Red Truck Gingerbead house
This gingerbread house is a whole mood. When I see it, I just imagine driving to a little cabin in the mountains where you can curl up with a warm blanket by a cozy fire, sipping a hot toddy and reading a good book. Who doesn’t want to escape the holiday hustle and bustle every once in a while. The red truck is so nostalgic and has become a favorite Christmas symbol. If I had a cabin like this, I would definitely want a classic vintage red truck to go with it!
The snow covered path up to the cabin just draws me in. I feel like I need to go into this cabin and take a little nap.
The wood grain texture on the gingerbread and trim pieces adds a lot of interest to this little cabin. The door handle, which is made of gum paste, is fashioned to look like oil rubbed bronze.
The greenery swags are piped with royal icing and tiny red candy balls add a bright pop.
The red truck is made of gum paste and holds a big Christmas tree in the bed.
Here is a side view of the truck, in case you couldn’t see the Christmas tree.
Here are a few shots of the making of this gingerbread house. The wood grain texture was done with a faux bois roller (see below). I rolled the wood grain roller onto the gingerbread before cutting and baking the gingerbread. The result, once baked is shown below. The photo to the right above shows the beginning stages of making the red truck and some of the door and trim. These details are all gum paste.
Here is a pic of this gingy in early stages. You can see that the right post broke off (it’s sitting on the cake drum). This is nothing new when building gingerbread houses. I’m pretty sure I’ve had to make repairs on all of my gingerbread houses. The great thing is that royal icing is very strong and is kind of like the duct tape of the cake world when it comes to fixing things. The windows on this gingerbread house are two layers. There is a lasagna layer that is fixed in place with royal icing on the inside of the gingerbread. The next, outer layer is made of cut up gelatin sheets. You can see this layer is shiny and is sitting right under the gum paste window and door trim.
In the picture just above this one, you will see that I was testing out a wreath with silver dragees and red balls. In the end, I chose to go with the red candy only wreaths. I wanted this house to be old timey and nothing too fancy, and I felt like the red balls were just the thing.
The snow in the windows is royal icing and is meant to look like its been blown into the corners of the windows and door by a blustery wind.
This gingerbread house is sitting on a custom cake drum. Originally, the gingerbread house was sitting on a regular round cake drum, but once I realized that I wanted to add the red truck I improvised a place to put it. I took a second round cake drum and cut out a portion that is the shape of the center of a Venn diagram (not sure if there is a name for this shape). Then I hot glued the two cake drums together and covered with snow to make the custom base.
The lights are off here, but it’s still looking warm and cozy.
Sometimes I get lucky and find wrapping paper that coordinates with my gingerbread house! I was so committed to this red truck theme, that I even made matching red truck cookies! Bridget Edwards, of Bake at 350 blog, has an amazing tutorial on how to make these cookies! I highly recommend it!
Wishing everyone a cozy and relaxing Christmas season!
XO ~Sarah
