Ask An OC Expert: Tips For Building Gingerbread Houses

Who knew that a local sandwich shop owner is also a pastry whiz? Before becoming a co-owner of Avocado Cafe Irvine, Chef Taylor Wright was making all kinds of baked goods. One of her areas of expertise is gingerbread houses. Over on Just Wright Deserts, you can see some of the work Taylor used to do with gingerbread houses when she was still in business as a pastry chef in 2013.

With a baking and pastry degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, as well as a Pastry Certificate from Espai Sucre in Barcelona, Spain, it's safe to say Taylor Wright knows what she's doing. She's also an avid world traveler who has worked as a pastry chef at high-end restaurants in New York, Barcelona and Australia. In 2014, she purchased The Avocado Cafe Irvine with her sister, and though she now works with a lot of fresh vegetables, meat from healthy free-range chickens and other health-conscious foods, she is still a skilled desert chef with a lot to say about the art of building a gingerbread house.

It's ironic, but the fancier your gingerbread house is, the yuckier the gingerbread is likely to taste. The reason is because you need a firm structure to hold all the frosting and candies you plan on decorating it with. While fat and sugar always tastes wonderful in pastries, they also make pastries soft. If you don't want your gingerbread house to collapse under the weight of frosting and other goodies, then don't load up the gingerbread with a high fat and sugar content. Don't worry about the fact that the gingerbread won't taste that good on its own because that will be masked by all the sweets you adorn it with.

It's easier to use a template rather than starting from scratch. If you don't want to purchase the pre-made gingerbread house kits, then you can access templates online. After downloading and printing them, you can laminate them and use them like cookie cutters for your dough. Or, use an undecorated bird house. Purchase a simple, wooden birdhouse from a craft store, cut it apart with an X-Acto knife, and then use the shapes as a template to cut your dough around.

You'll want to roll out your dough so it's thin and even. Roll it out onto a cookie sheet and make sure the lines all add up. Use what you need for your template and remove any excess from the sheet. Once you've baked the dough, keep it mind that cookies spread a little bit and some trimming may be necessary.Use your template to trim your cookie to the size you want. However, make sure you do this while the cookies are still warm and soft. They harden and break when cool.

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owdered sugar and water are the ingredients for your typical glue. But the best glue you can make is hard sugar. If you heat up your sugar to a high temperature, it eventually becomes brown from caramelization. When it hardens, it becomes like super glue. Caution: Because of the high temperature of the sugar, only adults may work with this kind of glue.

Wright advises everyone to feel free to get creative with their decorating. Pastry decorating has influenced her own creativeness in sandwich making, and she doesn't think anyone should be afraid to take their cooking in an unusual direction. For a healthier gingerbread house, think of using Wheat Thins to create a thatched roof, shredded coconut for snow, and other non-candy items. For an upscale gingerbread house, you can create what looks like stained glass windows by baking crushed hard candies, such as Jolly Ranchers, where the windows of the gingerbread house are. Wright also believes no one should think they have to stop at just designing the house —you can also make a gingerbread sleigh, car. etc.

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