Gingerbread Dragon Mayhem
So a while back I was shopping for a bundt cake pan. It seems like such an innocent thing to do, yes? Well, it turns out there are a LOT of bundt pan designs, including some adorable bundlette pans that are, well, let's just say I could easily blow all my kitchen budget and then some. As I was perusing Amazon and oohing and aw'ing over things like baby bunny cake pans, and ducklings... I found the dragon cake pan.
The First Reader, disturbed across the office by my giggles, looked up and wanted to know what was so funny. I pointed. "If I made this, and arranged the little bunnies around it, and put a sign on the tableau reading SNAKZ..." If I can't stop laughing for more than two minutes, it's probably a bad idea. Or, as my friends pointed out when I mentioned my idea on social media, it's a very good idea. I blew some art money, and indulged in both the dragon pan, and given the season, I chose to get a little houses mold instead of the bunnies (perhaps another time!).
This was... a lot of fun to do with the kids. It's simpler than building dry gingerbread houses, and while it won't last as long, it's much tastier to nom up. Plus, the little houses are just a bit bigger than cupcakes, so they're a great size for snacking.
The sated dragon naps, while the village burns.
We have a familial sense of warped, twisted humor, I know! The dragon is a jam cake (the First Reader's favorite) and I've done cakes in the pan twice, both times with suitable greasing and flouring, with no problems with sticking.
Snow falling on dragons
We decorated with Royal Icing (made with lemon extract rather than vanilla) and candy elements, as well as a good amount of powdered sugar snow. We favor cakes with little or no icing around here, but you might want to fully decorate the dragon in order to see all the details.
Chocolate Houses
The houses (and a dozen cupcakes) were made out of a sour cream chocolate cake, for variety.
You can see the dragon's golden sprinkle hoard!
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