Gingerbreading 2011, Q5's house

Well, we almost didn't get to gingerbreading, because our gingerbread was dry and crumbly, but once I made a new batch all went well. Easy to roll out, easy to cook. Tasty. Well, the dough was, I haven't had any cooked yet.

Q5 asked for a castle that she saw in a gingerbread making book. I'd seen this castle before -- but never made it. But I decided OK, we'd do it, figuring it didn't have a roof, it should be pretty easy.

Not so. Not so. Gingerbread houses NEED roofs to keep them together. The castle keep was a miniature little house, but the rest was a crenelated wall. Easy to put together, but easy to fall apart, too, which Q5 and I found out when we started to put candy on it. I ended up re-"gluing" with more frosting and then putting candy all around the inside and outside of the walls to help stabilize. And it worked really well.

Here is Q5's crenelated castle. She's taking this into school for her class to eat, which is why we LOADED it with candy.

Here it is undecorated:





Decorated [from upperleft, front (notice drawbridge with caramels on it), left (notice bombs in wall), back (you can see the back of the keep and the smiley face), right (tree made up of spearmint leaves!)]:






Actually, originally Q5 had asked me to write "Beware!" on the roof, but we forgot. When asked why, she said there was a cat inside who didn't like people.

And the view from above that shows it all: