a birthday treasure, part 2

(This post is the second installment of a four part series. To read the first post, click here.)

Once I landed on the idea of a hieroglyph-designed puzzle as my nephew's present, it obviously needed an "ancient" box to be housed in. The box needed decorations but nothing that tied it back to the Rosetta Stone, causing confusion as to what needed to be decoded. So the top was covered with a decorative pattern and the sides had some hieroglyphs, but more complicated and didn't look exactly like the Rosetta Stone.

Obviously the tablet needed to fit inside the box as if it were whole. So, based on its dimensions, I designed the box. 

This took a couple days to bake, assemble and decorate. The lessons I learned when working with gingerbread as a structural item were:
1) Make sure your gingerbread is thoroughly baked! I forgot it needed to be structural. The gingerbread was fully baked per instructions but it could have been a lot firmer. After attaching the base, the sides started splaying out and the entire bottom half needed reinforcement on the underside. You can also see some cracking on the sides of the lid;
2) Let your "glue" have ample time to dry. Had I left the structure alone, the icing would have been impenetrable. Instead, I needed to scrape it off and start over again, twice;
3) A serrated knife and microplane are handy tools when dealing with cutting and shaving cookies. The serrated knife was good for sawing off large parts. The microplane, like in a wood shop, was handy in sanding down parts and making flat edges.
4) I should have used a thicker/heavier black outline since I ended up having to go back over the lines after flooding the areas with white;

Last year, I made both the Martha Stewart and Cook's Illustrated gingerbread recipes for a project. The Cook's Illustrated recipe has really nice and hearty molasses and spice flavors. If you've got access to their site, theirs is the recipe to use - just lower the temperature on your oven a bit and bake for a little longer.

Gingerbread Box: Done. Onto: The Peripherals.