Gingerbread chicken coop December 21, 2012
This year I baked a gingerbread chicken coop.
Gingerbread chicken coop–it looks yummy!
Now I’m kicking myself. Why haven’t I ever made a gingerbread chicken coop before?!
Every year, my daughter and I decorate gingerbread cookies for the holidays. My mom comes out—sometimes a friend or two—and we spend the day getting covered in icing and decorating cookies. Usually, we decorate gingerbread men, trees, snowmen, fairies, hearts, owls, stars and so on.
No chickens here!
But not chickens, and not a gingerbread chicken coop. I can’t believe I’ve never done a coop before! Mind you, even without a gingerbread chicken coop, we have a lot of fun.
My daughter has a ridiculously awesome sense of humor.
This year we weren’t able to make cookies together, unfortunately. Even so, I thought I might test out the coop idea for next year, and see if I could learn anything from the process in preparation for our baking next year.
I used a simple little gingerbread house cookie cutter to create the pieces for my gingerbread chicken coop, glued them together with royal icing in a zipper bag, and then decorated. I’ve always used the Good Housekeeping gingerbread cookie recipe. Since I like a less sweet cookie with a stronger molasses flavor, I use dark molasses rather than light.
Mind you, there are some truly outstanding gingerbread houses out there. This is not one; my gingerbread chicken coop is quite simple. I’d love to see a professional tackle a gingerbread chicken coop. What about it, Martha Stewart? We know you love chickens!
We also know you do gingerbread! I’d love to see Ms. Stewart’s take on a gingerbread chicken coop.
The gingerbread chickens for my coop actually presented more difficulty than the coop itself. I do have a baby chick cookie cutter, but that chick would be way too big to be proportionate to my tiny little coop.
Chickzilla is too big for my gingerbread chicken coop.
So, I needed to come up with teeny tiny chickens for my gingerbread chicken coop. What I did was make the chickens using another tiny cutter (a ghost!), and then just trimmed them to be in chicken-y shapes. You could also make your own pattern and cut them out with a knife.
Do you have any ideas for constructing or decorating a gingerbread chicken coop? I’d love to hear about them!
I love this, I was planning on making a ginger bread house Sunday, but now I am considering this instead!
Oh yeah, we are going to do this too! I guess I was looking for a good challenge!
I have a large collection of all things vintage chicken, and I do have mini-chicken cookie cutters. They were sold in the 1930s as toys for children. I’ve yet to bake with them, but now I’m inspired. (BTW, I show off my collection at my blog, The Vintage Hen)
http://hencam.com/category/thevintagehen/
I don’t care what she has to say. Your coop and gingerbread men are fantastic!
My wife and I will be building an off grid homestead next summer, and she wants (among other things) to raise chickens. To be honest, I’m not that interested in gingerbread houses or coops, but I thought I’d drop you a compliment on your photography. Excellent photos! I’ll look forward to more.
This is awesome! We did a gingerbreadbarn this year, but it was a kit- this one blows ours out of the water. Looks great!!
-Kevin
That is so CUTE!!!!!
[…] gingerbread house, rather than scratching and tearing it to bits. Should I have tried offering a gingerbread chicken coop? Now I know why mad scientists and other supervillains are always so […]