Making a Custom Gingerbread House from Scratch: Elf Movie Theme

If you have been around this blog very long, you have heard about our wacky group of moms and kids that get together once a week at our Homeschool Co-op. At the end of each quarter our motley crew has a celebration of sorts. The themes have a wide range from crazy to cozy but all manage to stay grounded in the element of a rootin' good time.  You may recall last year a couple friends joined me in planning the Redneck Hootenanny end of quarter party {that has since become the #1 blog post favorite}. This year it was a Christmas Party Extravaganza - gingerbread house contest, gift exchange and good grub included! SO.MUCH.FUN.

Well, give us a craft challenge and we will jiggety jump. It had been two years since our last gingerbread creation and we needed some inspiration to get our creative juices flowing freely. A suggestion of all thing ELF was made by the dear hub and we were bursting with ideas. 

First, we needed to create a model of what we would be building. I grabbed an old, used (yes Mr. Postman,,, I didn't break a federal law... it was used and headed to recycling) box and formed the buildings and a liner to fit within my tray base. The kids and I talked about where things should go and what parts of the movie we felt was most important to present in the small space we were limited with. I drew a very primitive plot plan.

Next we whipped up the gingerbread dough. I wanted to make a gingerbread that would be hard enough for the buildings but yummy enough to eat the scraps. I decided on a recipe that was once used (may still be) at the White House. Here is the recipe for the White House Gingerbread Recipe.

It was originally published in Mailbox News (a cake decorating magazine), and is the actual White House gingerbread house recipe used by then White House Pastry Chef Hans Raffert.

We rolled out the dough and disassembled our cardboard to use as patterns. Baked them - and trimmed to sharp edges while the building pieces were still on the baking pan (before they had a chance to cool). 

Turned out great! 

Then it came time to figure out the glue. I decided to go with the basic royal icing recipe that comes on the Wilton's Meringue Powder tub. I made a double batch.

Got my pastry tubes filled with the proper decorator tips and we got to work assembling.  Then, we let the building set for a day before embellishing with sweet goodness.

Needless to say - we finished so far ahead of time, we just kept adding more day, by day. The signage ended up being my favorite addition.

As we probably all know, Elf starts at the North Pole and passes Narwhal on his way to the Candy Cane Forest, on to the Sea of Swirly Twirly Gumdrops and through the Lincoln Tunnel. Arriving in New York he seeks his Dad out at Gimbels Dept. Store, Spins in the rotating doors (different building but we added it to Gimbels) and discovers the Worlds Best Cup of Coffee.  His route was marked by some sweet tart candy stepping stones throughout the whole scene we created.

We had such a blast! Everyone was able to contribute and feel proud with the end result of our combined efforts. The great news is we have a month to appreciate this labor of love.

Oh, and we did win the competition. ;)

I wish I would have thought of doing this last year for our Family Christmas Countdown Party Series: Elf Movie Night! 

 -Simply Sublime

KOMBUCHA 101: Day Two of the Best Homeschool Experiment Ever

If you didn't see my previous blog on Kombucha 101  - you may want to check-it-out prior to trying to follow this post. 

 Things you will need to start your Kombucha the way we are making it:

• 1/2 Cup Kombucha Starter (you can get this at your local health food store. Just pick up any bottle of kombucha that you see chunky / slimies floating in - make sure it is unpasteurized)
• 2 qt. boiled filtered water
• 1 Cup organic cane sugar (didn't have this so we used regular)
• 4 qt. filtered water (room temp)
• 2-4 tea bags depending on strength of tea

So today we start our 2nd day of Let's Make Kombucha. First we needed 2 quarts of  filtered water brought to boil. (so right off the bat we had opportunity to re-visit conversion)  

After the water was brought to a boil we put it back into the glass measuring bowl to add the sugar.

So in it goes... 1 Cup O' Sugar.

Stir until sugar is dissolved.

Next it is time to get the lovely little tea bags a brewing in it. We have a girl (middle daughter 19 yrs old)  in our house who has a bit of a tea addiction. Our local tea house knows her well by now. So we always have an eclectic variety of teas in adorable glass jars. After some official sniff-testing we decided (against common Kombucha suggestions) to use a white blueberry tea (they say to use green or black). We did toss in a plain old bag of black tea to the mix. Just in case there is a scientific reason for one of the two types suggested. 

We put in 3 bags of the white tea and 1 black tea bag to steep in the hot sugar water mixture.

For this phase you leave the tea seeping until the water cools - approx 15-20 minutes. 

Once the water has come close to room temperature it is time to add 4 more quarts of filtered water to the tea mix. Now comes the time to toss it all together in a BIG glass jar.

add the Kombucha Starter: How much will depend on the weather in your zone and the temperature in your house. It needs to stay at a minimum of 65 degrees. If your home is on the cooler side you will need more kombucha starter - if it is on the warmer side  start with a little under 1/2 cup. 

We tossed in all we were given in this batch. 1 - it is winter and stinking cold. 2- it is winter and we live in a house with a REALLY BAD draft problem - so it is stinking cold. We didn't measure it but I would guess we had between 2/3 &  3/4 cup of the starter kombucha.

Now you are ready to add a few layers of cheesecloth over the top and secure it tightly with a rubber band....and now you wait. They say if you started with a  mature scoby that you would have a completed batch in 12-14 days. However since we started with a batch of starter without the scoby we will see just how long it takes.  Can't wait to see the growing little slime fest happening in our concoction. Photos to come as they develop.

NOTE} You may notice this glass jar has a small opening. This IS NOT a good idea. Once the scoby grows it will be trapped inside the bottle with no chance of harvesting it to multiply. We started the project while one of our eldest daughters was running to get the LARGE wide mouth glass jar. Guess what? Yep - no one had it. They were out of stock at the two store where they usually carry them. This particular batch is going to take quite a long time to grow so as it is in slow-start mode we have time to get the proper container. We will post a picture when we finally have our little hands on it.

KOMBUCHA 101: Best Homeschool Experiment Ever

OH.MY.WORD! Have you tried Kombucha? It is SOOOOO good! Now, I am talking FLAVOR here. I absolutely LOVE it! Not to mention the supposed health benefits:

• DIGESTION 
• DETOX
• IMMUNE BOOST
• JOINT CARE 
• LIVER FUNCTION
• CANCER FIGHTING
• MENTAL CLARITY
• MOOD STABILITY
• IMMORTAL HEALTH ELIXIR??? 

               (as the ancient Chinese called it)

YES PLEASE!

Whether these factoids are true or not - the drink itself is delightful. A little glass of probiotic bevie  that’s been fermented by a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. I mean who wouldn't want to sip on that all day long? Okay so perhaps that doesn't sound all that appetizing - but it really is. 

Bad News: It can break the bank. 

So what's a gal to do? Every good homeschool Mom knows (hee hee)  the goal is to get your kids to be self-sufficient. That's right. We are going to learn how to make it ourselves. 

So, I will consider this our NUMBER #1, most important homeschool lesson of the year (Perhaps most important lesson of a lifetime - after all if this is as successful as I imagine it will be it is a triple-dee-dipple benefit for me) .  Not only that, it will cover Science, Nutrition, Home Ec, and perhaps we can squeeze in some Photography and English projects with it. 

WOW - I just impressed myself with how great this project of ours really is. Let me take a minute and soak in my brilliancy....................... yeah... it's GOOD! Now that I am thinking of it, maybe we should start working  on a physical therapy unity study too where massage is the first thing to master. AND a taste testing best cheeseburger in the world study. Hey - here's a thought, what about a complete house care cleaning unit? Yeah, my humor is giving me the chuckles. But still...perhaps it does deserve more thought.

Anywhooo - I do believe this Kombucha is an inspired and well-supported idea. It just so happens since we BREWED to BREW (brewed the idea to brew the tea - clever right?) God has provided two unknown to us support systems. In the 3 days since concept we have been in the presence of 2 different women who make their own. This is CRAZY as we just met one of the women, and the other one we haven't seen in over 6 months. One gave us the starter  pictured above. The second actually has a full grown scoby (mushroom looking ditty) she said we could have. She has been making her delicious blueberry green tea Kombucha for 3 years. Not only that - she brought a jug of hers to a girls night we were at and it was SO YUMMY!!! Makes us all the more excited to get  doing the KOMBUCHA dance and CHUG!  

So here is where we are at right now - we have the starter in a large mouth mason jar (needs to be glass not plastic) that has a cheesecloth topper on it with a ring to hold it in place. This allows for breathing without yuck-o-muck getting in it. Step TWO will come tomorrow as we try to develop this into a mature scoby. So keep checking back to see how we are progressing. 

When we receive the mature one we may just get two batches going. I have a feeling our family will soon be known as the KOMBUCHISTS> 

Here is looking forward to a happy glass of Kombucha! Cheers!