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Duel of the gingerbread houses: Bünzli architect vs. crispy witch

Judith Erdin

16.12.2023

Translation: machine translated

Direction: Valentina Sproge-Werndli

Cutter: Valentina Sproge-Werndli

Video: Armin Tobler, Davide Arizzoli

Support: Eva Lipecki, Mia Kuchen

Co-author: Simon Balissat

This is what happens when you let a meticulous baker-pastry chef and an anarchic food editor build a gingerbread house in 50 minutes. I have a few tips to help you avoid the same fate.

Build and decorate a gingerbread house: How hard can it be? Botta, Calatrava and Zumthor should be green with envy! Simon Balissat (Galaxus food editor) and I (baker, confectioner and author of baking books) took on the challenge. Will it go well?

Cake decorations

Quantity discount

CHF14.10 per piece for 2 units

Dr. Oetker Crunchy cottage

1 x

Ich weiss, das Produkt ist leider im Moment nicht lieferbar. Wir haben nachbestellt, es hat aber offenbar nicht rechtzeitig gereicht zum Einbuchen im Lager.

The task

50 minutes, 2 gingerbread kits each, a mountain of mediocre sugar treats (sorry dear director, as a person with a flair for aesthetics I have to be honest), what felt like 5kg of egg white icing, blood, sweat and tears. This is the foundation of our challenge. The aim was to create two sugar-sweet, Christmassy little houses with charm and a feel-good factor. In the video above, you can see how my perfectionism got on with the rather short time available to build the gingerbread house and how Simon's complete beginner's mindset affected his vision of the building project.

Cake decorations

Quantity discount

CHF14.10 per piece for 2 units

Dr. Oetker Crunchy cottage

1 x

Who will win the gingerbread challenge?

Judith or Simon?

Judith!
56%
Simon!
27%
I think both houses are beautiful.
11%
I don't like gingerbread at all.
6%

The competition has ended.

Tips for your gingerbread house

If (contrary to all expectations) you want to get into the gingerbread house game yourself, you will need a perfect egg white icing in addition to your imagination and a good gingerbread kit. You don't just use it to decorate your house. The icing also serves as a kit that holds the individual gingerbread elements together. If the house has a more elaborate design, toothpicks can also help to hold the components together. To ensure that the icing is successful, it is important to use the right ratio of ingredients (I have a recipe for this below) and to handle it correctly. If you leave the icing open after preparation, the surface will dry quickly. Small pieces will then remain in it and block the opening of the piping bag. It is therefore important to either transfer the icing to the prepared piping bags immediately after preparation or to cover its surface with a clean, well-moistened cloth (resting directly on the surface).

Egg white piping icing - the recipe for success

Gradually mix 30 g of egg white with
Mix 174 g icing sugar, but do not beat the mixture until foamy
Colour the icing with food colouring to your liking and fill into the prepared piping bags.

You can either cut the piping bags yourself from baking paper or order them already cut from parchment paper. In both cases, you have to do the folding yourself. You can see exactly how to do this in the video here:

The most important thing at the end

If all else fails and your work of art doesn't look at all like you imagined: Simply dust the whole thing with icing sugar. That's it. Because everything looks great with icing sugar. Even the gnarled callused feet of funny Uncle Werni, which he removed from his shoes and socks - to the delight of the whole Christmas party - because otherwise they "can't breathe". Think about it.

30 people like this article

Judith Erdin

Bloggerin und Backbuch-Autorin von Streusel.ch

simon.balissat@digitecgalaxus.ch

Baking book author, food blogger and content creator by day. Other people's cat lover, peanut butter junkie and houseplant hospice nurse by night.

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