Millennium Falcon continued...

STEP 6:
It was obvious that if I wanted to bang this thing out, I would have to throw Blade Runner on and get to work. I found my Director's Cut and went to town, starting with a new batch of icing. I recommend against lime flavouring-very bad. I had to do a lot of sawing and filing to get the cockpit to fit onto the body and even still, it wasn't a perfect match. I was able to cheat it out with gobs of icing, a slab of gingerbread and a few candies.

STEP 7:
I stuck everything together and went to work. As in my career where I am expected to sit for 8 hours, which was the perfect amount of time to allow it to cure nicely. I actually believe that this ship is so well constructed that you could play with it if you wanted to.

STEP 8:
The decorations. I had initially hoped to do a Hoth-themed background but I ran out of time to get all the right candies so I grabbed what I could from the Freak Lunchbox and got busy. Again, not ideal but whatever.

Some tips:

1) no ridged plates

2) huge, no-sided cookie sheets to prevent wrinkling and warping

3) big gingerbread batch

4) no lime icing, or icening as one of my lil budz likes to say

5) given the size, extend the baking time so that the gingerbread is good and firm

6) somehow get the lip off the tomato paste can

7) thinner exhaust

8) royal icening is KING

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Millennium Falcon Gingerbread House

Turns out Michael-who I love-has turned his son onto Star Wars. Given the new movie coming out and shit, I thought it was only right to make up his gingerbread house as the Millennium Falcon. I'm not a pro baker or anything so this was strictly trial and error and also with improvised tools and molds.
STEP 1:
Make the gingerbread, roll it out and cut out some shapes. For this, I was watching Terminator Salvation while tracing with a dinner plate and some rough stencils that I made.

STEP 2:
I draped these guys over a smaller plate to add contour to the hull. If I ever decide to do this again, I will find something without a ridge because you can see how it poked through the gingerbread and kind of sagged.

STEP 3:
Patch that shit! I didn't want to make another batch of gingerbread and didn't have enough to make another hull so used my bombproof royal icing to fix it. This will be the bottom piece to hide my shame.

STEP 4:
Build the exhaust and the rest of the sides. If I was redoing this ever again I would make the blue part thinner. I lit it up with a bicycle light from MEC that fits nicely in the nose of the ship.

STEP 5:
Build the cockpit. Man, I am surprised this worked. I wrapped a tomato paste can in tinfoil then rolled up the gingerbread around it and baked it. Once I got it off I can see that it is way out of proportion but whatever forever. I winged it with the glass part and am pretty proud of it now that you mention it.

STEP 6:
TO BE CONTINUED...

Like so many of my beloved plants, it seems I have ignored this blog for a very long time and I am surprised that it is actually still available. Enough about that...

For those 16 of you who read my last post, things have changed quite a bit. I now reside in temperate Nova Scotia where options for green friends are more plentiful. I am eagerly waiting to see if my Japanese Maple survived this horrible winter. I am sure my lilies, hostas and who know what else will survive but those darned echinacea always seem to have probs.

Planning to start seeds earlier this year. Like maybe this weekend. I planted in July last year which meant I earned one tomato for my efforts. It was a pretty good one though, I must admit.