Cake nineteen - Father Xmas's House - Assembling the house

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Step 4: Assembling the house  
This is in my opinion the most difficult and delicate phase. You need not to hasten to assemble the house all at once and wait the necessary time until the icing has stuck the various parts together. 

Doors and windows
You need some glacé icing (white, green and red), fish glue sheets and sugar decorations to your taste. 
Glacé icing 125 g icing sugarfood colours to your taste2 teaspoons water

Mix sugar and water well, then add some drops of colour until you reach the shade you want.

Decorate doors and window shutters with icing and sugar decorations as shown in photos. Wait until icing is well dry. In the meantime place the walls with holes for the windows upside down onto some parchment paper. Pipe some icing at the corners of the windows, put a fish glue sheet (the window glass)

over the hole and press it very well so that the icing can make the ‘glass’ stick to the wall. When icing is dry, place decorated shutters at each side of windows. Don’t forget to hang your Xmas wreath above the door!

House 
You need a big quantity of royal icing (four egg whites)
Royal icing 
1 egg white 
220 g icing sugar

Beat egg white in a bowl with an electric mixer, add icing sugar, a tablespoon at a time. Beat until icing reaches firm peaks. 

Now take the biggest rectlangle and put it onto a big tray, the tray should be of about 1m x 50/60 cm. Use some icing to draw the perimeter of the house in the middle of the rectangle. Pipe some icing along the side walls of the front wall and one side wall. Place side and front wall onto the corresponding side along the perimeter. Press them together and wait until icing is dry. Then do the same with the back and the other side wall. Now position the inside wall in the middle of the house. Always use some icing as glue. 
Wait until icing is well dry. In the meantime put the door in the right place and build the fence. Now cut the rectangle for the roof in two, and position the two parts onto the hosue walls. Always use enough icing as glue. When icing is dry, stick the 20 bricks onto the front and back walls and the chimney onto the roof. Cover the house with snow.

Park
Make your trees look white with snow. Then put some of them at the back of the house and some in the front. Put reindeer in the front garden. Cover the park with some snow. 

also visit:
http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/01/cake-nineteen.html

Cake nineteen - Father Xmas's House - Making the structure

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Step 3: Making the structure

Honey-based dough, Gingerbread dough, 20 almonds

House

Line an oven tray with paper. Roll out the honey-based dough into long strings which should be about 40 cm long and 1 1/2 cm wide. Place the strings into an oven tray leaving some space in between so that the strings will look like wooden logs in a chalet.

Bake  at 200° for about 20/30 minutes. 

Line two oven trays with paper. Leave some dough aside for the bricks, the doors and the windows. Roll out the rest of the dough into two 1 cm thick rectangles, a smaller one of about 25 x 15 cm which will be used for the roof and a bigger one, the  size of an oven tray, which will be the base of our house. 

Place them onto the oven trays and bake at 200° for about 12/18 minutes.
Use templates to cut out the house walls. Cut an extra front wall which you will use as an inside wall to strengthen the house structure.

Bricks, doors, window shutters, chimey and fence

Roll out some dough to 1/2 cm thick. Firstlly make 20 bricks for the two facades: cut dough into 2 x 1 cm rectangles and put an almond in the middle. Secondly make two doors and six window shutters (see templates for size), then the chimney and fencing. Place them onto an oven tray and bake at 200° for about 12/15 minutes.

Park 

Roll out the gingerbread dough and cut some trees of different sizes and a reindeer. Place them onto an oven tray and bake at 200° for about 12/15 minutes.

also visit:
http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/01/cake-nineteen.html