Gingerbread and Chocolate Houses

I have made a number of gingerbread and/or chocolate houses over the years. I got this mold for casting gingerbread and chocolate from Lee-Valley tools a few years ago and have used it in making several houses, mansions, duplexes etc to bring into work or to family gatherings. They are always a smash hit!

2012 "Cute as a Button Duplex" I used this Wilton fondant mold for my inspiratoin.I used chocolate candy melts in it to make colorful decorations for the house. The long ribbons were more difficult to remove from the mold but not impossible. I used the edge of the counter to get a clean break out along the mold. I am in love with the chevron roof! But boy did it take a long time to make as this mold only has one wiggle strip and i had to make and freeze set each strip at a time!

For the snow base around the house i used white chocolate melted over some gingersnap cookies. These were actually the first things to go, and it made for an easy cleanup of the pan compared to covering it with royal icing snow.

2011 Chocolate House:

All of the walls and the supporting roof pieces of this house are made out of chocolate. For the roof tiles I used mint chocolate wafer biscuits and dipped each edge in white chocolate. This is 4 casts of the house mold plus 2 extra sets of roof pieces for the peaks.

 It took a bit of creative tile work to get the wafers to fit along the peaked rooves. The trick is lots of white chocolate to fill in the gaps!

 Adorned with candy and piped icing along the window sills to look like snow.

 I used extra roof tiles to make the snowy bushes in the yard.

With the leftover chocolate i had melted i added a  little butter and marshmallows, stirred in some rice krispie treats and pressed into a greased pie pan. i then drizzled with some red and green chocolate and topped with some crushed candy canes for an extra festive treat! (why i dont weigh 300lb is beyond me)

2010: & 2009 to be posted soon as the pictures are on my other hard drive