Gingerbread Farm

I love the National Zoo in DC!  If I lived in the city I would go running there everyday.  One part of the zoo thats especially fun is the Kids Farm where you can get a little more up close with the animals...pet a donkey, feed a goat....This past year the Kids Farm almost "bought the farm" if you know what I mean. But thankfully a company called State Farm pitched in a few bucks to save it.  I was so happy. 

And then in honor of the farm being saved, the Zoo held a gingerbread contest open to all ages. The grand prize...a private tour with 10 of your friends into the elephant house where you could even catch a glimpse of their bath time!! I love elephants, one of my all-time faves at the zoo.  I would give anything to spend some quality time with one of these magnificent creatures.  So I had to enter the contest!

Have I ever made a gingerbread house before? Never!!  But I couldn't pass up this opportunity.  The theme was "winter wonderland at the farm".  There are 3 categories of contestants...family team (that must include kids), adult team (all adults), or individual adult (that was me since all my crafty friends I asked to help were too chicken to try).  So I came up with a plan in my mind and went off to the store to buy out their entire candy section. Well, not the entire candy section, but close.

the barn

the food shelter with a black hog in front and a peep snowman

I used graham crackers for the barn and covered it with red cookie icing and then decorated it with snowcaps on the roof and colorful gum around the corners and edges. The snow on the ground and all the animals are made from fondant (my first time making any shape with fondant).  The fence is made of lollipops with the sticks covered in fruit roll-ups and heart-shaped pretzels and peppermint sticks in between.  I made a pretzel shelter complete with fondant water and food bowls. The food bowl is filled with shredded mini wheats and the water bowl is filled with decorating gel that was tinted with blue food coloring.  The Peep trees and snowman top it off while the animals play a little game of BoomerBall (apparently a favorite toy of many of the animals at the real farm).

alpaca, rabbit, and cow playing ball while hog looks on

donkey nibbling on some "mini wheat" hay

goat about to climb on some chocolate buckets

The display had to be accompanied by a one page typed description.  I decided to get a little creative with my description and wrote a short story to match my little farm about one snowy day when all the farm animals came together to hang out and have some fun.

Disappointingly, I didn't win :(  But I was still pretty proud of my snowy gingerbread farm, the first gingerbread "house" I've ever made.