Holiday Castle Siege

What would Christmas be without creating something ridiculous out of cookie? A few years ago, there was the Great Gingerbread Massacre, and last year, my friends and I recreated the movie Zombieland with gingerbread. After "castle siege" was suggested this year, I knew I would have to attempt it. I immediately googled "gingerbread trebuchet" and got some great ideas. (Click the picture above to embiggen.)

(By the way, in my googling, I found the most amazing recreations of scenes from the Lord of the Rings, done entirely in candy. Check them out.)

My friend Melody was along for the whole ride, and many of her suggestions are what made this thing so awesome. While I was baking the pieces, she pulled out a toy horse cookie cutter and said that we had to make a Trojan horse. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE nerd about the Trojan war, so how could I not make one after she pointed it out? I put a little platform between the two horse cookies and loaded it up with little men. There's even a ladder on the back for them to climb.

There are just so many awesome things in this scene, and they make me laugh just thinking about them. There's a prisoner who's being set on fire, men on top of the wall with vats of hot pitch, a ladder thrown over the castle wall, a guy sneakily trying to set the castle on fire, and a few men impaled by thrown javelins.

And of course, there's the gingerbread trebuchet. The thing actually moves!! The counterweight is a little house-shaped box attached to a pretzel rod with a toothpick, and the basket is a mini cupcake wrapper attached to the pretzel with string licorice and loaded with Whoppers. The pretzel itself is attached to the base via a wooden skewer, and it moves up and down. The only thing missing is a mechanism to secure the basket pre-firing. Hey, I'm no engineer.

By the way, this whole thing was made with one batch of my favorite gingerbread and one batch of royal icing. It was all pretty easy (although I am aware that my definition of "easy" is a bit skewed.)

I love having fun with gingerbread. Have any good gingerbread creations to share?