardboard roughly the size of a
letter-size piece of paper and cover it
with foil.
Gather all of the materials you’ll
need for the house:
· 6 sheets of graham crackers per
house
· one to two batches of royal icing
· a variety of decorations,
including spearmint rings, candy-
covered chocolate or peanut butter
candies, licorice, pretzels, ribbon
candy, jelly beans, and whatever else
you can think of
· serrated knife for cutting
ASSEMBLING THE HOUSE
Create the walls with four square
sections of cracker. The peaked roof
uses two three-quarter crackers and
the spaces between the end walls
and the roof peaks can be carved out
of the quarter sections left over from
the roof.
Use a pastry bag filled with the
royal icing to use as ‘mortar’ for the
house. If you don’t have a pastry bag
and tip, simply put the icing into alarge plastic zipper bag, tie off oneend with a twist tie and cut a hole in the corner of the bag
the size of the icing bead you’ll
need.
To assemble the house, run the
icing along two sides of the ‘walls’
of the house. Stick the bottom of one
wall to the ‘yard’ and press
another wall to the side, repeating
until you have all four walls
standing.
For extra support, put more icing
on the inside corners of all the walls.(Make sure the graham crackers justmeet at the corners during assemplyand are not overlapping.)
For the roof, ice the edges of the
triangular peak pieces and attach to
the top of the short ends of the house
frame. Use extra icing for attaching
the roof - double what you used for
the walls. Ice the remaining
roof pieces and attach to the
peaks.
Put an extra coating of icing along
the length of the peak of the roof and
fill in any gaps on the entirestructure. Let the icing hardenbefore decorating. Cover remaining icing so it won’t
dry out.
DECORATING
Let imaginations soar with regard
to decorating. Cookies can serve as athatched roof, pretzel sticks forwindows. How about gumdropbushes by the front door? If you
must eat the creation, do so in a
few days otherwise it will grow
stale.
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2007. PAGE 21. Gingerbread house construction 101
Now open
Dave and Tamara Riach have just moved their business,
Davara Studio, onto Blyth’s main street. They are open on
Saturdays and hope to be at full inventory by the new year.
They will offer a full compliment of original clay, stained
glass and woodwork, and hopefully soon, workshops.
(Shawn Loughlin photo)
Continued from page 20
hope to bring some exciting coming
events to Blyth in the future.
“We’ve already been approached
by people who want to learn how to
work with clay,” Tamara said.
“We’re not able to do it now, but
we’re hoping that in the new year we
can set up some workshops for the
people on the waiting list.”
There are several workshop ideas,
some that will get people working
with clay and others that would get
parents and their children into the
workshop crafting keepsakes,
capturing handprints and the like in
clay for years to come.
Davara Studio will also host an
official grand opening sometime in
the spring of 2008.
The Riachs are already looking
into expansion. Dave said they are
looking into finding a painter and a
photographer whose work they can
feature at the studio. However, they
do hope to keep the inventory at
least 80 per cent theirs.
Davara Studio can be reached at
(519) 523-4355 or by e-mailing
dtriach@ezlink.ca
Studio
to offer
work-
shops in
2008
CALDWELL
CONSTRUCTION
Gary, Linda & family
Blyth 519-523-9354
Best wishes to all our friends and customers
now and in the coming year.
519-523-4825
Dennis Hamm Painting & More
Painting, Drywall Taping,
Residential & Small Business
Minor Repairs
No job too small.
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235 Turnberry St.,
Brussels
519-887-9661
Hwy.#8,
Mitchell
519-348-8485
We really appreciate
your filling our year
with so much joy.
Merry Christmas
everyone!
RADAR AUTO PARTS
"You'll find it at CARQUEST"
20 King St.,
Clinton
519-482-3445
Blyth 519-523-4944
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FROM SHEILA RINTOUL