My Christmas 3D Cookie Projects
I am writing about my Christmas 3D projects. This year I made a hutch decorated in a Christmassy way.
I have made a gingerbread house or a Christmassy 3D object almost every year since 2013. (I started cookie decorating in 2012.) I didn't make one in 2017. I made a Pegasus music box in the following February instead.
The first one in 2013 was made for a magazine's article. Actually, I had never made a gingerbread house before that. It wasn't bad for the first attempt.
In 2014, I flooded the whole house with icing.
In 2015, I tried a more elaborate design.
In 2016, I made houses in Amsterdam.
In 2018, I made a small house to teach in my class. It could hold lollies inside.
In 2019, I made a Christmas sleigh. This was also for teaching.
In 2020, I made a house decorated both inside and outside.
In 2021, I came up with a dreamy idea: a merry-go-round outside and a Christmas market inside. I think this took the longest of the 9 projects. I made horses, nutcrackers and all other tiny things as royal icing transfers.
This year, I decided last month that I would make a Christmas hutch, but I didn't have time until the 3rd weekend of December, mainly because I had a lot of classes to teach, and it was mainly because I had to cancel several classes due to Covid in November and to make up for them. Anyway, I didn't have enough time to think about the detailed design and sizes carefully.
I thought I had calculated the sizes of the shelf parts precisely, but I made some mistakes. I had to grate a board after iced and to use extra icing to fill some gaps.
I was going to put all the tiny things IN the hutch, but when I almost finished constructing the hutch, I noticed they wouldn't fit in at all. The cake stand and gingerbread house are too tall. Also, I made too many things to put in the small spaces.
I cut down the bottoms of the gingerbread house, the stand, and the cake with a grater as much as possible but it was all in vain. That's why the gingerbread house and the flowers are placed on the top pf the hutch.
As an cookie decorating enthusiast, I believe I must use cookies as much as possible, not just icing, so all the tiny things are made of cookies and icing. The cake, cupcakes, flowerpot were shaped by hand and baked. The cookies on the plate were cut with a plastic straw. For the legs of the cake stand, I used a flowerpot mold (as you see in the photo below) I made the two lower parts and stuck them.
For the angels, snowman, and stockings, I used my favourite stadter mini cutter series. I can't find those cutters in Stadter.
For the angels, I applied white icing to the wings with a paintbrush, then dusted gold luster on top of that before icing the rest. For the stockings, I use the boot cutter. I cut off the heel to make it look like a stocking. The snowman is originally a pear shape, but it's perfect to ice to look like a snowman!
Last, here's my construction cookie recipe. You can add some spices, such as ginger, cinnamon, etc.
[Construction Cookie Recipe]
plain flour 250g
margarine 75g
sugar 100g (I use confectionery sugar)
honey or golden syrup 20g
egg 1/2個
Mix all the ingredient in the same way you make normal cookie dough. I chill the cut parts in the freezer for 30 mins before baking because it helps them keep the shapes. I bake them in 150C oven, longer than normal cookies, until they are slightly golden.
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