Harry Potter - The Weasley's Burrow Gingerbread House

There is no denying that I am a proud Harry Potter nerd. Honestly, Ten years or more of my life has been spent being involved in that story whether through the books or the movies so I thought I would make a tribute to the best building in the whole series: The Weasley Family home or more formally “The Burrows”.   I love it because it has an amazing DIY feel to it.  Much like myself, they are on a close budget, they have to make do with things that are not perfect or they make it work somehow. Mrs. Weasley makes her family home knit sweaters for Christmas and they reuse books and clothing,  just like me!  In my mind that house is kept together with magic, duct tape and love.

I am not an excellent cook, but I do like to bake. This gingerbread house, which I actually made a year ago, is the first gingerbread house I have made as an adult. I remember making them as a child with my mother and adding a lot of white icing and gumdrops and loads of sugary bits. However my gingerbread house is not about the candy it's about the gingerbread. Lots and lots of tasty Gingerbread.This house stands at just about 2'-9" tall and used 4 double batches of gingerbread to create.  I also changed the spice equation on my grandmother's recipe to be heavy on the cinnamon, light on the ginger, with a little added nutmeg and no cloves.

As I mentioned above, I did make this gingerbread house a year ago, and not knowing I would be entering it into this contest or onto instructables, I did not take the kind of photo documentation that the folks here at instructables are accustomed to. I put my thinking cap on and decided to use my other skills to attempt to make up for that.  I did an approximation of my template for this gingerbread house on AutoCAD and to help demonstrate the steps I painted some watercolour renderings. It's a bit of an artistic instructable! Why not!?

This baking endeavour took me 40 hours, a fair bit of money and ingredients as well as a small piece of my sanity! I do a lot of crafting, embroidery and craft swaps and this was not in my regular arsenal of skills so it was a major challenge for me. If want to see what I usually spend my time doing - you are most welcome to peruse my blog at your discretion.


 

Step 1: Supplies

This is what you will need to accomplish this:

To make the model:

• 3 pieces of 2'-0" x 3'-0" foamcore - colour of your choosing
• Tape
• Tinfoil
• Large sheet or roll of paper
• Pencil and eraser
• Images of the orginal house
• ruler
• Cutting Mat for paper
• Exacto Blade       

To make all of the gingerbread:
There are 4 double batches to make this which is a massive amount of ingredients. This list is the final tally of what you will need. I will give you a more specific per batch recipe once you get to that step.

• 16 stick of unsalted butter, softened
• 12 cups packed light brown sugar
• 16 eggs
• 8 cups dark molasses ( Some light molasses in there too)
• 8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 50 cups flour ( of various kinds)
• 24 teaspoons ground ginger
• 24 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 8 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 4 teaspoons salt

To make the royal icing:
Again this cumulative for the whole house

• 18 cups of Icing sugar
• 12 eggs

To decorate and shape the gingerbread before and after baking:

• Big cookie sheet
• Small cookie Sheet
• parchment paper
• rolling pin
• Sharp knife ( paring knife works well)
• Dull butter knife
• Icing tips
• Icing bags ( I just used sandwich bags.. a little cheap i know..)
• Paint brushes ( Nylon, new and washed with dish soap)
• Spray food colouring - red
• Dark Brown and Black food colouring
• regular Red, Blue and Yellow food colouring
• 6 cans of canned food ( for propping things up on)
• 2 Large cinnamon Sticks
• about 2 cups of Shreddies ( for the roof shingles)
• Licorice shoelaces
• yellow and green nerds
• a brown candy stick