The Gingerbread Queen

Interview with Nikki Wills
Footage courtesy of Tikkido.com

Baker and cookbook author Nikki Wills discusses her love of creating gingerbread homes and reminisces about her ride on Food Network’s Holiday Gingerbread Showdown.

How did you accept began baking gingerbread homes?

My mom began making them after I became once an toddler the utilization of a revealed recipe by weak White Home govt chef Hans Raffert. It makes appetizing, hardy gingerbread that’s most attention-grabbing for environment up all forms of gingerbread creations. Spherical Thanksgiving yearly after I became once rising up, my mom and I’d originate making gingerbread homes for ourselves and our associates and household, including my classmates and my dad’s fellow engineers at the Air Pressure Institute of Technology; she would develop me wait till Christmas to eat mine. I delight in loads of fond recollections of these cases.

When did you first bake gingerbread to your dangle?

I began to leave out gingerbread while studying for my first-semester finals at Vassar College. I requested the college if I could well presumably use the mixer in the eating hall and became once told that the pastry kitchen wasn’t passe on Sundays. I became once granted the speed of the total capacity, including the mountainous mixers and professional ovens. The use of my mom’s recipe, I made a gingerbread dwelling that my associates and I embellished; I also talented every of my professors their dangle dwelling.

What are your recommendations for making gingerbread homes?

The dough ought to be thick and durable, and you shouldn’t speed through mixing it. It also helps to thrill in a honest mixer. I esteem my 13.5-liter professional one—I will put together a triple batch of dough in it.

When assembling a gingerbread dwelling, it’s the truth is helpful to position the partitions up first, pipe your icing to get them, and allow them to air-dry in a single day so that they’ll be extra sturdy; you would also then set your roof on the following day. Royal icing is the biggest for environment up gingerbread homes on myth of because it hardens, it glues all the pieces together. Royal icing is most steadily made with raw egg whites, but you would also change powdered egg whites, meringue powder, or aquafaba, the liquid from a can of chickpeas.

You moved from the USA to St. Albans, England, just a few years previously. What inspired you to develop gingerbread likenesses of the pubs there?

The pubs are fascinating and again as household-pleasant community residing rooms, so I desired to honor them in gingerbread originate. Plus, I ride having an elaborate gingerbread mission to work on as smartly as to my normal baking for the period of the holiday season. For Christmas 2023, I made a gingerbread dwelling of the Robin Hood Pub. It became once later served at the pub for the period of a huge gingerbread accept together, which I the truth is most standard—especially since I didn’t must eat all that gingerbread myself. [Laughs]

What became once it esteem competing on Food Network’s Holiday Gingerbread Showdown?

Terrific, especially on myth of my mom became once my baking accomplice. We competed against two assorted competitors in 9 entire rounds—we won the tasting insist but in the end misplaced. We both had a blast, even supposing the competition’s chaos and time constraints were spirited. I always ride myself when making gingerbread homes. It’s laborious to thrill in a sinister time while making a gigantic cookie dwelling and decorating it with loopy portions of candy.

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