We were at Tractor Supply for the mobile vet clinic for our pup's last set of shots and our daughter saw the Gingerbread Kits. Being at Tractor Supply, you might be able to guess that they're not your regular house kits but are more Farm related.
Given that we have chickens, she asked to get the Chicken Coop. I know that the royal icing that comes in these kits don't really hold the pieces together like pictured so I told her that if she would give me some time, I would figure out a way to "glue" the pieces together so that they would hold.
I kept putting it off and putting it off and the box was taking up a lot of room so I put all the cookie pieces, candy, icing, and the red and black icing tubes into the cabinet and tossed the box. It really wasn't an out of sight, out of mind kind of thing...because I knew it was there...but I continued to put it off. A few nights ago, she asked if she could decorate her chicken coop. I told her I would glue it together the next day and once it was cooled then she could work on it.
I have watched a lot of baking shows and competitions to know that caramel holds better than that royal icing so I found a "recipe" that called for 200g of sugar and 60g of water. I put the sugar in a pan and added the water covering as much of the sugar as possible, turned the heat onto medium-med hi, and let it sit. I didn't touch it but let it do its thing! It said to cook it to 160° C and it starts to turn a golden color. I used too big of a pan so my thermometer wouldn't reach into the sugar so I just waited until the color started and then started to swirl the sugar until it was all golden. I removed it from the heat and had to flip pancakes and began gluing the pieces together and to the cardboard.
In hindsight, I should have attached the side walls on the inside of the front wall panel so there would be some roof overhang. One of the side pieces had an extra small piece that probably should have been glued to the front so the ramp could sit outside of the coop. I also couldn't get the black icing out of the tube and I should have realized that it was too thin and added some powder sugar to it so it wouldn't run like it did and would look more like the string of lights like it was supposed to. I also wish I could have had a piping bag to do a better job on the front corners.
I handed the light shaped candies to my daughter and said have at it and she went to town! Oh and when I did the icing on the roof, I used my small pallet knife to make it look like it was scalloped...I think that's the right word for it. Then she put candy in each indent! I love it. She did a great job. If we do this next year, I will be better prepared with a piping bag, more royal icing and maybe some more decorations. Or we'll get all three and decorate all three on a big platter!
Maybe this will become a tradition. We don't have any decoration traditions so maybe we'll have this as our family tradition for after Thanksgiving! What family traditions does your family have?
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