Last night Blake and I attended the awards ceremony at the Discovery Science Center in Orange County, for their annual gingerbread house competition. And guess what…WE WON for “Most Original”! (We actually tied with another entry that I’ll share pictures of tomorrow.) A couple of months ago, the science center contacted me after seeing the Grin and Bake It article in the Orange County Register. They invited us to enter the competition, and we went for it. I have to confess, this is the first gingerbread house I have made from scratch. I throw a gingerbread party every year and assemble about 20 houses for the kids, but those are the Costco kits, pre-made! I’ve become an expert at putting those together (my secret tool… a glue gun! It makes the process fast and the houses almost indestructible. My party-goers don’t eat the houses, just keep them out as a holiday decoration.) Could I make one from scratch that was contest-worthy? Let’s just say, I wasn’t very confident!

The Naughty One (pictured on the left), the one who on her terms, responds to the name “Winnie” was the inspiration for our house. This pup would never consider sleeping in a dog house though. No, my boy’s Princess Pup sleeps in my king-size bed and somehow manages to push me to the edge every night. (Do you think Prince Charming will one day mind a dog in the bed? That’s an entirely different issue!) We looked at the past entries on the Discovery Science Center site and didn’t see any dog house entries. We then googled “Gingerbread Dog House” and we were surprised when very few hits came up. So at this point, we had a theme, but still were recipe-less with no idea of what we were doing! In the end, it came together and looked pretty cute. I also found the world’s best gingerbread recipe. This dough is so easy to roll out, holds its shape well, and does not need to chill for hours in advance. It also tastes good!

Here are a few close-ups of how this house came together.

We were going for a mosaic, stone look for the roof and covered it in dog biscuits (but we made the mistake of not getting the Naughty One’s permission). And boy was she mad! She barked incessantly to share her disapproval, as we affixed each biscuit with royal icing one by one – nonstop barking for at least 20 minutes. Since dog houses don’t have windows, I piped a pink scroll design on the outside of the house. In hindsight, I should have done the piping before I put the pieces together. It was tough to pipe onto the house once it was built. (Remember, I really had no clue what I was doing.)

Blake and I then made up a batch of marshmallow fondant and set out to make some dog house decorations, which included a pink Christmas bow on top, a welcome mat that said “Woof!”, a dog bowl filled with Nerd candies, and a toy bin that included a fondant ball, rope, and candy bones. We also made a Christmas list and presents, which we put by the Christmas tree. Wilton makes special markers to write on fondant (edible, of course). I suggested a snowman, and the boy had a better idea… a snow pup, complete with pink ear muffs! We used cookie cutters to make a few signs and also used other miscellaneous candy to decorate the rest of the house.

Come back tomorrow and I’ll post pictures of some of our favorite entries. Wait until you see the competition. Some of the creations were absolutely amazing! This was a great experience for us! The boy went to school beaming and couldn’t wait to tell his class. His pup, on the other hand, is sulking because we wouldn’t allow her to attend the awards ceremony. We’ve promised to buy her the super-sized box of biscuits to repay her!