Snow flurried outside Sweetwater Cooking School on a recent Saturday, but inside, Ariana Swick licked a sweetly different sort of snow off her fingers.

Ariana, 8, of Shaler, was in the process of decorating her gingerbread house in a class the South Side cooking school offers each December. She used white icing to cement the decorations to the house, which had the advantage of sticking to the fingers of Ariana and three other young creators.

School director Gaynor Grant, 53, of Sewickley, minimizes big problems by designing and baking the gingerbread construction parts from scratch and then cutting out the pieces.

"I had them make the gingerbread one year and decided that was a very big mistake," Grant says. That's because the walls and roof parts must have exact right angles, or they will not be level or plumb when assembling.

The girls assembled the pre-made parts into houses with help from Grant, school assistant Joanne Force of Middlesex, Butler County, and job-shadowing student Alex Fairbend, 15, of Cranberry.

"You worked very hard at that," Grant told Olivia Getty, 9, of Green Tree, who attended with her sister, Alyssa, 7.

Olivia had used some of Grant's icing, comprising egg whites and confectioners' sugar, to assemble her house, then chose among a variety of candies to decorate. Grant provided M&Ms, peppermints, candy canes, marshmallow trees, and white chocolate chips swirled with green and red. Anisa Callis, 6, of Friendship, moved among the bowl of icing and dishes of candy, pasting, placing and licking.

Gingerbread houses are a homespun Christmas tradition that goes back to Germany, a center of the spice trade. Ginger, the spice that is the essence of the bread, is native to Southeast Asia and was one of the first spices to make its way to Europe. Ancient Greeks and Romans used ginger. Germans capitalized on the popularity of the Grimm Brothers' "Hansel and Gretel" tale of a witch's candy house to make houses of gingerbread.

Gingerbread houses also became popular in the New World and are now part of Christmas traditions. The culinary staff at the White House annually creates a large replica of the North Portico of the president's home, on display through the holiday season. And people wield their creativity and rolling pins in gingerbread house competitions across the country.

Entries in the sixth annual PPG Place gingerbread house competition are on display in the PPG Wintergarden until Jan. 7.

Bakers in the PPG competition could compete for ribbons in various categories, including individual, family, elementary school, high school and nonprofit categories. Participants produced not only houses, but also a Mellon Arena, a lighthouse, a barn, a log cabin and churches. People can buy the houses; the proceeds go to the Children's Hospital Free Care Fund.

The first-place entry in the individual category is a classic three-story Victorian house that Susan Losey of Upper St. Clair created. Losey, 45, the mother of five and a longtime baker and crafter, constructed the house like a dollhouse, open at the back and furnished. She decorated the exterior to look like reddish-brown bricks with a slate room and white columns and trim. The holiday decorations included gum-paste green wreaths and boughs adorned with red bows.

Losey says she picked up some ideas for her house at a major gingerbread house competition in Asheville, N.C. She started on the house at the end of August and worked on it intermittently until finishing at end of October.

"The most difficult part was having it open to the back, so there was not a lot of support," she says. "I wouldn't do that as a first (gingerbread) project."

Losey recommends designing the project first and cutting out cardboard pieces so you can see how they fit together.

"Sometimes they fit together; sometimes they don't," she warns.

For an annual gingerbread house party she hosts at her home for children, Losey makes and assembles all the houses and lets them dry for a day. That way, they don't collapse. The kids then decorate the houses.

"They love doing it, and I love doing it," she says.

Not all the entries in the PPG Place competition were traditional houses. Members of the Art Club at Jeannette Senior High School took a wildly offbeat tack in designing their house for the PPG competition. It was a home, all right: the completely atypical, Middle Eastern lamp-shaped home of the genie in Walt Disney's animated "Aladdin" movie.

The Jeannette students created a blue-skinned genie from blue-dyed marzipan. The genie emanates from an ornate golden lamp, which the students decorated in rectangular Chiclets dyed with a wash of powdered egg whites and golden yellow dye. The art club members won first place in the high school category for their creative efforts and will help present the check from the competition-fundraiser to Children's Hospital's Free Care Fund today.

The Jeannette students did not use actual gingerbread as the base of their project; the competition rules say only that the visible parts must be edible. But their sponsor, art teacher Karen Thompson, has created gingerbread houses in the past at her home.

"With all the things that can go wrong," Thompson says, "my hat goes off to the people who are baking the gingerbread."

Gingerbread house construction

These tips form the Culinary Institute of America will help:

• Working quickly is important, because the icing dries fast after it has been piped. To keep it from hardening while you are working with it, store the icing in a sealed container with a damp paper towel directly on its surface.

• If you don't have a pastry bag available, use a heavy-duty resealable plastic bag with one small corner cut off for the piping tip.

• If the icing seems too thick, it can be thinned with a tablespoon of water.

• Allow plenty of time between assembly steps so that the Royal Icing can properly dry.

• For ease of piping, designs such as latticework can be piped on the pieces before gluing them together, but no candy should be placed until the house is assembled. The weight from the candy could make the house more likely to fall down while the icing dries.

• After you have completed decorating the gingerbread house, spread any leftover icing onto the base to look like snow.

• Any leftover icing should be thrown out after the house is decorated, because it contains raw egg white, and should not be saved for later use.

• For a finishing touch, sift a little bit of powdered sugar over the house for a "freshly fallen snow" look.

For a video demonstration, visit www.ciachef.edu/GingerBread

Gingerbread House

Gaynor Grant, director of Sweetwater Cooking School, uses this recipe and directions to make gingerbread houses. Included is a recipe for icing made with egg whites to give it sticking power.

Grant says salmonella is generally found in egg yolks, not whites. However, she cautious readers that, if they wish, they can replace whites from eggs with powdered egg whites.

• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar

• 3 sticks butter, room temperature

• 2 large eggs

• 1 cup molasses

• 6 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

• 2 teaspoons ginger

• 1/2 teaspoon cloves

• 2 teaspoons salt

Using an electric mixer, cream the sugar and the butter. Add the eggs and molasses, and mix well.

Combine the flour with the spices and add to the mixture a little at a time. Refrigerate the dough until firm.

Divide the dough into six pieces. Using a 7-inch by 5-inch template, cut two rectangles out of two pieces of the dough for the side walls. Then cut out two 8-inch by 5 1/2 inch pieces out of two more pieces of dough for the roof.

For the walls at either end, usea conical (triangular)-shaped template, 5 inches by 5 inches, and cut out two shapes. In one of these, trim out a door (Grant uses an arched door for visual interest).

Refrigerate the pieces until they are very firm, then bake in a 350-degree oven until crisp. Cool on a cooling rack.

Makes two 7-inch by 5-inch houses.

Icing

• 4 large egg whites

• 7 to 7 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until very foamy, for about 1 minute. Add 1/2 cup sugar and beat until well blended. Add the remaining sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating until well blended after each addition.

Then increase the speed and beat the icing until very thick and stiff, for about 5 minutes.

Assembling the gingerbread house:

• Use a selection of candies to decorate, such as red-and-white striped candies, candy canes, cinnamon candies, M&Ms, gumdrops, etc.

• Place half the icing in an icing bag fitted with a 1/4-inch pastry tip. Cover the remaining icing with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.

• Start by piping a thick layer of icing along one long side of one of the side walls. Press this onto a cardboard cake circle -- available at baking supply shops -- and hold in place until it will stand on its own.

• Then pipe icing along one short side of the same wall and also along one side, and the bottom of one of the short wall pieces. Press the two sides together until they stick.

• Repeat this with the other wall pieces until you have a complete rectangle. Then pipe icing along one long side of each of the roof pieces and gently press together. Set to one side and allow to dry a little. When the roof is dry, pipe icing along each of the upper edges of the four walls; gently place the roof on top and press in place.

• Using the reserved icing and various candies, decorate your gingerbread house to look as colorful as possible.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---