Amy Ho Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and the author of four baking books. Each Saturday, I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
I'm so excited for today's guest, who is returning to the pod for a second time. It's Amy Ho, the creator of the popular Constellation Inspiration blog and Instagram. Amy is a recipe developer, photographer, and author of the book, “Blooms and Baking.” She's known for making some of the most beautiful and creative desserts around. The last time Amy was on the pod, we talked about mooncakes. And she's back today to chat about her dazzlingly unique gingerbread houses, the math that is required to make them. Don't worry. She does the math for us, thank goodness, and all her tips and tricks for successful house construction. Amy creates a different structure each year. Sometimes it's a greenhouse, sometimes it's a storefront, and today, we talk about her A-frame house. She also walks me through the dough and royal icing recipes she uses and why they're each ideal for gingerbread house making. I loved talking with Amy, so stay tuned for our chat.
Today's episode is presented by King Arthur Baking Company. King Arthur's flours are some of the most beloved in the industry and for a good reason. Whether you're a serious baker or just a newbie, King Arthur's flours are not only the most reliable, they always yield exceptional results whether in your professional or home kitchen. King Arthur also has a ton of resources to help you take your bakes to the next level. Picture this, your bread's crust is too soft. Your cookies spread, your cake is dry. What do you do? Call the King Arthur Baker's hotline. They have professional bakers ready and waiting to guide you through any baking challenge seven days a week. Call 1-855-371-BAKE. That's 1-855-371-BAKE, to try the hotline out for yourself.
This episode is presented by Kerrygold. Let's talk for a minute about butter, which is truly one of life's simple pleasures. Beautiful butters like those from Kerrygold are as good as gold to me and all the butter lovers in my life. Kerrygold butter is the most special of them all. It's made with milk from Irish grass-fed cows and has a rich flavor and creamy texture, thanks to its naturally higher butterfat percentage. This also gives Kerrygold butter a beautiful, natural golden yellow color we all know and love. Think about how many simple delicious moments involve butter, making grilled cheese for a loved one. I mean, I can hear the butter sizzling in the pan right now. Can't you? Slathering butter on an amazing scone or banana bread that you spent your Saturday morning baking, even just passing butter around a lively table when you get together with friends and family for a meal. There's a whole world of Kerrygold butters for you to discover and enjoy. Learn more at kerrygoldusa.com.
Are you looking for that perfect gift for a foodie friend? Check out Cherry Bombe's holiday gift guides, which are filled with delicious ideas and suggestions for your nearest and dearest. There's something for everyone, from the pastry pros and beginner bakers, to the mixed masters and sporty spice lovers in your life. Or if you have a loved one who wants to build their community and network within the world of food, beverage, and hospitality, consider gifting a Cherry Bombe membership. Members get special perks like access to our virtual monthly meetings, plus, they get specially priced tickets to our annual Jubilee conference. That's happening Saturday, April 12th in New York City. To learn more about the membership program and to browse the gift guides, head to cherrybombe.com.
Let's chat with today's guest. Amy, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie again, and to talk gingerbread houses with you and so much more.
Amy Ho:
I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us about your first or most important baking memory?
Amy Ho:
I think my earliest baking memory would be with my mom. It was not a very traditional baking recipe. It was like a sponge cake made in the rice cooker. Because growing up in an Asian household, we didn't use the oven that much. We strictly used the oven to store the pots and pans. It's funny because the oven stored the pots and pans and the dishwasher stored all the important documents. My parents made sure to unplug the dishwasher, so that nothing would ever get lost, but know how the dishwasher has that little compartments for organizing the plates to make it stand up, my parents used it as slots for insurance documents, bank statements. Everything had another purpose. So the rice cooker's purpose was to make cake, so that was what-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that so much.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So like a steamed cake?
Amy Ho:
Yeah. So it was like a steamed sponge cake that was very light and airy, and I grew up eating that and making that with my mom. There was no set recipe. Everything is play by ear and look and feel. So I never got the recipe from my mom, but I have the fondest memory of it because it was such a light sponge cake and it's always moist because it was almost steamed in the rice cooker.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know that you started your blog, Constellation Inspiration, and graduate school during breaks from your studies.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Was that the first time that you had ever baked? Tell me about the moment where you were like, "Okay, I grew up in this particular way. It's not necessarily something I'm drawn to from childhood, but I love sweets and now I want to bake them and put them on the internet."
Amy Ho:
Well, the blog originally started as more like a DIYs and baking blog. It was more like a lifestyle, a bit of everything. I did a lot of thrifting Thursdays and little outfit Fridays, and then occasional recipe here and there. It was a big mix of things. After doing that for a year or two, I realized the baking part was my favorite part of the blog and I just went more towards that direction. The baking itself, my interest in it started, yeah, like you said, through graduate school and it was more so a way to bring something funny, exciting to my graduate school, like team meetings. Because they were always very long, dry meetings about the research we're doing at the research lab, and then I just wanted to always have a sweet treat for everyone to enjoy while we're enduring those one or two hour meetings that can be really sleepy and very boring at times. And I was like, "Oh, everything's better with a sweet treat." I'll be the person in charge of bringing those sweet treats for everyone.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I know you also started to upload photos of the bakes. You are an incredible photographer. All the photography on the blog is incredible. Did you already know that you loved photography or were you learning photography at the same time you were learning how to bake?
Amy Ho:
I was learning both at the same time. In the very beginning, it was mostly iPhone and it was just a nice little flat lay of the cookies in their final form. I didn't really do much of the process photos because it wasn't as beautiful as the final photo. And then when I was starting out the blog more seriously, I have a really good photographer friend who offered to help me document some of the process because he was really into photography, and I was like, "Oh, I need a photographer." And then we thought it would be fun to do a few of the blog posts together. And then after that, I started being more interested in photography and I was like, "Oh, maybe I should pick this up if I want to take this seriously." And then my parents very generously gifted me my first camera when I graduated grad school, and I just was self-taught since then.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, I read this and it may be old news now, but you've written one cookbook. And I did read that if there was going to be a second cookbook, you might be interested in one about Chinese sweets, et cetera, or Chinese inspired baked goods. Is that still something that you think about?
Amy Ho:
Yeah. Right now, if an opportunity came up, I would probably have to give it a lot of thought because writing a cookbook is so much work as you know, so all consuming and it's what you do all the time. And I think it's because when I was working on my first book, I was also working a full-time job at a marketing agency doing photography. And having to balance a nine to five, plus doing cookbook, plus doing the blog, it was just a lot. So maybe the second time around, it would be much easier for me. But yeah, if I were to do a second book, I definitely want to focus more on Chinese baking and sweets, more of the things that I grew up eating because I feel like that's what I relate to the most and it's what I gravitate towards the most now as an adult.
There's many great books about Chinese sweets now, like Kristina's “Mooncakes and Milk Bread.” I love that book with a passion and I love every Chinese recipe that Frankie puts up on his blog. And I just want to be part of that narrative that shares a lot of the recipes that I grew up eating that might not be as well known in the culinary or baking universe. That would make me very happy and I think my parents would love seeing that in a published form and that would be my dedication to them for helping me discover my passion in photography and baking.
Jessie Sheehan:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
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This episode is presented by Ghirardelli, making life a bite better. We're in the heart of the holiday season right now, my favorite time of year. How happy are you? I know so many of you talented professional bakers out there are whipping up delicious cookies, cakes, brownies, bars, and other holiday confections. The only thing better than something baked during the holidays is something baked with chocolate. That's why I'm excited to tell you all about Ghirardelli's convenient five pound bags of chocolate, which come in eight different varieties and are available at restaurant supply stores and online. I know we all go through a lot of chocolate this time of year, so these are perfect. Ghirardelli has milk and semi-sweet chocolate chips for adding into classic bakes, milk and dark wafers for coating and drizzling, even dark chocolate barista chips you can sprinkle on desserts and drinks. All you professional bakers listening out there know that the best baked goodies are made from the highest quality ingredients. Did you know that Ghirardelli chocolate only uses top quality beans that are traceable right back to the farmers who grew them all around the world? They also only roast the heart of the cacao bean called the nib, instead of the whole bean, to make sure their products have the most consistent, intense chocolaty flavor possible. And they refine their chocolate to teeny tiny particles, 19 microns to be exact, which is what gives Ghirardelli chocolate its creamy, velvety texture. To learn more about Ghirardelli professional products and request samples, visit ghirardelli.com/professional, or you can find their products at kitchen supply stores like CHEF'STORE, Webstaurant and Amazon.
Peeps, have you heard about Cherry Bombe Jubilee? It's our annual conference for women in food, drink and hospitality, and it's happening Saturday, April 12th in New York City. I always love being a Jubilee and connecting with other bakers, pastry chefs and cookbook authors. If you'd like to join us, you can snag early bird tickets at cherrybombe.com. They're on sale now until December 31st, so don't delay. And if you're an official Bombesquad member, check your inbox for special member pricing. I hope to see you there. Now back to our guest.
All right. Now I wanted to pivot a little bit to the New York Times cookies that you make every year. We have to talk about how many years it's been and as we are recording this, it was yesterday, right? You literally posted yesterday all of the cookies.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So first of all, for peeps who maybe don't read the Times or don't know about these cookies, can you tell us about what the New York Times does? Because your relationship with them and these cookies has had different stages.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. So, a lot of food publications release their holiday cookies or baked goods collection every year around the beginning of December. I think this is the fifth year they're doing it. The New York Times every year would share a new collection of Christmas or holiday cookies to their readers on December 1st. And then I took it upon myself to bake every one of those Christmas cookie recipes all at one go in one day. I don't know how I came to that decision, but I thought it'd be fun. Because the first year they posted it, I saw the big spread of cookies on their Instagram and on the website. I'm like, "Wow, these are so beautiful. I would love to recreate these. So why not do it all in one day and suffer a little bit, but be so proud of myself at the end."
Yeah. So I started five years ago. The first year, I think they released 12 cookie recipes, which made sense because it was like 12 Days of Christmas, so 12 cookie recipes leading up to Christmas, and then I baked that all in one day. It was hard because I usually do not bake 12 recipes in one day and fill my apartment with 200 cookies at a time. The apartment gets very hot. I live in a very small apartment, like 500 square foot. It felt like peak summer in there when it was peak winter. But yeah, so I do that every single year. And on December 1st when I wake up, I refresh the website like crazy to see if the recipes are up yet. When I see the cookie recipes go out, I immediately flip through them and see if I have all the ingredients, which I usually don't because there are a few niche ingredients here and there that I don't think is usually a pantry essential like I would normally stock.
And then I book it. It's a mad dash to the grocery store then to pick up the things that I'm missing, so I can start right away. And yeah, this year, they released seven new recipes, which is very kind to me. Because doing seven recipes is much easier than doing 12, or two years ago when they released 24 all at once. And when I saw the headline, 24 holiday recipes for the holiday season, my jaw was on the ground because I'm like, "I don't think I can do this." But also, it's a fun challenge to see I can bake 24 recipes in the span of 24 hours. I know this sounds insane for people who don't do this regularly, because I don't feel like normal people do this regularly, but it brings me such an adrenaline rush that I don't even realize how many hours have passed by. I'm like, "Oh, I'm at recipe 18. This is great. There's only six more to go."
Jessie Sheehan:
Are these a little bit simpler this year than past years? Or every year, there's some hard ones and some not hard ones?
Amy Ho:
Every year, there's some hard ones and not as hard ones of more... Beginner home baker has a recipe that's more tailored towards them and they'll always have a much more difficult recipe for the more advanced baker. Usually, it's Claire Saffitz's recipes that's really hard, or Sohla's recipe that's really hard, which I love doing. Because usually, Claire's recipes are ones that I don't normally make. This year, she made a Bûche de Noël cookie. It uses cold butter cut into the flour and it creates a really dense, but still very light cookie and it's-
Jessie Sheehan:
Almost like rugelach?
Amy Ho:
Yeah, almost. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like rugelach cookie, yeah.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. And it's chocolate based and has cacao nibs on top. It's really lovely. It's not too sweet, which I love, but has a very strong chocolatey flavor. So that was hard because I've never made that before. And having to bring out my little baking ruler to measure... Okay. So three inches by eight inches this way, and then you roll it from the long edge. And I had to read it so many times, you'd be like, okay, what is the long edge rolling? What am I rolling it into? And I had to read a few times, but eventually, we got there.
So hers was the hardest one, but lots of fun to make and I felt very accomplished after making hers. Surprisingly, Sohla's recipe was the easiest. When I read the recipe card, I'm like, "Oh, prep time five minutes, cook time zero minutes." I'm like, "This is the best day of my life." She created a no bake rocky road recipe and I was like, "This is such a relief." Because after you're baking three to four recipes and you plug in a no bake recipe as your baking break, it's so nice. It's refreshing to just pour hot, melted chocolate into marshmallows. I'm like, "This is the best."
Jessie Sheehan:
For some of the cookies, you must have to chill them for a long time.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you'll make the cookie dough, you have to chill it. I hope none of them say overnight, because you wouldn't be able to make them if it was overnight.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. Some of them are chill for like five hours or at least four hours. When I read all the recipes before I start baking, I prioritize those recipes first. So I start with that dough and let that chill and do its thing while I start on the other recipes that don't require chilling. So yesterday, I started on Claire's dough first and Sue Li's shortbread dough first. Because this was a layered matcha sesame shortbread, so I needed all the layers to be pretty firm before I cut them and do the slice and bake. So I started those recipes first. And while those were chilling in the fridge or freezer, I worked on the other recipes like Melissa's sugar cookie recipe or Eric's crinkle cookie, because the crinkle cookies only need a 30-minute chill and Vaughn's rum buttered cookies only needed zero chill time. It was perfect because it was like, no chill time. So I can put that one at the very end and finish off with that, because that, I can just make, and then bake right away.
Jessie Sheehan:
You need good natural light to photograph the cookies or does it not matter if you finish them in the middle of the night because you have a studio and you can use...
Amy Ho:
The previous years when they had more recipes like 12 or 24, I brought out artificial lights to take the photos. Because in addition to baking all the cookies at once, I also take it upon myself to be the first to do it on the internet. I feel like the first few years when I started doing this, I was the only one who baked it all in one go, but now, there's more people who want to do that as well, but I still want to be first because I'm a competitive person. If it's a 24 recipe situation and I finish in the middle of the night, I will bring out my lights to shoot it, but I'm still a natural light person. And it was great because the seven recipes yesterday, I started at 6 A.M., I finished by 2 P.M.-ish. So it was still very bright out. And I took the photos, edited them right away and posted it by 3:30 P.M.
Jessie Sheehan:
You are amazing. That is amazing.
Amy Ho:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. All right. Now, I want to pivot from the New York Times cookies to your gingerbread house obsession. I think your first year was 2019.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, it's only been about five years and that was your first year. How did the obsession begin? What happened in 2019 where you were like, "I am now going to become obsessed with gingerbread houses?"
Amy Ho:
Yeah. I guess that's also the year I started doing the New York Times thing, because it's five years. Maybe something happened to me in 2019 and I just became a really intense baker in 2019. I started doing the gingerbread house in 2019. I never did one before, besides the store-bought kits you get at the grocery store. And there's never enough icing and they only give you the ugliest gum drops, and you have a really terrible house that just always topples over. Yeah, I've only had experience with those type of houses, and then 2019 happened. I don't know what happened in 2019.
And then I started doing my gingerbread houses, which now I do every year. I don't have a specific, "Oh, this inspired me to start doing this." But I think it's more so every year, right before the holiday season starts, I go to Michaels craft store to get holiday sprinkles or extra cookie cutters, but you know how when you walk into Michaels', they always have the Christmas village displays with the lights you buy for your fireplace? I always see the really nice houses twinkling with the lights. And I was like, "Wouldn't that be cool if I made one of these completely edible?" My parents collect those houses, so that's why I have such an affinity towards them. I'm like, "Oh, I love these houses." Because I grew up having them at my family home. So I just decided in 2019, I'm going to turn one of those cute, little gingerbread or Christmas house displays into a gingerbread house.
Jessie Sheehan:
December 2019, you do your first gingerbread house. You don't just do a gingerbread house, you do a greenhouse. Where did the inspiration for the greenhouse come from?
Amy Ho:
I knew if I were to do an over-the-top gingerbread house as my first gingerbread house, I wanted something that's really different than other gingerbread houses out there. And then when I was at this very niche kitchen/food store in Vancouver called Gourmet Warehouse, I saw on their wall of ingredients, there was these gelatin sheets that had a nice, I guess diamond-shaped crosshatch pattern. And then usually, I use the gelatin sheets for blooming gelatin and making gelatin-based desserts, but I was like, "Wouldn't that be so cool to use that as the windows or the glass for my gingerbread house?" I consider doing poured sugar for the windows to achieve a similar effect, but I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to hot sugar and pouring it anywhere. So I was like, "Gelatin sheet seems more approachable," both for me and for someone who's attempting to do it at home.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that, I love that. We're going to talk about that gelatin and the pattern, because I know you've gotten questions like, "How'd you get the gelatin to make that pattern?"
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
It comes like that.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also love this. So that first gingerbread house is this incredible greenhouse. Listeners, you have to head over to Amy's Instagram and her blog to see the pictures of these houses because they're incredible. So, the first house is a greenhouse and it required a lot of math. And you joke that the beauty of you being good at math is that we don't have to be good at math because you do all of the math for us, figuring out how big the stencils need to be, et cetera. How are you so good at math?
Amy Ho:
A lot of Asian families, I did math tutor growing up. So I started math tutor from grade one, all the way to grade 12. So I did over 12 years of math tutoring and AP calculus tutoring. Any tutor you can get a tutor for, I got it, because my parents were very like, "You must be academically very good." Math was always my forte. Despite it being very simple math for gingerbread house building, it was still a lot of math you had to do, especially for the angle of the roof, to make sure everything attaches seamlessly and there's no gaps between each piece of gingerbread, but it was fun.
So this is the final version on my blog, but the first few pieces I made, I didn't take account for this gingerbread might spread a little bit or it might get a little wonky when it's baking. So I had to account for the thickness of the gingerbread, and yeah, I do all the math for you and I made a little printout you can print out with the exact dimensions and measurements, so you don't have to go through what I had to go through to achieve the final greenhouse gingerbread.
Jessie Sheehan:
Honey, you are amazing. And just quick aside, did you ever consider pursuing a doctorate in math?
Amy Ho:
No. I feel like high school math, I was so good at, but then when I had to take math in university, I was humbled so quickly. I was like, "Wow, I'm actually really bad at this. My tutors did not prepare me for this."
Jessie Sheehan:
That's hilarious. So the first year, you ran into a little trouble making the greenhouse because you ran out of parchment paper and you had to keep waiting. Every time you baked, you then had to wait for everything to come to room temp before you could bake again. So that year, it took you eight hours to make the house, but you said you probably could have done it in half the time if you had parchment.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
What about delivery? Do you have anything in Instacart or all these...
Amy Ho:
Okay. I only learned about Instacart this year through some... No, no, no, no. I swear, we don't have that in Canada.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, okay.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. But now, we have Uber Eats grocery and DoorDash grocery, which I've used many times. 2019 was different. Okay? There was no delivery for me.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're right, you're right. That makes sense. Because I'm just thinking when you're telling, I would've been like, 6 A.M., get the list of the New York Times recipes, immediately go to Instacart, order everything.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. I also don't fully trust the Instacart shoppers to get me the exact things I want, especially when it's produce.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's true.
Amy Ho:
And I need it to be really nice in the photo. I don't trust them that much.
Jessie Sheehan:
I agree.
Amy Ho:
And I only trust myself.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Okay. So it took you eight hours, but that was the most special and beautiful greenhouse with all of this beautiful gelatin windows, et cetera.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then in 2020, your second year, oh my gosh, you made a second beautiful greenhouse. This time, I believe you were trying to up last year. So it was two stories and you dropped it.
Amy Ho:
Oh my gosh, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, Amy.
Amy Ho:
That's one of the biggest life lessons I learned, that you have to let icing fully dry if you're trying to move your gingerbread house, because I was such an eager beaver. Oh, I assembled it. I waited two hours, which is not enough time for royal icing to dry. And I lifted up the house by the roof, and I carried it over to my photo surface by the window for the natural light, and it just dropped in between the walk from the kitchen to the window, which is a very small walk for my small apartment, but enough time for it to shatter and for me to shatter and break down into tears.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course, of course.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. Even though it broke and my heart broke along with it, I posted that photo too in my Instagram stories, and I've never had so many views or reactions to one Instagram story. I'm like, "Maybe I should be breaking houses more often." I should make one every year to break and one to actually, for real. People were all-
Jessie Sheehan:
Just to get you.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. I thought about not making another one after I dropped it, but everyone was so encouraging in the comments and the DMs, I was like, "I have to now because everyone just felt so bad for me." So I guess-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. So that was the motivation to make it again that year.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. All right. Then that year, you also made a chocolate gingerbread workshop. You went a little crazy.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you had two greenhouses, one fell, one didn't. And then in 2021, the third year you were doing it, you actually made three. You made a fall inspired house, which was like a gingerbread pumpkin farm stand, kind of easier, less windows and cutouts. And then you also made Williams Sonoma's San Francisco storefront the first time you were actually modeling after an actual building. And you made the A-frame, which is the one we are going to talk about, which I also love. So first, I wanted to sort of generally talk about the ingredients that go into a gingerbread house. You need gingerbread dough.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You need royal icing.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You need a tape measure or a long ruler. Can I ask if there's one you prefer and if there's a brand we should know about?
Amy Ho:
I like using a tape measure for the much bigger pieces of the gingerbread house. So, if I need to measure the entire base or the height of the house, I usually will use a tape measure because my rulers aren't super long. Because I try to find rulers that are clear or see-through for the ones I'm using to cut out windows, so I can see where I'm cutting. But yeah, tape measure for the big stuff, ruler for the smaller things like the window cutouts and the doors. Tape measure stolen from my parents' house, ruler from the dollar store.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nice.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love all that. I wondered what our product should be for our stencils. If we're just using what's on the website, are you imagining people are just printing those up and so the stencil is just on a piece of regular letter sized white paper? Do we want cardboard?
Amy Ho:
You can print it on regular printer paper. That will work, but do note that if you put that on gingerbread, it will start to get soft and a little bit greasy because the grease will transfer to the paper. I personally use cardstock, so I draw out or I print out my stencil on cardstock and I feel like that's a really great way to measure gingerbread pieces. And you can cut along the cardstock, which acts like a ruler and make sure your lines are straight.
Jessie Sheehan:
And cardstock is just something we buy like an office supply store?
Amy Ho:
Yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect. We're going to need gelatin sheets. This is like Amy's brilliant contribution to the art of gingerbread house making.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You need gelatin sheets for the windows. And like you said, I think even the gelatin, I don't know if every gelatin is like this, but mine too has that diamond shape, which is so beautiful in your houses because it almost looks like old-fashioned planes of glass.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like the way it's shimmery and it catches the light.
Amy Ho:
I don't think I've ever seen gelatin sheets that are plain without pattern. So, I've only known the gelatin sheets with their really nice diamond shapes. I'm happy that that's the only option I have because that's the option I want really.
Jessie Sheehan:
You love a Williams Sonoma Goldtouch baking sheet?
Amy Ho:
Yes. I love it so much.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love them too, because you say, baking sheets are a really important tool for great gingerbread house making because they don't warp.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. The first year when I made it, I was using the really old baking pans that came with my furnished apartment that were very thin. And you know how when you bake cookies, sometimes you hear a pop in the oven, it's the pan warping, and then it's just a little angled in some corners and it's not fully straight anymore. And that's fine, you're making normal cookies, small cookies for eating and gifting. But if you're making a gingerbread house piece or a panel and your pan warps, your piece of gingerbread will not bake flat anymore. And when you try to assemble it, the pieces won't fully connect to each other seamlessly and you'll have little gaps in between each piece, which is fixable or you can hide it with royal icing or any other decorations, but it makes your house a little bit less sturdy. This is my biggest recommendation, to always choose a really heavy duty, good quality baking pan that won't warp or pop in the oven when it gets to higher temperatures.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. And just when you said, cookies that you might be baking to gift, it just occurred to me that I should have asked you this. What do you do with all the New York Times cookies? Are you boxing those up and gifting them to people?
Amy Ho:
Yes. Because I do it so regularly now, people know that after December 1st, if they send me a text message, I will usually have cookies left over from the baking marathon. So it's more like a curbside pickup situation. And I'm like, if you can make it to my house between this time period and this time period, the cookies are yours. So then, I pack each box with one of each flavor or recipe. I was like, "The only catch is that you have to give me feedback on your thoughts and comments on each of the cookies and how you would rank them," if there was this cookie ranking system. And then I collect all the information, so that when people ask me on the blog or on Instagram, "What was your favorite cookie?" Or "Which recipe would you make again?" I'd be like, "This was my favorite recipe. Based on my friend's consensus, they like this one." So I have more than-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. So I have options for all type of cookie lovers. For someone who likes a more crisp shortbread cookie, you can make Melissa Clark's iced peppermint cookies. For someone who likes a very chewy stuffed cookie, you want to make Samantha's cheesecake stuffed ginger cookies. So I have options for everyone.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right. Another ingredient for our gingerbread house making is parchment, and we're going to make sure to call Uber Eats, or DoorDash or Instacart if we run out.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you don't have to take eight hours to make your house. And then a rolling pin and a knife for cutting out. So two questions. Is there a kind of rolling pin you love and what kind of knife should we be picturing for cutting out our gingerbread?
Amy Ho:
I'm just using a paring knife. Any small knife that's easy to handle, I use for that for cutting out my pieces. So I have two types of rolling pins, the ones that I use for the photos on the blog and one that I use for actual baking. So I'm using a French rolling pin with the tapered ends, like a wooden one for my normal day-to-day dough rolling. But for the photos, I use a beautiful ceramic one from anthropology because I need it to look extra nice for the photos.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right. So now, we're going to talk about the instructions for building our A-frame gingerbread house. So in 2021, you almost didn't even make a gingerbread house because you had already made a farm stand and a storefront, and you were also a little bit overthinking it, like you wanted to do something Paris related.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You were thinking about Du Pain et des Idées or Shakespeare and Company. So you came up with your A-frame idea at the last minute. You made it in three to four hours, which is amazing, and you would come into your own in terms of gingerbread making. You finally felt like, "Oh, I got this," which I love, which I thought made it a good gateway house for the rest of us.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we don't all have to start with a greenhouse, although we can.
Amy Ho:
You can.
Jessie Sheehan:
So first things first, you need a really good gingerbread dough recipe. You happen to love Erin McDowell's, which is over on Food52.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
As long as we find a recipe that is not going to spread and is really sturdy, people can use whatever they like.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
What I think is interesting about this recipe is it calls for shortening rather than butter, which is great for sturdiness.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Maybe flavor wise, it's maybe missing something that butter would add. But if you're building a house, flavor is not the goal. The goal is sturdiness.
Amy Ho:
I've tasted this recipe. And to be honest, it was important to me to use a dough that's really great for construction that I also wouldn't mind eating as well. Because there are some scraps that I cut out just to have as like a little baker's snack when I'm making the house, and I don't mind eating this at all, because it feels and tastes very festive. I know that some bakers make a dough that's specifically only for baking and not eating at all. It's just like flour and water and a bit of molasses. Is it called a dead dough? I'm pretty sure that's the word of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm not sure. I've never even heard about that, but I love that.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. I learned about it on watching some Food Network gingerbread house competition. Everyone was like, "Oh, this is made up of a dead dough." So it's dough specifically for baking, for construction and for structures, and building anything really, but it's not for eating at all because there's no flavor in it. But I don't want to bake something that cannot be eaten because I feel that defeats the purpose sometimes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Also, you write about the gingerbread house actually is fragrant and makes your house smell good.
Amy Ho:
It smells so good. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So the beauty of Erin's recipe is there's flavor to it.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
She says it's not for eating, in the sense of your plan is to build a house with this dough so you can overbake it a little, but it sounds like whether you overbake it or not, it's still going to be tasty.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. It smells so good. Before making gingerbread houses, I always had a holiday candle in the apartment burning, but now I don't need to buy holiday candles because I have a gingerbread house. And it makes my apartment smell like gingerbread all the time, which is-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Amy Ho:
... such a bonus.
Jessie Sheehan:
And just a question. Maybe this is going to sound gross because maybe it sits there for a month or whatever, but you never eat it-
Amy Ho:
No, I don't eat it.
Jessie Sheehan:
... after you build the house?
Amy Ho:
I don't eat it after a month later.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Well, who knows? So, we have our sturdy dough with shortening in it. Like I said, you can eat it, but it's also okay to overbake it a little because the plan is not to eat it. And what another I thought really interesting gingerbread house making tip is you actually want to roll it to about a third of an inch.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You want it thicker than a quarter inch or an eighth of an inch, which might be typical for a gingerbread man or gingerbread woman or gingerbread person.
Amy Ho:
Person.
Jessie Sheehan:
The gingerbread human.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So first things first, we're going to cream our shortening and some sugar for five minutes on medium. We're going to add some molasses. Is there a particular brand of molasses? It might be different in the United States, but is there a brand that you love?
Amy Ho:
Crosby's, is that what it's called? Is that the one you have?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, I've heard of that.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. I think that's the only one we have at my grocery stores. That's the only option and it's what I've been using for many, many years.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we've creamed our shortening and our sugar for five minutes. We're going to add our molasses on low and our eggs on medium. Then in a separate bowl, we'll whisk together some all-purpose flour, some ginger, some cinnamon. Those are the kinds of the things that make it smell so delicious. Is there a spice brand that you particularly love?
Amy Ho:
I am just using the Whole Foods Everyday 365 brand.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Yep.
Amy Ho:
Because that's where I go to the most to get my groceries. So yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to whisk together the all-purpose, the ginger, the cinnamon, some baking soda, fine sea salt, and we're going to gradually add those dry ingredients on low and mix our dough together. I assume we don't want to overmix, but maybe it doesn't even matter that much.
Amy Ho:
It doesn't really matter because you're not eating it. The dough might be a little stiffer if you overmix it too much, but it shouldn't be that much of an issue for making a gingerbread house. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Great. Now, we're going to divide the dough because it makes a lot into two or three disks. And you say that you can do smaller disks with the intention of turning a particular disk into a particular part of the house, or you can just put it into two or three larger disks and go for it.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to chill for two hours or overnight. In a perfect world, Amy, do you want us to do overnight or is two hours fine?
Amy Ho:
I think two hours is fine. And especially if you're in a time crunch, you can just chill in the freezer. You can use it when it gets a bit firmer because we just want to make sure the gingerbread dough is not sticking to a rolling pin. That's really important.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. So basically, yeah, we're not trying to age our dough the way you do with chocolate chip cookies. We just want the dough to be malleable enough, but not sticky.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. We want it to be not sticky, but not have to use too much flour to make it not sticky. Because when you bake gingerbread and you flour the surface a lot, there might be some flour residue that stays on the pieces and it makes for a less clean-looking piece of gingerbread. So I'd much rather take more time to chill the dough than to flour a piece of very warm and sticky dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
After the dough is chilled, we're going to roll out pieces of the dough between two pieces of parchment until about a third of an inch thick. Then we're going to remove the top sheet and we're going to place the dough that's rolled out that's on the parchment. We're going to place that sheet onto our baking sheet, preferably our Williams Sonoma Goldtouch.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to cut.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
We are not going to cut before the rolled dough is on the sheet.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. If you cut out all your pieces, and then try to transfer it to the baking sheet, many bad things could happen. You could drop your piece of dough, that gives me shivers already, or you transfer it. If your dough is a bit warm, it might warp the pieces a little bit. So I find that the safest route to take is to put the dough on the baking sheet, and then cut out the pieces that you need and remove any excess dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you do that right on the baking sheet, just so people are clear. We have parchment sheets, but we're doing that on the baking sheet. And we do not have to chill in between rolling out, placing on the baking sheet and cutting, right?
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect.
Amy Ho:
Unless you're playing with the dough for so long that it gets too soft, then no chilling is required.
Jessie Sheehan:
But if it seems a little bit soft, maybe because we're a novice and it took us a long time to roll it out, then you could just put the baking sheet into the fridge briefly to chill it a little bit.
Amy Ho:
Yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
This is a great tip. If you're making cutouts, I called them cutouts, I think, but basically, what I mean is like the windows.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Look, here's the thing, listeners, you can follow exactly what Amy tells you by going to her blog and looking at her diagrams, but if you were going rogue, Amy and I will also give you the tips for going rogue. So the point is, if you're going rogue, you're cutting out some windows, you want to be careful about not going too big, right? Because the gingerbread can snap if you've cut a really large window out of your... Is that correct?
Amy Ho:
Yeah, yeah. If you cut too large a window and your piece of gingerbread, the panel is really big, there's a high chance that the window ledge might snap, and then you can always fix it with royal icing afterwards, but it doesn't look as nice. So I like to take my precaution much earlier and leave ample room between each window, so it has enough support to hold itself up.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. After you've done your cutout and I assume maybe even with the tip of your paring knife, you've pulled away the excess dough around your shapes, then we're going to chill or even freeze for at least 10 minutes until completely firm.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
This is a very important Amy Ho tip-
Amy Ho:
It's so important.
Jessie Sheehan:
... before baking.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. I do that for all my shortbread baking as well, or any cookie that I want for it to retain its shape. You want the dough to be really cold and very chilled before you put in oven, so it doesn't spread as much and it retains its shape.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. The other thing I will say is, I think in the recipe, it talks about the importance of shortening for the sturdiness that it brings the gingerbread. I know shortening is controversial. I happen to like it, but I know not everyone does. But the other thing that's amazing about shortening is, and it's why if you put shortening in an oatmeal cookie, maybe with a little bit of butter too for the flavor, it won't spread as much. Shortening doesn't spread the way butter spreads. So I'm sure that's really great for gingerbread as well, because you cut out your shape, it's not really going to change after it's baked because of that shortening.
Amy Ho:
It might expand very, very little, just the nature of making cookies. But shortening is definitely, if you're not using this recipe and you have another recipe in your mind for gingerbread making, you want to opt for a shortening recipe over a butter-based recipe.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to bake at 375 degrees for seven to nine minutes. And you know what I thought was so interesting? Erin doesn't really give you a timing for baking, which I thought was fascinating.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. Because every piece of gingerbread dough that you're baking, the baking time will be so different depending on how many cutouts it has and how large the piece of cookie is. So if you're baking a piece of gingerbread, that's many cutouts and many windows, you want to start checking on that piece of gingerbread at around five to six minutes, because those pieces brown very easily because it's so thin.
Jessie Sheehan:
I have a question.
Amy Ho:
Yes?
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you try to put similarly shaped things-
Amy Ho:
Yes, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
... on the same baking sheet, so that they will bake at a similar time?
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You don't want to put it...
Amy Ho:
You don't want to put a roof piece next to a window piece. The roof, because it's a solid piece, will take significantly longer, almost even double the amount of time. And you don't want to have to somehow pull the window piece off the baking sheet before the roof piece is finished baking.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Okay. Then, we come out of the oven seven to nine minutes later, but really, we understand that that all depends on the shapes you thought out.
Amy Ho:
You want your eyes to be peering through the oven window to watch it bake, just to make sure everything is going... You know that Delizio commercial from back in the day where the kid is staring at a pizza to make sure it's ready? That is me staring at the gingerbread, making sure it does not burn.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amy, Amy, the pizza maker.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
The childhood pizza maker at heart.
Amy Ho:
Yeah, that's me in another life.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. So now, we're going to cool our baked gingerbread shapes for 15 minutes on the pan. You don't move them for 15 minutes, then you can remove them from the pan to cool completely.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Next, we're going to talk about the royal icing recipe. And I wondered, when is a good time to make our royal icing?
Amy Ho:
I usually make the royal icing while the cookie pieces are cooling after I pulled it out of the oven, because it takes around 15 minutes for it to fully cool. And you do not want to be decorating a warm piece of gingerbread or a cookie because the icing will get really runny. So while it's cooling, that's when I start making my royal icing. I stick with one or two colors. White will be one of them because I like doing all my outlines in white. So that one's really quick and easy. And I'll usually do an accent color, like maybe a red or a green to be festive. But yeah, I don't make it too far in advance because royal icing will dry and will create a little crust on it and that will make the icing lumpy, but it's nothing like a little bit of extra water or egg whites won't fix. But I just like to start making it when the pieces are cooling.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect. This is a great sort of royal icing tip. The royal icing, when you're attaching the gelatin for the windows should be extra dry. So it might be royal icing that is a little bit more confectioners' sugar.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Whereas the consistency you want when you're building the house should be more like honey, a little bit more wet and have a little bit more water. Why is that? Why does the gelatin need something stiff and the building needs something more like honey?
Amy Ho:
When I first started making gingerbread houses, I did the same consistency for both the gelatin and for the outlines. And I started noticing that the gelatin sheets start to curl upwards because of the liquid content in the icing. And then they'll slowly detach because they're bending. And then through time, the gelatin sheet will either fall off or the corners will start curving upwards and not be attached to the house anymore. And I find that if you use a bit of a stiffer icing, it helps it stay flushed on the cookie sheet.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think probably most royal icing recipes are pretty similar, but yours has some meringue powder, some confectioners' sugar and warm water, a little less water for stiff, a little more for a thinner icing. Is there a brand of meringue powder? Can you get meringue powder at Whole Foods?
Amy Ho:
I'm using the Wilton branded meringue powder.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Amy Ho:
But if you have trouble finding meringue powder, you can just do confectioners' sugar and egg whites and omit the water as well. And that would be the liquid content. The reason why you want to use other meringue powder and egg whites, it just helps the icing set more clean and it helps it stay its shape versus using just confectioners' sugar and water.
Jessie Sheehan:
A great Amy tip is when you are decorating your pieces of your house, before you build the house, it is easier to decorate the pieces with the royal icing. Because what you've said is, it's easier to decorate on a flat surface than on an angle, the house is already built and you're trying to literally... Yeah, right? On an angle or-
Amy Ho:
Yeah. I think my biggest tip for building gingerbread houses is using a good, sturdy baking sheet for baking the pieces and to decorate the pieces on the baking sheet or on your work surface before assembling the house. It's much harder to draw a straight line or draw the roof patterns or put on sprinkles when your house is all assembled, and then you'll be working at a 90-degree angle versus flat, where you have more control and you can see the entire piece while you're decorating it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Two questions. First of all, how long does it take to dry? If you decorated one side of the house, do you have to wait an hour before you can use the piece and attach?
Amy Ho:
I tend to wait at least an hour. If it's a very heavily decorated piece, I have thicker pieces of icing on it for the snow or if there's lots of detail, I like to wait a little bit longer, maybe at least two hours. But if it's just very thin lines to outline the building pieces, then it's pretty good for use after an hour.
Jessie Sheehan:
Have you planned out for yourself exactly what design is going to be on every surface of the outside of the house or does it come to you as you're creating it?
Amy Ho:
It comes to me while I'm creating it because I find it almost stressful to plan it in my head first and I'm trying to follow a certain design. I tend to have more fun when I'm just freestyling it. And royal icing when it's still wet, is a bit forgiving. So, if you mess up a line you piped on, you don't want anymore, you can immediately wipe it off. I just use my fingers, do a quick wipe, and then redo that section.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I was going to ask you that too. So when you wipe, it doesn't leave like a white residue?
Amy Ho:
If you're quick enough. Because usually, my lines are pretty thin when I do my gingerbread house details. So when I wipe it real quick, it doesn't leave that much of residue and I just pipe over that area with another design. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, fascinating.
Amy Ho:
And sprinkles are great for hiding imperfections. So a lot of my houses, you'll see that I have little hollies or little Christmas tree sprinkles. Usually, there's some imperfection behind it. That's why I use the sprinkles there.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. I love it. And the sprinkles, I assume we want to put on as soon as we do the royal icing because we need it to be wet. And if this would be me, if I forgot to put the sprinkles on, can we go back and add a drop or two of royal icing, and then get it to stick on the spot where we need it to stick?
Amy Ho:
Yeah, both works. I've done both. Because usually, I decorate it with the sprinkles before I assemble it. After I assemble the house, I feel like it's still is missing a few details or pops of color. I go back in and do a dollop of royal icing and stick the extra sprinkles on.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect. And are you using tweezers?
Amy Ho:
I do. I do use tweezers. It's actually a pair of fish tweezers. At restaurants, they used to plug out fish bones. Yeah, I got it from Now Serving L.A. when last time I was there. And then, yeah, I love them so much. I feel like the most-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love them too.
Amy Ho:
I know. The tools I use the most is an offset spatula and my tweezers for baking. It's so funny.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, you know what? I meant, I love the people at Now Serving, but you meant, you love your tweezers.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. And I love the people of Now Serving. The first time I went to Now Serving L.A., they had the issue of Cherry Bombe there and there was the issue with my gingerbread house feature. So I took a photo of me with my little feature in the magazine. I was so proud of myself. And they just made my first time visiting the store extra special.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, they're so sweet. I love them so much.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we've decorated lying flat. The shapes that we're working with have come from the diagram on your site. Those pictures are on Amy's site and we've decorated those. Then we flip them over and we're going to start to attach the gelatin to the window areas.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And again, are we sort of cutting the gelatin down to fit over the cutouts?
Amy Ho:
Yes, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
But leaving a teeny border, so that we can attach it with the royal icing.
Amy Ho:
Yes. The gelatin sheets tend to come in a longer rectangular shape, and I find that it usually fits really nicely already for windows, but you can easily use scissors to cut them to your desired size and shape.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. And we're going to then let our windows dry.
Amy Ho:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then once the windows are dry, so we have decorated on one side, we have our windows on the other side, now we can start to attach the pieces of the house together. We start with the walls, obviously, as opposed to, I guess the roof. And this is so hard to explain, but when you're doing the walls, you don't put the royal icing on both sides. You don't have to be like, "Royal icing on that line, that I'm going to be connecting to that line, so I should..." Right?
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
One edge gets the royal icing, and then you take the other edge and attach it.
Amy Ho:
Yes, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And do you hold it in place in your hands? Or you use the soup cans?
Amy Ho:
I use the soup cans and water bottles. So usually, when I'm building a gingerbread house, there's so many cans on the kitchen counter because I'm using the soup cans to hold up the house while it's drying. Before I realized I could do that, I was holding it with my hands for so long. I'd be standing at the kitchen island holding these two pieces, and once I let go, it would fall apart. But now, I'm smart, we've graduated. We learned from gingerbread school that we can use soup cans to hold up the pieces as they dry.
Jessie Sheehan:
Let's say you attach one wall to another, you had royal icing on one edge, you attach the other piece, and then you place it down and just put the cans on both sides.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. If I have enough cans, I'll put a can on both sides to make sure it's extra sturdy.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love, love, love, love. I love the cans. You said, use can of soup or anything heavy to act as a wall support as you build your house. But here's my other question. So, we've just connected two edges of our house. We've got our soup cans. Can we keep going?
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or should we wait until that edge dries before we start adding on to the other wall?
Amy Ho:
Yeah. Ideally, you wait until that piece dries just a little bit. So when you're attaching the next piece, it doesn't shift the initial piece attached. But I know we're all very impatient and eager. So you have enough soup cans, which is like six or eight soup cans. You can try and do it all at once. I don't recommend it, but I will not judge you for doing so, because I obviously have done it in the past.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. You know what? I needed to put soup cans on my list of ingredients after parchment paper and rolling pin, and knife.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
The soup cans sound really, really smart. I'm very impatient. But let's say I wanted to try to access my inner Amy and my inner more patient person, are we talking about 20 minutes with the soup cans, 10 minutes?
Amy Ho:
15, 20 minutes. As long as it's not still super wet and pliable, we're good to go.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So once it's constructed, you said we can fill any gaps that we see in the seams with additional icing.
Amy Ho:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Are we filling in while it's still drying? Are we waiting until it's done? We've waited our four hours or overnight, and then we're filling in?
Amy Ho:
Both work. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. What would you do?
Amy Ho:
What I would do is I let it dry a little bit first, because the royal icing will shrink a little bit when it dries.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Amy Ho:
So, I like to wait a little bit to make sure there's not more shrinkage that's going to happen. So when I'm filling in the gap, that's the final fill that I have to do. Because if you're filling in while it's still wet, there might be a chance that once it dries, there's still going to be a small gap. So I let the initial seams dry first or dry most of the way, and then I go back in and fill it with some additional icing if needed.
Jessie Sheehan:
And are we filling with the icing for aesthetics because we don't want it to... Yeah. It's not about, "Oh, we need extra glue here." It's more that we just don't want to see gaps.
Amy Ho:
Yeah. We don't want to see gaps because that's not as pretty, but when you do add extra icing, it will still add more structure. So I feel like it's a win-win for both.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we will add decor or fairy lights or wreaths. So this is a little different than the decorating we did when the pieces were separate. That was more like just royal icing and drawing with maybe some sprinkles. Now, you're talking about an actual little wreath or little lights that's so cute. So the wreath, I've seen yours with these beautiful little wreaths. You're creating those out of royal icing.
Amy Ho:
Yes. Either I'm piping the wreath directly onto the pieces before I assemble the house, or if I feel like afterwards, it needs a wreath, but I've already assembled a house, then I would pipe the wreath onto a piece of parchment and let that dry completely and use it as a transfer piece. So after it has dried completely, I carefully peel it off the parchment and stick it onto the house.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Then we wait four to five hours, but preferably overnight before we move.
Amy Ho:
Yes, because you don't want to drop the house like me.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Amy. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Amy Ho:
Thank you so much for having me.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to King Arthur Baking Company, Kerrygold, California Prunes, and Ghirardelli for supporting this episode. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.