Gingerbread Typewriter

I got sent details of this AMAZING creation by Patti from Baked Ideas. Astonishingly it is 100% EDIBLE… You can read more about my cake projects here, or how to work with my creative consultancy here, but for now let’s gawp as how amazing Patti’s work is :-D

This oversized gingerbread typewriter is part of a gingerbread display to benefit City Harvest, currently on view for a month at the Parker Meridien Hotel in NYC.

There was no theme this year for the gingerbread “houses,” making it kind of difficult to decide what to do! We have made many regular gingerbread houses over the years – so we wanted to try something different.
I’ve been making alphabet letters lately (everyone loves eating them) so I was trying to figure out a way to incorporate them into this gingerbread project.
I also wanted to make something that feels like “holiday” to me … nostalgic, vintage, old fashioned………just like gingerbread itself.

So…. typewriter came to mind… a sort of gingerbread house for the letters that live inside!! Christmas unplugged, a letter to santa, granny’s laptop …… it was fun to think about.
First we made a model of the typewriter in cardboard, and then baked all the parts and crafted the roller, paper and metal keys out of sugar paste. The “glue” is royal icing, and cookies, stacked up, are the inner supports. The keyboard letters are cookies, iced in ivory and trimmed in silver. The iced gingerbread alphabet letters are frolicking in the sugar snow, sometimes spelling out words (fun, skip, eat, joy.)

I am glad we chose to make a typewriter. It is an image that is a reminder of a simpler time … wintery, happy and unexpected. I hope both kids and adults enjoy looking at it.
It’s 100% edible, down to the rice paper ribbon.