This intricately adorned fabergé egg cookie house, made by Pat Ashley Howard, was a Top Ten Winner at the Grove Park Inn’s 2010 National Gingerbread House Competition in Asheville, North Carolina.

Gold Scroll Work

Drawing her inspiration from tiny house architecture and classic fabergé egg art, Pat Ashley Howard decorated her stunning showpiece with gilded scroll work, poured sugar gems, an edible lock and an antique style skeleton key with tassel.

Hollow Egg

The egg portion stood 17″ (432 mm) tall and was hollow so the tiny 6″ (152 mm) gingerbread house fit inside like a prize.

Micro Gingerbread House

Pat Ashley Howard decorated the outside of her tiny house with holiday wreaths, garlands and trees. She furnished a living room scene complete with micro Christmas tree & presents, which could be glimpsed through gelatin sheet window panes.

Edible Poinsettia

She garnished the plate with a gumpaste poinsettia.

Pat Ashley Howard’s Story

Chapter 5 – Prize Inside

And now we come to 2010. I thought it would be really cool to be the only person in the history of the competition to win a third time, so I decided to go for it.

Taking a Chance with a Non-House Entry

In the past few years’ of the competition, entries that weren’t actually houses were scoring high. The rules say that entries don’t have to be a house. So I decided to take a chance and create a non-house entry. It came to me rather easily as to what my next endeavor would be – a fabergé egg.

Researching the Idea

I studied every book I could find on the subject. Although the idea came easily, the execution did not. Can you imagine how difficult it was to create an egg made of gingerbread that would stand up and look reasonably like a fabergé egg? At times I wanted to throw in the towel, but after numerous trials and errors I finally had a standing egg. And here’s the kicker – it was actually hollow because it would be much too heavy to balance if it were solid.

Gingerclay 2.0

Once again I used gingerclay but this time I combined it with sugar gumpaste to make it stiffer and stronger. I also tried my hand at poured sugar to make the ruby gemstones and emeralds that adorned it. The ornate trim and the stand were made of sugar gumpaste covered in real gold, which is edible.