Metamorphic Cookery

This is my very first bake from scratch theme project. I built gingerbread house twice before but they were from one of those store-bought building kits. I like neither the texture of the gingerbread nor the consistency of the icing. Now with my little boy, I want to show him all the fun, magical activities we can do during holiday. Building a gingerbread house from scratch is a Christmas tradition I would like to start. Then I started to think about what else I can do with gingerbread.

Out of a sudden the movie “A Christmas Story” popped up in my head. Weird right? “A Christmas Story” is a holiday classic in our household. My husband loves the movie; and he was the one who introduced the movie to me (Prior to that I had never heard of it…). We even have a leg lamp at home. I thought to myself “Hey I can use the gingerbread house concept to make a theme of the movie”. Here is how I decided to start this blogging journey so I can document my progress.

Before starting, I put together a blueprint with measurements. The plan is to build the iconic leg lamp and its crate. The project took me approximately two days to complete. That included making the cookie dough, chilling and assembling the dough, icing the designs, and gluing the pieces together. It is possible that you can get it done in a day. I couldn’t because I had to work on the project between running errands, doing chores, making meals, and accompanying my toddler.

The cookie dough I used is based on my eggnog sugar cookie easy recipe. I made some modifications on ingredients and bake time to get the pieces sturdier and more workable. I used sugar cookies instead of gingerbread because the colour is more suitable for this theme.

The finished product was my second attempt. The first round I did not have the measurements right. I could not close the crate; and the size was too big that four leg lamps could fit into it. Lesson learned that precise measurement of each piece is crucial.

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