I know this isn’t a gingerbread house, but it’s something better! If you have been following along my gingerbread journey for a while, you might already be familiar with my yearly gingerbread houses. If not, here’s a little recap:
Gingerbread Greenhouse 2019
Gingerbread Greenhouse 2020
Gingerbread Farmstand 2021
Gingerbread Storefront 2021
Gingerbread A-Frame 2021
In the past few years, I’ve always made a house or building of some sort so I wanted to challenge myself to make something different this year. My partner has always been telling to make a diorama or a scene from a classic movie so this year was the year I decided to take on that challenge. I wasn’t ready to make a gingerbread scene from Home Alone or the Disneyland castle with Christmas decorations, but I was feeling ambitious and wanted to make a scene from a holiday movie I grew up watching — A Charlie Brown Christmas. Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz would’ve turned 100 years old this year, so I took it as a sign to create the best Peanuts scene I could. The skating scene will forever be my favourite so here is my take on it, but made entirely of gingerbread and sugar!
Unlike previous years, this gingerbread house scene doesn’t require very specific or exact measurements to put together. The most important part is to make the base of the skating rink, which is a raised platform. Here are the details of the build in case this is something you want to recreate (!!):
- The platform is 12 x 10 inches, with the front being 12 inches wide and the sides 10 inches deep
- There are two panels to raise the surface and these are 12 x 2 inches. You only want to make two panels for the front and back because you need the sides to be open to slide in the spinner and the “ice”. I chose to make the platforms 2 inches tall because my spinner is 1.5 inches. You want to make sure there is room for the “ice” to spin below the platform without brushing the surface. For example, if you spinner is 3 inches tall, then you want to make your platform pieces at least 3.5 inches tall
- The back piece can be as tall as you like it to be — mine was 12 x 10 inches
- It is important to place the skating rink at the centre of the surface
- Try to keep the skating rink circular (vs. a random oval-ish shape) because I learned the hard way that if you insert a non-circular sheet of “ice”, it will hit the interior sides of the platform when it is spinning
- The “ice” and the sky background are both made of poured isomalt. I kept the ice clear and coloured the sky piece with a bit of blue food colouring
- Once the isomalt has cooled and set, you can pipe any royal icing details onto it
- Use royal icing (but I prefer isomalt) to attach the characters and assemble the scene
- This is the set of Snoopy cookie cutters I used
- Coarse sanding sugar is a great way to hide any imperfections ; )
If it is easier for your to visualize the whole process in video format, you can see it on my Instagram here: SNOOPY SKATING RINK REEL
![day two: sparkly matcha neapolitan shortbread cookies ✨
the instructions might seem confusing, but if you watch the video to see how the different flavour layers are stacked, it will make much more sense! these slice and bake cookies freeze extremely well so you can make the dough now and bake them off when you want to gift them. (makes 40-44)
vanilla dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
matcha dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp culinary matcha powder
1/4 tsp salt
strawberry dough
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g 6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tbsp freeze-dried strawberry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg white
coarse sanding sugar
for the vanilla dough, combine butter and powdered sugar in a bowl. mix until smooth. add vanilla. add flour and salt and mix until no dry streaks remain. do the same for the matcha and strawberry doughs in separate bowls
place one portion of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll into a 5 x 9-inch rectangle that is about 1/4-inch thick. slide rolled out dough onto a baking sheet and freeze for 10 min until firm. repeat this step with the other portions of dough
remove the top piece of parchment from each slab and stack the strawberry, vanilla, and matcha dough layers. cut the slab down the middle the long way to form two 2.5 x 9-inch rectangles. with one half, carefully swap the order of the layers (example: if the first half of the dough is stacked svm, swap the second half so it’s msv. this will ensure that same flavour squares don’t stack on each other). stack the halves. press the layers gently to adhere them. return the stacked dough to the freezer for another 10min
[recipe cont’d in comments]
#christmasbaking #christmascookies #holidaybaking #holidaycookies #cookiedecorating](https://constellationinspiration.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
Kim Lang says
I love this. Can you tell where you got the spinner?
Lyndy says
I absolutely love it! Makes me smile.
Caren Shelton says
You are an AMAZING ARTIST. I absolutely love the Snoopy & Gang gingerbread skating rink you made. the skating rink was unbelievable.. You are definitely a winner with winter scene.