Sweet Sugar Shack How-To

You Will Need:

• Small pre-baked Gingerbread House
• Vintage Valentine Wafer Paper
• Jumbo Heart Sprinkles
• Sturdy cardboard, a foam core board, or an extra cookie sheet for the house's base
• Royal icing and food coloring
• Pastry bags and #22 star tip
• Small spatulas, spreaders, or butter knives
• Tweezers and toothpicks (optional)
• Light corn syrup
• White Fondant

Instructions:

1. Cover the house base with parchment, foil, or brown paper. Make royal icing and keep bowls covered with damp cloths.
2. Ice two sides of the house with royal icing and let dry completely.
3. Roll out fondant into a thin layer (1/8") and use the wafer paper figures as a template to cut the fondant to the appropriately sized piece. Allow the fondant to harden. To apply the figures to the fondant, use corn syrup as a "glue." Apply a small layer to the back of the wafer paper. Adhere to hardened fondant. Flip the piece upside down onto wax paper to dry, for about 30 minutes. This will help the wafer paper dry flat. Flip back over, wafer paper side up, and allow it to dry completely.
4. To attach the figures to the front and back panels of the house, simply apply a small drop of royal icing and adhere to the gingerbread. Allow it to dry.
5. To decorate the sides of the house with wafer paper valentine figures, carefully cut out figures with craft scissors. Wafer paper is fragile! Using corn syrup as a "glue", apply a small layer to the back of the wafer paper. Adhere to hardened icing. Flip the piece upside down onto wax paper to dry, for about 30 minutes. This will help the wafer paper dry flat. Flip back over, wafer paper side up, and allow it to dry completely.
6. Attach large heart sprinkles to each roof piece in a pattern of your choice. We used corn syrup to attach the candy to the roof. Allow it to dry overnight.
7. Attach walls to the front and back of the house using royal icing as the "glue" and let it dry until the icing is hard. Position your house on the base.
8. Attach the roof, propping up eaves with cans or books until the icing is dry and hard, about six hours or overnight. Finishing Touches: Pipe a decorative border around the edges of the house and top the roof.
9. Adhere each wafer paper cut out to a cookie shape by applying a thin layer of edible clear writing gel to the top of the iced cookies.
10. Flip each cookie face down on a piece of wax paper to dry for about 30 minutes (this will keep the wafer paper shape flat).
11. Flip cookies over and add additional decoration, such as edible glitter or dragees, with the edible clear writing gel.
12. Attach three to four cookies to the cake by sinking each into the frosting and into the actual cake if necessary to hold up the cookies.