CARTHAGE, Mo. — Melinda Wilson doesn’t think much of her award-winning gingerbread house.
It’s not that she doesn’t like the gingerbread house that was awarded first place in the Senior Division last week at the annual Gingerbread House Contest to benefit St. Luke’s Nursing Center in Carthage. Wilson’s winning entry, “Santa’s Toy Shop,” is long on detail and artistic style.
But ask Wilson about her creation, or just marvel at its beauty and complexity and she’ll likely smile and shake her head.
“It’s not very hard, really,” she said.
Wilson, who had never even made a gingerbread house until she entered the first St. Luke’s contest five years ago, said it takes her “a couple weeks” to come up with her basic design. Once she has the design in her mind, she makes a template of sorts by sketching the house out on paper. Wilson said there is no way she could make one of her gingerbread houses without using a template.
Once the template for the gingerbread house is complete, and Wilson is sure of its dimensions, she bakes the gingerbread that will serve as the house’s foundation, its walls and its roof. The gingerbread is baked in measured slabs and, if needed, the gingerbread slabs can be trimmed to fit.
For this year’s contest Wilson chose to use shredded wheat cereal for the thatched roofs of her gingerbread house.
“I did it to save time. I usually make my own roof,” she said.
The great thing about gingerbread houses is that the only limits to them are the limits to your imagination. Wilson’s house, for example, included two A-frame structures.
On the outside of the house she created a small pond, with penguins, a polar bear roasting a hot dog over a fire, poinsettia plants along a handmade sidewalk, candles in the windows, shutters and garland. On the inside of the house Wilson created a table holding books and presents, a fireplace, a Christmas tree and a red and white tile floor.
The key to all of the extras to her gingerbread house, Wilson said, is fondant icing. The icing, which Wilson said, has a texture not unlike “silly putty” can be colored and molded to fit any design or usage.
For the St. Luke’s contest, the fondant icing was critical since everything on the gingerbread houses, with the exception of lighting, must be edible. Again, the versatility of fondant allows Wilson to be as creative as she wanted to be.
“Sometimes I’ll look at it and ask ‘What does it need now?’” Wilson said.
Understand you don’t have to have a great deal of artistic talent to make your own gingerbread house. Actually, you don’t have to have any artistic talent.
There are a number of pre-fabricated gingerbread house kits out there. The kits come with instructions and most of them contain pre-made gingerbread slabs as well as candy items to be used as decorations.
The kits are relatively easy to put together, allowing a novice gingerbread house maker to create his or her own holiday treat.
