Introduction: Gingerbread AT-AT

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About: I am a german student and joined Instructables, because I like to build your projects and share mine with you.

In this Instructable I will show you, how to build a gingerbread AT-AT.

For this project you need:

  • The printed plans (included in this Instructable)
  • Gingerbread dough (there is also a recipe included)
  • Icing
  • Icing bag
  • Decoration items (chocolates, gummy bears, chocolate sticks etc.)
  • Toothpicks, skewers, cups etc.

For the gingerbread dough you will need:

  • 250g Sugar
  • 600g Rye flour
  • 600g Wheat flour
  • 100ml Milk
  • 80ml Water
  • 750g Honey
  • 2 Egg whites
  • 1 Egg yolk
  • 30g Cinnamon
  • 20g Vanilla sugar
  • 12g Gingerbread spices
  • 12g Baking Soda (E503)
  • 5g Potassium Carbonate (E501)

For the icing you will need:

  • Egg whites
  • Powdered sugar
  • lemon juice

Step 1: The Plans

In this step, the plans for the gingerbread AT-AT are included. The plans are too large for a single piece of A4-paper. So you can use the poster option from Adobe Reader to split the plans and tape them together later, like I did.

After you printed the plans, take your scissors and cut the pieces.

Attachments

Step 2: The Dough

The amount of dough needed is approximately 2kg. You can take any gingerbread dough you want.

Gingerbread recipe:

For the gingerbread dough you will need:

  • 250g Sugar
  • 600g Rye flour
  • 600g Wheat flour
  • 100ml Milk
  • 80ml Water
  • 750g Honey
  • 2 Egg whites
  • 1 Egg yolk
  • 30g Cinnamon
  • 20g Vanilla sugar
  • 12g Gingerbread spices
  • 12g Baking Soda (E503)
  • 5g Potassium Carbonate (E501)

Recipe:

  1. Mix the water and sugar, until the water is boiling and add the honey while stirring. Wait until the temperatur of the mix is ~30°C.
  2. Mix the 2 egg whites, the egg yolk, the vanilla sugar, the cinnamon and the gingerbread spices.
  3. Mix these ingredients with the flour and knead it to a nice dough.
  4. Take 50ml milk and insert the baking soda.
    Take the remaining milk and insert the potassium carbonate.
  5. Now take the dough and add the first 50ml of the milk with the baking soda and afterwards the milk with the potassium carbonate, while kneading.
  6. Give the dough a night of rest before you proceed with the next steps.

Step 3: The AT-AT Parts

Now you can cut the parts for your AT-AT.

Take some of the dough and roll it until it is ~0,5cm thick. Now put the paper onto the dough and cut the parts with a knife.
After the parts are cut, carefully transfer them onto a baking plate with baking paper. Make sure to leave some room in between the parts, as they are expanding while baking (~1cm is enough).

When the plate is filled with parts, put it into the oven and bake it at 160°C for ~15min.

After you have baked the parts, wait until they are cooled down and proceed with the next step.

Step 4: Prepare the Icing

To assemble the AT-AT you will need a lot of icing. As the icing is getting hard with the time, you should only prepare one serving at once.
Transfer the icing into an icing bag, and proceed with the next step.

After you have used the first serving prepare a second one and so on, until the AT-AT is finished.

Recipe for the icing:

Take one egg white and add a splash of lemon juice. Mix the egg and add powdered sugar, until the icing is really thick. (Be careful when mixing the icing. As it is quite sticky it can overheat your mixers motor.)

Step 5: Assemble the AT-AT

Assembling the AT-AT is a bit tricky. It helps a lot to have some skewers and toothpicks ready. Some cups to lean the parts to are also helpful.

Body:

When assembling the AT-AT you should start with the body.
Put the base plate onto a table and add icing to the walls of the side body and the back/front body parts. Attach the walls to the base as shown in the first picture and secure the position with skewers, toothpicks and cups.

Before you attach the top parts of the body, wait until the icing of the just mounted body parts is dry. You should also remove all toothpicks and skewers before you add the top parts.
To attach the top parts simply add icing to the parts and secure the position with skewers etc.

Head:

In order to assemble the head, you should start with the top head part as a base and attach the side and front/back head parts with icing. Secure the position with toothpicks etc. and wait until the icing is dry.

When the icing is dry, remove the toothpicks etc. and atach the bottom of the head.

Attach head and body:

To attach the head and body take the neck parts and put them with icing into the wholes to connect the head and the body. Secure the head at the correct hight, by using cutting boards.

Attach the legs:

To attach the legs, put the dried body onto its back. (Please support the head with a cup or something else, as the neck is probably not strong enough to hold the head.) Now you can attach the legs with icing. Please attach the top legs first and wait until the icing has dried.

Before attaching the legs, you should add the feet and knees. When the legs are dry, attach them to the body and secure everything with toothpicks etc.

Step 6: Finish the AT-AT

When the whole icing has dried, you can add decoration to your AT-AT. I used chocolate sticks as cannons and antennas and powdered sugar to make the AT-AT look like it is walking through the icy planet Hoth.

Be careful when trying to make the AT-AT stand on it's own feet. Gingerbread is not too hard, so the legs may not be able to hold the weight of the AT-AT.
In this case you can support the legs with bottles or you attach candy canes to the legs, to make them more stable.