Many families celebrate the
holidays by building a gingerbread house. The Prockop family,
however, often constructs a gingerbread squash court, complete with
hardwood floors, plaster walls, glass back wall and a tin. Other
than the aluminum foil tin, it’s all edible.
Gingerbread architect and reigning Women’s 40+ and 45+ Masters Champion
Hope Prockop combined two family holiday favorites – gingerbread and
squash. Ably assisted by daughters Molly and Lyle and husband
David, Hope and her family often kick off the holiday season by
displaying the finished product prominently with a light display in
their living room, but safely beyond reach of their two Labrador
retrievers.
This year the Prockops built a London phone booth out of gingerbread in
honor of Hope’s title at the British open masters, the first by an
American woman.
Here’s how you can build your own gingerbread squash court. If you can build a gingerbread house, you can build a court.
Start with your favorite gingerbread house recipe and bake pieces large
enough for the front and two side walls. Fully cook those three
pieces.
The back wall requires some special cooking, clear peppermint candies
and parchment paper. Half bake the back wall pieces, then remove
them from the oven. After they cool sufficiently, cut out pieces
for the glass back. Slip parchment paper under the gingerbread
back wall pieces and place the peppermint candies in the areas you cut
out. Then place the pieces back in the oven and finish baking the
gingerbread. The candies will melt to form a glass back wall in
your gingerbread frame.
After everything has cooled, you need to make your “plaster,” which is
the same white frosting glue used on a standard gingerbread
house. It’s also called royal frosting, and recipes for the
concoction made out of confectioners’ sugar, powdered egg whites and
water are widely available online. Slather the plaster on both
sides of the front and side walls before assembly.
The hardwood floor is laid using Wrigley’s Juicyfruit gum, which has a
color that most closely resembles a standard squash court floor.
Use red cake writing tubes to paint the standard squash court wall and
floor lines and finish it with an aluminum foil tin.
Two racquets are made using spaghetti strings baked into the
gingerbread. Use your favorite color fruit leather to make your
racquet grips.
The photos give you more details about how to make your own squash
court. If your kids are like mine, they will think of ways to add
their favorite candies to the design. Best of all, now anyone can
say they got a squash court in their house for Christmas!
