Gingerbread-By-Design

Gingerbread-Exchange is being archived. 

Please visit www.gingerbreadbydesign.com for all gingerbread activity!

Author Topic: Lighthouse  (Read 879 times)

Offline sweetbean

  • Gingerbread Builder
  • *
  • Posts: 1
  • # of Thanks: 0
Lighthouse
« on: November 23, 2015, 08:27:24 pm »
Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can taper the tower to my lighthouse?

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter


Offline katepilki

  • Gingerbread Architect
  • *
  • Posts: 34
  • # of Thanks: 2
  • Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Re: Lighthouse
« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2015, 10:34:31 pm »
Are you referring to the process of trying to get multiple pieces of leaning gingerbread to stay upright during the construction phase, or the actual tapering?

To taper, all you need to do is make the pieces narrower at the top than at the bottom, and then create the tower so that they all lean into one another.  e.g.  4 pieces that are 3" at the bottom, all 7" tall and are 2 1/4" wide at the top will make a square tower that tapers in at the top (think Washington Monument  :) ).  The same applies with towers with more sides, but the more sides you have the trickier it is to balance when construction needs to happen, but I have a trick to help with that.

When I am trying to get a roof turret or tower to come together, I make a cardboard replica of that portion of the gingerbread design (this will work better if the model is actually a few millimeters larger so that the pieces will fit inside the replica rather than identically matching it) and I then tape it all together so that it holds the shape I want my gingerbread to hold. 

From here, I turn it upside down so that the narrowest point is at the bottom and secure it in place by taping it to crates and boxes to hold it vertical.  I then lay the matching gingerbread pieces inside the "mold" that is created by the cardboard frame.  This allows me to easily run beads of royal icing down the inside joints between the gingerbread whilst holding the GB securely in place without having to add non-edible wooden dowels to the structure or needing to have four pairs of hands to hold all the pieces in place.  Note - if the tower is very long and skinny, you may not be able to reach all the way to the bottom of the tower with your piping bag so you will need to run a bead of icing down the side of the gingerbread before you insert it carefully into the mold (paying attention that you don't get Royal between the card and the GB or your card mold may stick to your GB).

I then allow these to dry very well before removing the gingerbread from the mold and then piping royal icing down the outside seam, either with a minimal straight line if I want a plain look, or with a star tip to create decorative beading if I want a prettier seam.

Before I started using the "mold" technique for assembly I used to make a Rice Krispie shape that filled the inside of the tower for all the pieces to lean up against, but I'm not a real fan of Rice Krispie treats and they can be quite difficult to mold into the shape you want, whereas the cardboard mold is very straight forward to create.

If this doesn't make sense let me know and I will take photos to show you what I mean.

Best of luck.

 

Gingerbread Exchange Forum = 100% gingerbread, 100% of the time