Enchanted Gingerbread Village

It's so whimsical.

All edible, so need not to worry if little fingers pick a pebble to try, or lick a butterfly!

First make a layout or list what you will have on your village. I am not so good in drawing, but I already had a vision what I wanted to have, which is teapot house, tree stump house, flower pot house and a mushroom house. For each house, I listed what decorations would fit with the houses.

Teapot House - fairy

Tree stump House - rabbit

Flower pot House - bee

Mushroom House - gnome

For this project, I used about 2 dough of gingerbread cookies (esp for gingerbread house), 1 dough of gingerbread clay (edible obviously), 1 mixture of marshmallow fondant, 2 mixture of royal icing

Mix, Knead, Roll

Once you prepared your gingerbread dough by mixing and kneading them as you would do bread, let rest, and roll flat. Not too thin, not too thick, just right.

Molds

For the ball shape, I used Wilton ball molds

For the cylinder shape, I used cans from baked beans, different sizes

For the flower pot, I used ceramic pot ;)

Once rolled, lay dough on the molds, and bake.

Shape Them

Once you taken out the cookies, while they are still warm to the touch, help shaping them. Cookie will come out a bit puffy and that is perfect to shape them nicely, but do it while it's still warm. As you can see my cookie has cracks on the pic, by shaping them carefully, they are usable. Same with the other molds.

Excess Dough

Since the cookie will enlarge a bit, while still warm, beside shaping with hands, you can also cut the excess dough to shape it even more nicely.

Ready To Decorate

It took me about 2 days to make sure they are totally hardened before decorating.

I was aiming whimsical enchanted village, so I rely on a lot of food colors. I also purchased coconut for the grasses and chocolate pebbles and eggs. Luckily I have various cookie cutters, so those also help to make the job easier to do.

Start Decorating

All houses were covered in royal icing. They took at least 2 days per house to dry. For the teapot, I attached the two baked cookies (the ball shaped) with royal icing and let dry before covering it in purple icing. While waiting for royal icing to dry, I made the other decorations of gnome, fairy, from, bee, flowers, small mushrooms, butterflies, hedgehogs, bird, and rabbits.

For the mushroom house, I "painted' the royal icing separately. For the top part, half ball is attached to a disk shape cookie with royal icing, let dry, then painted it with blue icing. The bottom part took almost 1 mixture of royal icing itself as I wanted to make sure it was totally strong for the top part.

The tree stump is the most easy as it wasn't covered with royal icing.

Pond

I love the pond. Gelatine is used to give the water effect.

I waited for last minute to attach the top of the mushroom to make decorating job easier.

I brushed royal icing all over the base and covered it with green colored coconut as grasses.

Flower Pot House

I used edible gingerbread clay for the fence.

Snails are made of marshmallow fondant.

Rabbits

Made of marshmallow fondant

Fairy

Fairy, butterfly, clothes, they were all made of fondant, but the rock where she is sitting was made with edible gingerbread clay. She is attached to it with royal icing

Tree Stump House

Roots are attached with ginger and spices flavored royal icing plus brown color, matching the gingerbread cookie color.

Each houses has chimney, the tree stump house has a mushroom-shaped chimney.

The bird is laying chocolate eggs!

Mushroom House

It has caterpillar on the roof, steps that were made of cookies, a cute gnome from marshmallow fondant, and picnic table from gingerbread clay.

Teapot House

Another 2 days wait just for the royal icing to dry before decorating. Vines, flowers, butterflies, flowers, door, window, are all from marshmallow fondant. The steps from door to the pond are gingerbread clay.

Mushrooms

There are purple and red mushrooms for decorations, all are made of marshmallow fondant.

Lady Bug

A family of 3! All made of gingerbread clay

Teapot House

Just another angle shot.

Hedgehogs

Both are made of edible gingerbread clay.

Relaxing Frog

He is relaxing on water lily pad made of fondant. I chose only black chocolate pebbles for the surrounding.

Fairy

Isn't she a cutie?

Caterpillar

Made of fondant, attached with royal icing on the mushroom roof.

Photo Set-Up

My little helper.

We were preparing our humble photo 'studio' to take a better picture of the village.

My little helper.

We were preparing our humble photo 'studio' to take a better picture of the village.