Lip-Smacking Landscaping
- Patrick McConville
- Mar 4
- 2 min read
Any cookie house project deserves an edible landscape to trim it properly. The right hedges, bushes, flowers, and trees can bring your creation to life, and layer in delicious flavors to complement your cookies.
I recently created a replica of an 1800s cedar shingle mansion, and wanted to capture its essence. While the house's windows, beautifully faded shingles, and interesting rooflines were plenty to catch one's eye on their own, surrounding this scene with hedges and hydrangeas was required to set the right stage.
To create the hedges, I made rice cereal treats and added green food coloring. Using rubber gloves, I molded the still-warm treats into casserole dishes, let them cool, then used a sharp knife to cut them into the right shapes. I also molded spheres of various sizes, which I decided to use to create the hydrangeas.
With royal icing, I piped white snowball hydrangea flowers onto each sphere, and set them into place bordering the privet. I added additional brown royal icing to make it look like stems and branches were poking through the foliage. Finally, I made fencing and benches out of gum paste and set them in place.
The final result was exactly what I'd hoped, and extremely easy. The cookie house looked just like the inspiration house, and the hedges set the perfect summer scene!
Another trick I like to use is to create pine trees using sugar cones and royal icing. With a star tip and green royal icing, add pine "branches" beginning at the wide end, working around the entire circle row by row, and ending at the pointy end. The end product should look just like a stately pine!
I'll be posting these and other edible landscaping techniques on the Edible Blog and our YouTube Channel.
I can't wait to see what you build - and how you landscape it!
Patrick
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