Gingerbread House 2010-The Three Little Pigs

It's that time of year again, the time when I forget the pain that is called making a gingerbread house and foolishly decide to give it another go. I liken it to forgetting about labor pain enough to want to birth another child. Only sometimes I think giving birth is a little less messy.

My adventures in gingerbread house making started 4 years ago when my co-workers and I had a contest to make a house decorated in our company's candy. I made a dollhouse that took about 12 straight hours and all the sugar in China to complete. The next year, I suggested we sponsor a community-wide contest and made a few sample houses to promote the contest and a farm-inspired creation entitled "Santa's Stables" to display at the actual contest. View my creations here and a web album of the 2008 contest entries here.

I took last year off from the "creating" (if you have an excuse like "I have a one-month-old baby, why not use it, right?) and simply organized the contest and helped supervise the voting. Here are some pictures of the entries from 2009.

So, this year I returned to decorating and decided to do a "Three Little Pigs" Theme.  It took about 3 hours of baking and 7 hours of decorating and I can't say I'm that satisfied with the results, but there came a point where I just needed to be done with it. Hopefully displaying it will help draw some entries into the contest!

We enter the scene after the first little pig's straw house has been violently blown down by the Big Bad Wolf.

I used Edible Easter Grass as the "straw" and the pig is sculpted out of Lots of Frutti Chews, a strawberry taffy my company sells. I simply microwaved a few bars until I could work it like clay (hot clay, mind you) and it eventually hardened. It was tricky to say the least and if I'm 100% honest, I'd  have to tell you that this little pig's head is not currently resting on its shoulders. I tried to "fix" it a little tonight and it came off. So, if you suspect a little hot-glue-gun action when you see this in person, you might be right.

We follow the Rip Rolls Rainbow Reaction path to the second little pig's house of sticks that is being blown in by the Big Bad Wolf (sculpted out of blue raspberry Lots of Frutti Chews with a strawberry vest). Side note: Why does the Big Bad Wolf always wear a vest in the story books? But only wears pants with that vest 50% of the time? Ask Donald Duck.

The third little pig is looking suspiciously smug in his house of bricks (decorated with Rips Bite-Size Licorice Pieces with a Rips Bits-trimmed door). Maybe it's because his licorice landscape adds incredible curb appeal. Or maybe it's because his ranch-style dwelling has been rated as "wolf-proof" by the Storybook Land Society of Civil Engineers?

I think we all know how the story ends, but I thought it would be interesting to capture this tableau mid-sequence. Actually, most of me wanted to just throw a pile of grass and pretzels on a pile and put all 3 pigs safe-and-sound in the brick house, but I like to make things difficult for myself.

I'll post pictures after the contest, which is being held on December 4, and if anyone who lives near my Hometown has questions about the contest, please let me know!  I hope to see lots of creative entries!