Fellow blogger Melodie blew me away with her version of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Fallingwater home reproduced in gingerbread. Given that she graduated from BYU in Landscape Management a few years ago and more recently from MATC's Culinary School, it does give her the perfect credentials for such a feat.
Melodie began the blog Garden Melodies because she adores flowers and is hoping to expand into cake baking and catering. From the looks of this masterpiece - created with her friend Brenton for entry in the 2010 Gingerbread Festival in Orem, Utah - many people will be hoping she starts her cake business soon!
all images courtesy of Garden Melodies
Model Statistics:
• It took over 12 hours to design
• It took Brenton and Melodie around 40 hours to build and decorate
• There are around 164 different pieces of gingerbread
• It took roughly 12 square feet of gingerbread dough (that’s four large batches) to make all the walls, floors and roof
• Over 8 bags of powdered sugar were used to make all the frosting
• It took over 40 sleeves of large Smarties which are used to simulate dry stack stone on the building exterior
• The river and water fall are made up of three batches of hard candy
Best gingerbread house cookie recipe (according to Melodie):
2 Cups light corn syrup
1 1/2 Cups packed brown sugar
1 1/4 Cups margarine
1 teaspoon salt
9 Cups flour
Melt together the corn syrup, brown sugar, and margarine. Mix till smooth then add in flour and salt. Bake for 15 to 20 min at 350 degrees.
Unfortunately Melodie lost out to the entry Candyland (below) at this years' Gingerbread House Festival:
above image courtesy of the Grierson Family blog
Want some pretty flowers or a fabulous cake? Or simply to congratulate her on this masterpiece? Melodie can be reached at garden.melodies@gmail.com.