Old McDonald's Old Cape Dutch Ostrich farm

Wow, Liesbet, that's so cool! I cannot even imagine how long it took you...

My daughter's school asked if I could make a cookie prize for their O-day raffle: I could do anything but the subject just had to start with O.

As they sang the Old McDonald song at the launch of the event leading up to O-day, I decided on his farm, but in the local vernacular style; and I added some ostriches. I tried to find inspiration from farms in Oudtshoorn, as that is the ostrich capital (possibly of the world!), but I liked the gable of Morgenster better, so I dropped that 'O' reference.

The farm: the sides are iced in royal icing, the windows are made of gelatine sheets, the gable detailing and the front door are fondant. The roof, the steps and the stoep are cookies covered in fondant. The idea was to support the roof with rice krispie 'walls' to keep it completely edible, but in the end I needed to use some wooden sticks for extra support.

The board is covered in green royal icing and in light brown royal icing covered with mixed brown and yellow sugar.

The farm is 40 cm long, the gable 20 cm high, the board is 60 cm long.

lessons learned: for this size you need a wooden board, not a regular cake board as it sags in the middle when you lift it. It would probably be better to use cookies  as internal walls to support the roof. Don't use a warm fan to speed up the icing on the inside when you are assembling it coz it makes the gelatine sheets curls and the roof warp!

Laegwen posted:

Wow, Liesbet, that's so cool! I cannot even imagine how long it took you...

a rough count came to 35 hours, including one all-nighter

Wow, that is just amazing!!

Fantastic prize and creation. ..

Superb

Muy bonito! Muy buen trabajo!

Fabulous! Love those cute ostriches .

WOW! This is amazing!

I have a diploma in construction I guess that would help so I might try to 'build' something from cookies one day too... 

Great job!

What a nice and huge project! Lucky who will win it!

This is really lovely!

Lovely idea to use leaf tip to make a feathers

Wow this is amazing! Love it 

Oh wow! That's amazing! How lucky the person who won the raffle!