The Gingerbread Queen

Interview with Nikki Wills
Photos courtesy of Tikkido.com

Baker and cookbook creator Nikki Wills discusses her enjoy of organising gingerbread properties and reminisces about her journey on Meals Network’s Vacation Gingerbread Showdown.

How did you procure started baking gingerbread properties?

My mom began making them after I became as soon as an toddler the usage of a revealed recipe by gentle White Dwelling executive chef Hans Raffert. It makes delicious, hardy gingerbread that’s superb for organising all types of gingerbread creations. Around Thanksgiving yearly after I became as soon as growing up, my mom and I’d commence making gingerbread properties for ourselves and our web page online visitors and family, including my classmates and my dad’s fellow engineers on the Air Force Institute of Technology; she would build me wait till Christmas to expend mine. I in point of truth accumulate many fond recollections of those instances.

When did you first bake gingerbread for your beget?

I began to miss gingerbread while discovering out for my first-semester finals at Vassar College. I asked the college if I would possibly per chance well exercise the mixer in the dining corridor and became as soon as told that the pastry kitchen wasn’t old-long-established on Sundays. I became as soon as granted the bustle of the total facility, including the giant mixers and authentic ovens. The exercise of my mom’s recipe, I made a gingerbread home that my web page online visitors and I embellished; I additionally talented each and each of my professors their beget residence.

What are your guidelines for making gingerbread properties?

The dough have to be thick and sturdy, and likewise you shouldn’t speed thru mixing it. It additionally helps to construct up a correct mixer. I love my 13.5-liter authentic one—I will put together a triple batch of dough in it.

When assembling a gingerbread home, it’s functional to connect aside the partitions up first, pipe your icing to valid them, and allow them to air-dry overnight so they’ll be extra sturdy; you would possibly per chance then assign your roof on the following day. Royal icing is terribly essential for organising gingerbread properties attributable to as it hardens, it glues the entirety together. Royal icing is continuously made with raw egg whites, nonetheless you would possibly per chance additionally substitute powdered egg whites, meringue powder, or aquafaba, the liquid from a can of chickpeas.

You moved from the united states to St. Albans, England, just a few years ago. What impressed you to construct gingerbread likenesses of the pubs there?

The pubs are just correct-trying and lend a hand as family-friendly neighborhood living rooms, so I wanted to honor them in gingerbread assign. Plus, I journey having an elaborate gingerbread mission to work on as well to my traditional baking all the arrangement thru the vacation season. For Christmas 2023, I made a gingerbread home of the Robin Hood Pub. It became as soon as later served on the pub all the arrangement thru a huge gingerbread procure together, which I basically preferred—especially since I didn’t wish to expend all that gingerbread myself. [Laughs]

What became as soon as it love competing on Meals Network’s Vacation Gingerbread Showdown?

Terrific, especially attributable to my mom became as soon as my baking accomplice. We competed against two other opponents in nine total rounds—we won the tasting recount nonetheless in the waste lost. We both had a blast, even supposing the competition’s chaos and time constraints had been no longer easy. I progressively journey myself when making gingerbread properties. It’s anxious to construct up a negative time while making a huge cookie home and adorning it with loopy amounts of candy.

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