Gingerbread

Penguins’ Cottage Gingerbread house

This penguins’ cottage gingerbread house is a favorite of my kids. The whimsical penguins add delight to this happy house, and the colorful stone covered walls and chimney add style to this cute cottage. Let your imagination run wild, dreaming of a penguins waddling around, getting ready for Christmas.

This little guy is sporting a winter hat and scarf, while ice fishing, waiting for a fish to jump out.

Here he is again sliding down the front walkway. The fun thing about this gingerbread house is that the gum paste penguins aren’t attached, so they can move around the front yard.

The rock façade is made of grey tinted royal icing and candy rocks.

The candy rocks on the left have red rocks in the mix. I picked out the red rocks from the mix, opting instead for a green, blue, yellow, and grey color scheme.

The fishing hole is made of isomalt. I piped royal icing snow around the isomalt to create a heart shaped pond.

I borrowed the structure of this house from a light up house I already had. Sometimes this is an easy shortcut, because if you like the scale and design of a decorative house you have, you can save time by using it rather than starting to make a house template from scratch.

Below are some shots of the beginning stages of this house. I worked my way around the house adding the stone veneer a bit at a time so that the royal icing wouldn’t harden before I got to it!

The windows in this house are made of leaf gelatin. You can find it in sheets at cake supply stores or on Amazon.

Leaf gelatin is fully clear and transparent making it a great choice for gingerbread house windows, as long as the interior of your house is pretty clean. This house is put together with brown royal icing rather than white royal icing. The reason for this is that it minimizes the appearance of seams everywhere on the house. In this case it also helps make the interior of the house look nice since the windows are completely clear.

The icicles and snow drifts are white royal icing of two different consistencies. The icicles are a looser more wet royal icing to help get the drip effect for each icicle. The royal icing used to pipe the snow is a thicker consistency, which is better suited for puffy, lumpy snow.

With blue ear muffs and a green bow, these boy and girl penguins are ready for a day in snow.

The whole penguin gang is here! Hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!

XO~Sarah

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