Redrafting the Plans
- Patrick McConville
- Jan 29, 2025
- 5 min read
When I first set out to make edible buildings, I focused on custom, handmade designs and used a standard, construction gingerbread cookie recipe and royal icing. Each custom design began with a simplified sketch of a building - the Chanel mansion on Newtown Lane in East Hampton, for example, which became a set of hand-cut oaktag templates. I would tape each template together to form a 3D model of the building and ensure each piece would fit together as intended. Each template was then used to hand-cut the various pieces of the house, a process taking all day if not multiple days. While I loved making gingerbread houses, I always hated this part. The physical demands of hand cutting each piece, the frustration of templates that stuck to the dough, the mistakes that could cause you to start again, all melding into a daunting hurdle in the middle of cookie-house-making bliss. Once the pieces were baked, you could finally melt hard candies into the window and door openings, then assemble and decorate the house. Start to finish in less than...a week? Two weeks? Three?
I realized quickly that I'd have to charge thousands of dollars per custom gingerbread house to make the economics work. Or I'd have to agree to do a lot of hard labor in exchange for very little money. And people always asked, "They're 100% edible, but can you actually eat them??". The answer was complicated. Yes, you technically could eat construction gingerbread, but it wasn't the tastiest and it was very firm. And that's if you ate it right away. After a week or more exposed to the air, it would turn to stale concrete. And even when fresh, construction gingerbread contained things like corn syrup that I'd hoped to avoid. I had identified two problems. First, I needed to find a way to scale my idea - to make it quick and easy to make impressive cookie houses. Second, I needed to develop recipes that tasted great but had the right texture to be used to build edible buildings.
To solve the first problem, I decided that cookie cutters would dramatically reduce the time it took to cut out the pieces of the houses. And if there were a mistake, it would be very easy to punch out a replacement piece. But how would I get custom cookie cutters for my designs? I knew about companies who could bend custom metal cookie cutters by hand, a process that took months and was extremely costly. How could I justify a large expense for each single custom house I made?
I began to think about something I'd long been curious about: 3D printing. Why couldn't I design my own cookie cutters, 3D print them within a few hours, and then use them to make my custom cookie houses?! There were, however, a few inconvenient details in my path. For one, I knew nothing about CAD software or using it to design 3D models that could be exported to 3D printers. For another, I knew even less about 3D printers, how to set them up, how to use them, how to service them, or even what was possible with them. I decided I wouldn't let that stop me, and before long overcame both issues. I bought a total of 5 3D printers and began experimenting with my first designs.
After a few city skyscraper mock-ups, I set to work creating my first collection of designs. I wanted to start with a versatile village that you could decorate to suit any holiday, special occasion, or for no reason at all. I began with a New England cottage design ("Cottage 1"), a more contemporary cottage design ("Cottage 2"), and a quintessential church in the center of town ("Village Church"). I figured these 3 simple designs would allow me to create buildings I could use for a variety of purposes. And it occurred to me that other people might be interested in these, too. I created a set of "blueprints" for each design, complete with a recipe for construction gingerbread and full instructions on how to bake, assemble, and decorate each building. I printed them on waterproof paper, then developed custom packaging and labeling, and set up my first-ever online store.
I'd always wanted to start a "building-of-the-month" club, where I could design and create a new building every month, each with its own original recipe, blueprints, and an instructional video, walking you through each step from making your dough to lighting up your fully-decorated cookie house.
For January 2025, I decided to kick things off with Snowflake Shanty, a cute cottage featuring snowflake cutouts and a snowflake texture applied to the roof. I paired it with Patrick's Cardamom Crisp Cookie recipe, and I have to say - it's delicious! And perfect to make on a snowy or dreary January day, paired with lemon tea.
Next, I wanted to come up with a Valentine's Day-themed cookie house with a delicious and unique recipe. As luck would have it, we'd invited a few friends for dinner and I had the perfect opportunity to prove that the new design could be made start-to-finish in 90 minutes (a rule I try to live by now), could be a big conversation starter, and could be DELICIOUS! The only snag was that one guest was bringing a friend who was gluten-free. I experimented with rice flour and raspberry powder, and ended up with a gluten-free raspberry tart cookie recipe I was stunned by. I whipped up Cupid's Cookie Cottage, baked and built one, and waited for the dinner party...which never happened. A knife mishap during prep caused us to have to reschedule (everyone is fine). But the following week I was asked to attend a friend's dinner party, and to bring dessert. And I knew just what I'd bring: Cupid's Cookie cottage, baked in a gluten-free raspberry tart cookie, served with a pool of homemade raspberry curd and greek yogurt. Everyone fell in love with it <3.
For March, I'm working on Leprechaun Lair, which I'll pair with a mint chip cookie recipe of some kind. Stay tuned, and if you make your own Cottage 1, Cottage 2, Village Church, Snowflake Shanty, or Cupid's Cookie Cottage, tag us using #ediblearchitect !!! I can't wait to see what you build.
Patrick
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