Gingerbread isn't just for houses anymore

So I know it is late for this, but well, I made this after Christmas too. I've never made anything but the generic graham cracker house that people CALL a gingerbread house, but this year I wanted to make the real thing. First I made the gingerbread. This didn't go all that well because I didn't know what I was doing or how it should bake. Well it turns out that directions to bake it until it is "toasty" are crappy unless you pre-cut your shapes, and pre-cutting shapes is hard because they deform in the soft dough. Anyhow, I ended up spending a ton of time baking my dough and then a million years cutting it, but I made myself a gingerbread Gazebo.

I actually designed a pattern using SketchUp and printed it on cardstock, then used it to cut out my shapes. Somethings (like the roof) went really well. Others (like the posts that I had wanted to be candy canes) didn't go so well, but still it was completed as you can see. The royal icing I made and put in a bag to pipe onto the structure worked well and the decorations by my wife were a success as well. There are more photos in that gallery if you are interested.