The Great Gingerbread Giveaway from Tunde Dugantsi

What a lovely giveaway.  I got into gingerbread a little later in life.....I've only made three, but they were all large.  Each time I thought, what was I thinking!  I make gingerbread houses now in tribute to my Gramma that passed.  I never got around to making one with her and now I make them in her honor.  My third project is the one I'm most proud of...Cindy's Castle.....I had a couple meltdowns in the process of making it and I'm still learning easier ways to do things and such so it's a great learning adventure. 

************ GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED! WINNER ANNOUNCED! ************

 

Well, it's been great fun to read all of your comments and to see the magnificent gingerbread creations that many of you posted! Thank you for participating, and super huge thanks, of course, to Tunde for making this very generous donation to the site!

 

And now, the results! The random number generator has spoken! Number 40 was drawn . . .

 

. . . which means that Janette, who wrote comment #40 (below), is our lucky winner! Woo hoo!

 

 

Janette, I'll be in touch shortly via email to connect you with Tunde, who will take care of getting her amazing prizes to you!

 

Congrats, again! And happy gingerbreading!

I bake quite a lot - usually cakes and other treats, but new to decorating cookies (have only done simple ones before).  I am excited about learning more and getting so many great ideas from your sites.  (Thank  you so very much, by the way...)  In the future, I would like to bake and build a gingerbread doll house complete with cookie and candy furnishings, and maybe even a fondant family.  LOL - that will take a LOT of practice for sure, but would be so very cool.

Hi and thank you so much for such a great giveaway!! I love decorating sweet treats and here in Mexico gingerbread cookies are not that known, but since last year every Christmas I make gingerbread cookies in different shapes and offer them to my customers as both an ornament and a sweet treat to give as a gift for any special person. This year I have used them myself to decorate a tree and I love how it looks, here a piccy (not the best one though):

But my dream is to make a 3D gingerbread cookie, I´ve never done one and not sure how or where to start trying, so this presents from Tunde´s Creations and Cookie Connection would be a very useful tool to start trying.

 

Happy Festive season!

I just recently did my very first gingerbread house.. here in Mexico is really hard to find some of the traditional ingredients such as molasses, golden syrup, sometimes even ginger... but after a few years doing "fake" gingerbread houses (sugar cookie dough) this year I made the first batch and I totally loved the consistency of the cookie.. is a strong, sturdy cookie with a really lovely smell.. smells like Christmas with Santa of course.. mine looks like decorated by kids, but I'm still proud of finding and making a suitable recipe

For the last few weeks I have been caring for my mom in her home.  She was just recently diagnosed with a brain tumor that is not treatable and has very little time left - according to Drs..  Your sites have been a little window of joy into my world!  At the moment I can only dream of designing these beautiful works of art and have begun to draw out designs on paper.  It is looking like this may be our last Christmas together and I believe for years to come, I will think of her  and our Christmas together when I'm designing gingerbread art.  Thank you again for such amazing inspiration!  

 

[FROM JULIA: So sorry to hear about your mom. Such a heartfelt sentiment to share with us. May you treasure this holiday together.]

I greatly admire both julia and tunde's work. I am new to the art of cookie decorating and have been doing a lot of it with the holidays coming up. I hope to make a 3 d heart and a cookie box one day and these tools provided in the give away will help me to achieve this goal

Wow, what a great giveaway! Last year, I made a gingerbread TARDIS (from Doctor Who). It was definitely my most unique gingerbread creation but I have also made birdhouses as Christmas gifts and regular houses, too! I LOVE GINGERBREAD!

 

[EDITOR'S NOTE: SINCE WE ALLOW ONLY ONE COMMENT PER PERSON ON GIVEAWAYS, I'M COPYING RESPONSES TO LAUREN'S POST ABOVE DIRECTLY BELOW AND DELETING THE DUPLICATE POSTS]

 

From Tiffany Nash to Lauren:

Lauren's response:

The Tardis got me started cookie decorating! I had such a hard time with the letters and started practicing and next thing you know... Here's my Pinterest link. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/206250857908699810/ 

 
My gingerbread girl is the one that makes me more proud of. It represents my first daughter (chapis means "the short one") and my work. It's not made from flour and butter, but hope and love.

Thank you Julia and Tunde for being so generous.

Hi there! It's hard to pick a favorite - I've made houses every year for my grandkids since 2000, and several before that.  Some years were better (and worse) than others!  But I think the most fabulous so far was a group of houses I never saw completed.  My client ordered four UNdecorated houses, along with "trim" cookies - doors, windows, wreaths, trees, topiaries, etc.  She invited close friends of her son to decorate them together.  This year it's SEVEN houses, and I'm almost through baking.  Next year I might start in October!

Thanks for the great competition. I already have and love the Christmas book and molds so if I win I will share my prizes . I love working in gingerbread, I'd like to try some 3d new designs though my Christmas houses are always fun to do.

Who doesn't want this prize?! I have wanted to make puffy heart shaped cookies like Tunde's but I can never find any tin like that in Japan.
This year I made a gingerbread house all covered in RI for the first time. It was great fun.

Me encantaria poder hacer una ciudad de galleta, llena de casas preciosas. Es uno de mis sueños que espero cumplir pronto.

 

The best gingerbread cookies I ever made, were the ones I made from scratch from a Swedish recipe my grandma gave me. Its special to have a family recipe.  :-)

I am very pleased to participate in this rally. These volumetric hearts is my love at first sight. I would be happy if I'm lucky. I'm just doing a one-year decoration of gingerbread, so my ambitious project yet to come. Thank you very much Tunde and Julia for the chance.

My most MEMORABLE gingerbread experience is when my mom made OUR house gingerbread, our church, my Nana's, my Grandma's apartment building & more!  it was amazing & my kids enjoyed it so much.  Thanks so much for the giveaway & thank you to Tunde for her generosity!  Looks like a FABULOUS prize!  

I love decorating cookies! I think that the many designs of gingerbread houses out there are beautiful! I hope to make a gingerbread house that entails the details of hearts and snowflakes. I love hearts! My colors would be pink, green and white with lots of intricate designs tying these shapes together. I have it stuck in my mind and now I just need to put it together! You guys are amazing! 

 

I would love to construct a mid-century modern gingerbread house!

I'm a newbie to cookie decorating but hope to change that in the new year. Cookie Connection seems to have everything I need to make the transformation from novice to intermediate decorator...thank you to all involved for all that you do. My fondest memories of gingerbread houses and all the gingerbread men and women is as a young girl....my mother and I would spend much time making them little show cases. Great memories!!!!!

Thank you so much for the giveaway ^_^ Awesome ^_^

hola Julia, muchas gracias por todas tus iniciativas, solamente tengo hecha una galleta de jengibre, es el copo de nieve, pero admiro profundamente todos los trabajos hechos con esa técnica.

I have never made a "from scratch" gingerbread house.  However, for the first time this year, I did assemble and decorate a gingerbread house with my sons that was "from a box".  It was pre-baked and came with all of the decorations.  We still had a great time putting it together and decorating it!

(Shared the giveaway on Twitter!) 

My first and only gingerbread creation won honorable mention on Cake Central. Not to mention it snowed the day before I took the picture in TEXAS! That is a miracle.  I was hooked instantly like all mediums in food art. lol...there are too many outlets. I'm like a squirrel...isomalt, gingerbread, no wafer. haha I had just marked her book on Amazon yesterday and featured her amazing royal icing snowflake runs. Beautiful stuff!

This giveaway looks amazing! If I dont win I'll probably end up buying some of these things for myself anyways, definately the 3d cookie mold. I'd love to make a nice gingerbread house with lots of needlepoint lace. I'd also love to make 3d ornaments to give as Christmas gifts.

Hello, what a great give away. My very first cookies,  when I don't even knew about RI,  were from a recipe of a very old book that I got when I was a teenager, just last year I picked it up, and adapted the recipe to use on my Christmas Cookies.

 

Since I saw those 3-D cookie cutters, I knew I wanted to try it but didn't succeed on getting the cutter, so this could be an opportunity.

Thank you so much.

To all of you, Happy Baking and Seasons Greetings!

Marta Torres

Oh WOW! This is fantastic!! I'd love to see those books and love to win the mold!! I've made small house just a few weeks ago. RI red-roof and small enough to put it on my palm. It was my very first time to make 3D house, it was so much fun. I'd like to make same red-roof houses with all the other season's design.

Many years ago I made a gingerbread carousel-lopsided but fun. I really need the books !

I love gingerbread cookies, i did some last year but they were to dark was my first time with I thought mmmm came a little brown and of course I almost broke my teeth lol. Every one laugh well I will try this weekend again. I think that this kit is amazing and I would love the cookie cutter!  

me encantaría tenerlo todo para seguir haciendo pequeños proyectos comestibles! hasta ahora he hecho poco, pero quiero seguir!

I'm hoping to do some fun gingerbread houses this Christmas  

I love decorating gingerbread.  I started just about 5 years ago and each year try to make a unique house/creation.  My most recent is The Leaning Tower of Pisa it won first place in a local contest and was featured as a 10 best cookie of the day here on cookie connection.  So far that is my most fabulous gingerbread creation, I am so happy with it.  I continue to practice and will decorate as long as I'm able.  I know my creations can go as far as my imagination and creativity will allow.  I believe that's endless.  Thanks for all the inspiration I have gotten from the fellow cookiers.  I know you can learn from everyone the beginner to pro. all have talents worth sharing.

I have always been so intimidated by gingerbread houses and haven't gotten up the nerve to attempt one yet! Sad, I know. I'm still fairly new to cookie decorating and it's one of the things on my "want to learn" list. I would just love to win this. It would propel me into another area of cookie decorating I have yet to explore.

 

Thank you Julia and Tunde for this wonderful opportunity! I was asked to make a Gingerbread house for a local charity early this year and I knew I wanted to make a Thomas Kinkade inspired Gingerbread house. I worked for over 60 hours on this house and had a lot of fun making it.  I am also very humbled and trilled that I won best in show at the event among some great chefs in Metro Detroit Area.  Attached is a picture of the Gingerbread house and I will post the link of the 360 view of the house in the clips section.  Julia I used your Gingerbread Recipe and it turned out GREAT! Thanks and Happy Holidays to you all

 

How lovely is this! I adore making gingerbread creations! Last year I entered my first contest and took first place! It was a small contest but just creating the house brought me great joy! I would love this for inspiration!

I have a 100-year old German cuckoo clock. Two years ago I created a gingerbread reproduction and mounted it on the wall.  It turned out great.

Oh how I would love to win this! Gingerbread has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. The first gingerbread cookie I made was in the shape of Santa Claus when I was very young. I saw a Santa cookie on the front of my mom's Good Housekeeping magazine and just set about to make my own. I gave them as Christmas gifts to those I loved. As I grew older and moved into my own place I wanted a gingerbread house to put on display in my first apartment. To this point I had only made small cookies and simpler structures but I wanted this one to be special. I designed my own house and melted hard candies for stained glass windows and made lace curtains from piped royal icing. I even put a light in the inside so it would be lit at night. People to this day still remind me how much they loved the stained glass windows! As I began to have my own children it became a tradition to make gingerbread houses with them at Christmas time. For each of my 3 children, I made and gave each of their 35 or so kindergarten classmates a gingerbread house for Christmas.  Some still have them to this day! We still carry on the tradition of making small gingerbread houses each Christmas though my children are grown now! One of my grown sons requested my help in making a gingerbread mansion for a friend's mother recently. The times my children and I have spent together making gingerbread are some of the best memories I have. Just the smell and then the sights of our gingerbread creations will always mean family and live to me.

Oh how I would love to win this! Gingerbread has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. The first gingerbread cookie I made was in the shape of Santa Claus when I was very young. I saw a Santa cookie on the front of my mom's Good Housekeeping magazine and just set about to make my own. I gave them as Christmas gifts to those I loved. As I grew older and moved into my own place I wanted a gingerbread house to put on display in my first apartment. To this point I had only made small cookies and simpler structures but I wanted this one to be special. I designed my own house and melted hard candies for stained glass windows and made lace curtains from piped royal icing. I even put a light in the inside so it would be lit at night. People to this day still remind me how much they loved the stained glass windows! As I began to have my own children it became a tradition to make gingerbread houses with them at Christmas time. For each of my 3 children, I made and gave each of their 35 or so kindergarten classmates a gingerbread house for Christmas.  Some still have them to this day! We still carry on the tradition of making small gingerbread houses each Christmas though my children are grown now! One of my grown sons requested my help in making a gingerbread mansion for a friend's mother recently. The times my children and I have spent together making gingerbread are some of the best memories I have. Just the smell and then the sights of our gingerbread creations will always mean family and live to me.

I've always been in awe of the people, many of them close friends of mine, who do amazing Gingerbread structures. Not my project, but a memory of my very talented mother who, one year, made an amazing gingerbread house. She put so much time and effort into it that she wouldn't let us eat it!!! She should have... The next year when my father went to get it out of the attic with all the other Christmas decorations, it seems the ants had enjoyed it thoroughly!!! I have made simple structures with my grandkids and love every minute of it. I do let them eat them!!  Love this contest and Tunde's work always puts me in awe.