From the moment I first realized that our family was actually going to open a store called Harvey’s, I knew that I wanted to do a gingerbread display for the store window. Around mid-August I started brainstorming and planning. We considered many options for what the scene would be, but in the end we decided to go with a homestead that would help describe what Harvey’s is for.
After we figured out what we were trying to accomplish, I started planning. I drew up sketches and messed around with different ideas for awhile, until I had a main picture that I was basing each structure off, and also general measurements for each of them. Then I calculated how many candy belts, licorice, fondant, and such I thought we would need to cover the buildings, and I am happy to say that most of my estimates were close to spot on. We ordered a large box of bulk candy in September, but it wasn’t until beginning of October that the big candy box came and I started to get excited.
The next step was making the templates for every single piece that made up the homestead. It was a long process, and I was making adjustments to every piece until I thought I had gotten it all to fit together right. So I printed them and cut them out. Each structure took about 32 pieces including some duplicates here and there. While we waited for November to come to start baking, we stocked up on flour, corn syrup, sugar, and such.
Finally on Monday, November 4th we started baking piece after piece of gingerbread. It took all day Monday, and half of Tuesday to just bake the pieces and that didn’t even include the roofs. Tuesday afternoon we started assembling and got the silo walls and some of the barn walls done by night.
The assembling took a lot longer to do than I or my sisters were anticipating. We were using a sugar syrup to glue the pieces together, and the recipe that we used for the syrup had a 1 to 2 water to sugar ratio. But when the sugar granules dissolve and get stuck on the side of the pan they become sugar crystals, which, when dissolved again turn the whole mixture into a big, dry sugar lump. Because of this we were wasting ten minutes for every batch of trashed sugar that we had to remake. About three-fourths of the way through the assembling process, I decided to find a solution. I tried adding less water, which helped but it still had the same problem in the end.
Finally, we just decided to try melting straight sugar. And it worked!!! Sure, we might have made the store have a slight smell of burnt sugar for a couple days (sorry if you were one of the people who had to come in one of those days!), but it was worth it and probably saved us a few hours in the end.
After all of the walls were assembled, we started the roofs. I hadn’t made templates for these because with the way the gingerbread bakes the structure’s measurements always change slightly in size, so we just took pieces of paper and marked and cut them into what would fit. We made out last batches of gingerbread dough and then put the pieces on.
The house roof went together perfectly. The barn roof took a lot more time due to the size and positioning of the pieces, but we got that done too.
All that was left was the silo roof. It was going together great, but while rotating the base we hit a jam in the system, and the whole roof and one side of the octagon came crashing down. All I remember from the moment what just yelling a short little, “No!” and trying to save what I could. With one of my sisters holding what was left standing up, we built it back together brick by brick. Thankfully, we got it fixed and the roof in place by Thursday night.
Friday morning I woke up with a new enthusiasm for the project, we could start decorating! I have been baking for a few years, and whenever people ask me what my favorite thing to bake is, I have to say cakes because of the decorating and just what the finished product looks like. So Friday morning I started putting candy belts on the silo walls and my sisters worked on the fondant barn roof. We used traditional royal icing to stick most of the decorations on (finally no more burns of our fingers from hot sugar). By the end of Friday we had most of the silo walls done, the barn roof was finished, and the siding on the house was started (also made from fondant).
On Saturday we worked until about 3 o’clock and started our weekend by cleaning our kitchen. We worked on some decorations in the kitchen and didn’t set foot in the window all of Sunday afternoon.
Monday we started up again. We were trying to get the barn walls done, but because of how thick the licorice was, the royal icing wasn’t going to stick the candy to the walls. So we were back to the hot sugar. It was a good thing that Harvey’s is closed Mondays, cause that day the store was smelling like burnt sugar once again.
In the end I did end up running to the store to get some more licorice to finish covering the barn walls. While I was having trouble with the barn walls, my sisters were working on decorating the house roof (made out of wheat cereal) and finishing the house siding.
Our second Tuesday in the window rolled around, and we finished up all of the structures’ walls and roofs by middle of the day. The whole crew was in the window for a while, thinking of festive ways to dress up the buildings. We went to bed with the goal of finishing the project next day.
And we did!!! We added a couple last touches, cleaned up, and laid down snow before putting the animals out. The animals are what made the whole thing come to life. The chicken on the porch roof is what made the product finished for me. A couple days later the window was completely finished, by hanging the 3D snowflakes that Adlai (my sister) made which made it into a winter wonderland.
All of the structures are completely edible, except for a couple posts to support the barn and silo roof. And, a couple days ago some of you might have seen that we were putting cardboard down on the front of the barn roof, and thus making it not entirely edible anymore. Overnight, that portion of the roof had fallen down, and the cardboard what the best way to fix it without the possibility of it falling again. That is the reason that we broke our rule.
In conclusion, it took a couple days more than I was expecting, but I would do it again sometime in the future.
A couple days ago, we received a phone call from my great-grandpa, Harvey, and he asked if we were going to eat it once we are done. The answer is no, most of us have had our fill of the gingerbread and candy for a year. I actually have no idea what we are going to do with them so we’ll see!
Thank you to everybody who gave thumbs up, smiled every time you walked by, honked your horn, and came in to see what was going on. You kept us going throughout the eighty hours we spent working on it.
And thank you to all of my sisters who really did more than anybody gives them credit for. If you haven’t yet, come by and see the finished product and do some gift shopping!
Ready to make your own gingerbread house?
Here are our tried-and-tested recipes for a big, beautiful gingerbread display: