During her year abroad in Germany as an exchange student her senior year of high school, Alison Beatty acquired an interest in the architecture of the region. When I told her I made gingerbread houses to donate to the Senior Citizen Center, she expressed quite an interest in learning how to make one. So began her 25 hour lesson.
Over two weekends, Alison spent twenty-five hours at my house copying the pattern, making the dough, cutting and baking the pieces, making royal icing to “glue” the pieces together, building the Victorian Farmhouse, learning to pipe icing from different tips, and then decorating the house itself.
It’s a good thing Alison is as picky about how things look as I am, because I sure wouldn’t want her telling people I showed her how to make a gingerbread house if the house looked, ummmm, …well, you get my drift. Anyway, she did a wonderful job. We have similar tastes, but not identical. So it was nice to get a chance to see someone do it a little different than I might have done it. It gave me a chance to expand my possibilities.
If you want to see the gingerbread house in person, it will be on display at the Richardson Senior Citizen Center, Westshore and Arapaho, beginning Tuesday afternoon, December 16th. Who knows, perhaps I’ll have my gingerbread house done by then and you’ll get to see it as well.
