Gingerbread Showdown - Priya and Seth Vs. Sohla and Ham _ NYT Cooking

**Building a Gingerbread House: A Culinary Adventure with Priya Krishna and Seth**

In the vibrant setting of the New York Times Cooking Studio, Priya Krishna and her partner, Seth, embarked on an ambitious project to build a gingerbread house in just eight hours. The video captures their entire journey, from the initial excitement to the challenges they faced while constructing this intricate edible creation.

### Introduction to the Video and Participants

The video opens with Priya and Seth greeting viewers in the brand-new kitchen studio. They express their enthusiasm for tackling this gingerbread challenge alongside Sola and Ham Elwhaley. Seth, known for his baking prowess, is eager to showcase his skills, while Priya, a partner baker, brings her own expertise to the table.

### Setting Up in the New York Times Cooking Studio

The duo apologizes for the impending mess as they break into the studio's pristine environment. The kitchen, though small, is buzzing with activity as they prepare to bake 25 sheets of gingerbread. They humorously refer to this as "breaking in" the space, setting a lively tone for the project.

### Planning the Gingerbread House

Seth and Priya discuss their ambitious plan to create a gingerbread house that's both architectural and culinary. Inspired by traditional designs, they aim to make it unique, even if it means abandoning conventional methods. Their conversation reveals a blend of excitement and trepidation as they consider the scale of their undertaking.

### Challenges Faced During Construction

The construction process proves daunting. Seth meticulously labels each gingerbread piece with royal icing, while Priya struggles with the complexity of fitting together intricate layers. The duo humorously compares this to solving IKEA instructions, highlighting the patience required. Despite setbacks, they remain committed to their design, even as time constraints add pressure.

### Food Preparations and Recipes

Beyond the gingerbread house, Priya and Seth prepare a diverse array of dishes, reflecting their culinary creativity. From octopus salads and squid ink scarves to snowmen with roasted onion stocks, their menu is both elaborate and whimsical. Each dish tells a story, showcasing their ability to merge cooking with artistry.

### Teamwork and Collaboration

The video underscores the importance of teamwork. Priya and Seth's dynamic shifts between frustration and camaraderie as they navigate challenges together. Their interactions reveal a deep respect for each other's skills, turning the kitchen into a space of shared creativity and mutual support.

### Completion and Reflections

As they near completion, Priya reflects on the emotional rollercoaster of the project. Despite initial doubts about their structure, they achieve something remarkable—both architecturally and culinarily. Their collaboration leads to a sense of pride, knowing they've pushed beyond their comfort zones.

### Conclusion

In conclusion, the video documents more than just a gingerbread house; it captures the essence of culinary creativity, teamwork, and perseverance. Priya and Seth's journey from conception to completion is a testament to their skills and passion for baking, leaving viewers inspired to take on their own culinary adventures.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enshould we do this intro we are in the brand new new york times cooking studio we've got eight hours to build our dream gingerbread house oh there's literally sugar everywhere i look probably should have tested this when we see it all together it's definitely gonna look confident we need more time this is so amazing christmas miracle it is there may not be a house it might just be a pile of breadsticks there will be food though it's gonna be tasty hey everyone it's priya krishna and i am here with hello seth my partner baker extraordinaire and we are very excited to be doing a gingerbread showdown with sola and ham elwhaley we're going to be baking something that's going to look like a house hopefully hopefully if we do things right but it'll be fine it's going to be great it's going to be something thank you so much for bringing us this idea we're so excited we apologize for the mess we are going to make of your brand new kitchen space breaking it in yeah exactly breaking it in a big way what the hell is that seth it's the base this is ridiculous what a lovely mountainside we borrow these designs we're wondering how we're gonna get four walls to stand up right i'm an architect um i've always had a love for pastry and design i feel like this is kind of the meeting of all of his interests seth is gonna be ridiculous the model starts with traditional gingerbread topography base a traditional ginger red topography base just think about that for a second so we decided we're gonna be so different you can't even compare us like his whole life has led up to this moment this one moment and we're we don't want to ruin it so we're just going to make something really tasty we're going for a feast of the seven fishes turned out to be more than seven it's gonna be a feast it's gonna be a feast of eleven fishes so this is the model that we're going to build the house on we wanted something iconic and architectural so we baked off 25 sheets of gingerbread and cut out all of the topography and you all have seen my kitchen so you know how small it is this was the only thing we prepared in advance and the only reason we did this in advance was because we didn't want to bring a pressure cooker we planned this two days ago we were really craving fish yeah so i think that had something to do with yeah that's basically with what we're doing here this is our cracker dough and it's going to be our roof hopefully uh do you want to chop up the tentacles and put it in the rice can we also save some for eating we've got dashi dip with caviar and smoked fish along with uh everything crackers and nori breadsticks apple chip and sable moose no apple and sable mousse riyettes no apple and cigarette no apple christmas trees with sable riyette and chive roasted onion snowman with squid ink scarf octopus salad with beans potatoes and celery billy bee soup with saffron and then our entree is a stuffed squid with a rose negro yeah our plan is we're gonna be snacking on that while marveling over seth's handiwork now we're going to start layering gingerbread layer by layer i'm most nervous about uh like messing up this structure because like it's all on me to place these pieces on here and it's sort of like the most complicated ikea instructions you can imagine we've put one down so last night i basically royal icing these little labels on each of them so i'll remember but this is still going to be tricky at first when seth showed me these sheets i was like paralyzed i was literally like how does this work together you were like we will not finish yeah yeah sometimes seth has like two b's so there'll be like a l 35 b over here and l 35 b over here so can you remind me where this piece goes hey seth where do these ones go and do it is there a 9b that i'm missing that's 14. where where are they supposed to put them oh like where did these guys go this was 10. so we should do these first okay i can i can do this aha i figured out where one piece goes on my own this is literally like trying to figure out how seth's brain works i i really like playing with legos when i was uh when i was a kid i think that was the last time i built anything with any kind of structural integrity i cannot use a hammer i think it's happening at about the speed although i do have to make a bunch of other stuff so but i'm hoping it'll get a little easier because i think the pieces get well the pieces get smaller and more intricate so maybe this is just only going to get harder what time is it right now we're at 11 44. okay so this is going a lot slower than i thought we're doing what we can that has to go in the dehydrator right away and then i'm going to start on bread dough because that is the foundation of our house so if that doesn't have time to ferment we have nothing but if it doesn't stand up we'll just eat bread with smoked fish the hopes and dreams of a house you know so we're gonna have three nori walls and one accent wall with squid ink rocks there's also no measuring involved seth can build it that's a lot less dough than i thought it would be it's going to be really short i i don't know i don't know about this ham i don't think i made enough dough do you have time to make more yeah i just don't really want to should we make it round how are we going to make our own is this roof gonna fit i'll just stick with the original plan this is a very dry dough this is drier than usual this is drier than usual significantly higher yeah probably should have tested this i'm just gonna keep going because what else can you do at this point there's going to be emotional highs and lows you know i think i'm in a low i found layer 20 when we were on layer 30 we kind of snuck it in right here so chugging right along seth has made his like seated serially rice crispy walls so i'm taking this and i'm starting to build the stove walls for the entryway you've got meringue in the oven i'm gonna work on a streusel after i finish this and make trees uh well seth and i watch a lot of baker seth byram lives in brooklyn with his partner in his spare time in addition to baking he likes going to the gym and like visiting museums with his mates oh it's it's very collaborative yeah very collaborative right wouldn't you say yeah we kind of sit down on the couch watch this as us and then pass the laptop that's actually exactly how it happened this is the reason yeah so this has the roasted onion stock a little dashi powder in the meringue powder and it's going to be for a little snowmen that we're going to pipe the scarf for the snowman it's in the glucose onion stock and squidding here we go buddies we're all gonna win because we all get to eat this and then we all get to have champagne it's not a competition there are no winners because yeah it's there no it's not a competition i feel like everyone's kind of performing at the top of like what they're best at which is great and i'm a very hard worker so i'm also performing at the top of what i'm the best at i tried to make a gingerbread house it was the first time for me and my mom and we knew we needed to get cream of tartar because you need cream of tartar apparently for your royal icing but neither of us knew what cream of tartar was so we bought tartar sauce tartar sauce would work really well in this in this dish i am essentially seth's intern today i've actually made tons of gingerbread houses and i did a pretty good job decorating which is why i feel confident in my decorating abilities if you see a built gingerbread house in your travels bring one of those over fantastic thank you we did it we did it okay that's our back of mine back up gonna be seth against target our assembly is going to be very simple so once we are we have our components it'll be fast because we think it'll take an hour oh i think we can get this together in 15 minutes so we're gonna do it the last possible moment we need the caviar to stay cold this is the last piece wow i finished so exciting i finished the base all right now we have to build a house i've aged like 100 years it's like uncovering dinosaur bones i'm so relieved to be doing something other than constructing this how many trees i'm going to say 10. i think 10 trees what say make like some eight foot trees and some 16 foot trees so make some that are like two inches and some that are four inches okay sure you just don't want them all the same size i guess perspective is a thing i care about now this is giving me like fifth grade arts and crafts flashbacks i was not good at that and i was still struggling brown butter mushroom like popping popcorn got a little saffron in there oh kabocha gonna reduce it a bit wait until that kabocha is nice and soft then we're gonna blend it all together and then pass it through a fine sieve that's really good so i'm gonna roll these into little balls which is probably gonna take a very long time we got time we got time let's start rolling my balls start rolling i'm gonna go check on the dogs make sure that they haven't killed each other this house yeah we bought it in hudson we bought it online on zillow i think it's a haunted house yeah when we see it all together it's definitely gonna look haunted we all go in only one comes out and i'm losing it losing it i'm gonna start making bread more so many tiny balls every time i lift the bowl there's more oh okay come on tiny balls come on now we're just making snacks i should probably cook those waffle fry soon all right whoa i didn't plan my rack placement okay they're very rustic they're fine they taste like rolls not that much left now ham's gonna finish up the octopus salad the soup's good yeah we're looking pretty good hey guys how's it going oh are you filming now yeah why are you filming taking a little break you know hey we got pretzel sticks too those must be pretty good if you're taking time to be the camera nothing we have nothing so far and ham's walking the dogs what i guess i should go back to work make streusel very crispy treats you only got these are hard maybe you don't you don't have to don't include this cream cheese this is gonna be the dashi dip it's gonna be like the snow the snowy base oh gosh i am you're back there's literally sugar everywhere i look i mean we're not that messy i'm gonna sear everything off let it cool it's a room temp salad and then i'm going to mix everything together let it hang out and get tasty it's really good i'm excited to eat coconut shrimp this is just what we want to eat this is what we do on the weekends we don't turn it into a house but everything else is pretty accurate i mean these trees and just like the amount of sugar work that needs to be done makes me a bit nervous bear with me we're just brainstorming here yeah no we're just ripping they're just riffing hang on hang on no i see your vision i see your vision would you classify this as a tree oh no nice should i start assembling yeah this wasn't so bad i'm speaking too soon i should shut the hell up this is when it all falls apart the savory powdered sug savory powder we're in like two different episodes of british bake off yeah they're in cookie week we're in bread week seth did you laminate anything i never want to see you without a box of croissants seth's lamination is better than pastry chefs the audience needs to know touch that oh my god it's so crunchy they're the dogs running around in the back here the shrimp doggies these are little bushes little calamari bushes dust them green with a little chai powder that's exciting this is going to be the river and however it looks that's how it's going to look that well let's go in there this ain't working why look that's the wrong side of the blade it's been a really long day it was too good i need a i need i need something to secure this oh god moving in unison turning turning turning turning oh guys we really do do this on the weekend alone stay with me ham stay with me never let go i will never let go okay i can let go completely and it's good after we finish this is us you want to watch titanic we have to now rose is selfish those are cute i wish we had a few more hours i'll tell you that we need more time how is it good use cocktail sauce i'm having a snack we worked really hard to stick it up there's no other choice i'm gonna ask you what time it is every five minutes the house might be too big huh so these are the only ones you need to see hey ham what time is it it's starting to feel a little fluffy that comes oh did something fall what happened it fell oh no how do we repair this what if it's just drafty oh wow what time is it ham oh jeez okay i don't know if we're gonna get the terrazzo oh you haven't even made the no i'm really sad about it yeah i don't there's no way we still have to get the roof on i know somehow i'm more hopeful than i i thought i would be at this stage yeah what i'm trying to say it's go time we're in the hudson valley it's cold think about what absolutely has to be done and don't do anything else the latest update is that we have nixed the window no time you know how i told you we're like chill at the beginning at the end we're like maybe i'll make these they're very delicate that's where i was leaning all right oh god it's so good oh it looks great we're ridiculous humans i really want to put this tree on maybe in like the very back i want to put it in the front perspective seth perspective i think it looks lovely wow they sound so calm over there what's that like oh my gosh oh those are so cute oh my god it happens it happens and then they're gonna like cut to sola and ham it'll be like doo doo doo it's can we do this every weekend hey ham what time is it there's the shrimp doggos christmas tree i'm a little scared of putting a roof on this that looks kind of cool yeah are you gonna stay should i just hold it until the time ends dang we made a house clean at so many points i did not think this was going to work out this hippie whoa buttermilk snow storm seth dry ice dry ice fill her up fill her up surprise we have a dry ice compartment this is fun guys we did it we're done with one with like 30 seconds oh man oh my god so tired look at this kitchen i think it's time to step away from your benches do i have to can i just stay here oh my god this this oh my god it's a dip oh my god a squidding scarf this is this is so amazing oh my god the coconut is incredible whoa that's crazy this is the best part seeing it seeing it torn apart and eaten this is how you know they're restaurant people they just want to like feed everyone it's amazing just another day just another day there we go oh now it's really it's incredible i just i don't understand how you baked off so much gingerbread i was expecting an elevator or a garage door that opens and closes there is a staircase how many hours later did you individually because seth took thursday and friday of work off are you gonna shellack this and keep it forever yes i really feel like we both did kind of exactly in our wheelhouse and it worked out sola and ham made something super culinary we made something very architectural and seth spent a week on it and we did it today youshould we do this intro we are in the brand new new york times cooking studio we've got eight hours to build our dream gingerbread house oh there's literally sugar everywhere i look probably should have tested this when we see it all together it's definitely gonna look confident we need more time this is so amazing christmas miracle it is there may not be a house it might just be a pile of breadsticks there will be food though it's gonna be tasty hey everyone it's priya krishna and i am here with hello seth my partner baker extraordinaire and we are very excited to be doing a gingerbread showdown with sola and ham elwhaley we're going to be baking something that's going to look like a house hopefully hopefully if we do things right but it'll be fine it's going to be great it's going to be something thank you so much for bringing us this idea we're so excited we apologize for the mess we are going to make of your brand new kitchen space breaking it in yeah exactly breaking it in a big way what the hell is that seth it's the base this is ridiculous what a lovely mountainside we borrow these designs we're wondering how we're gonna get four walls to stand up right i'm an architect um i've always had a love for pastry and design i feel like this is kind of the meeting of all of his interests seth is gonna be ridiculous the model starts with traditional gingerbread topography base a traditional ginger red topography base just think about that for a second so we decided we're gonna be so different you can't even compare us like his whole life has led up to this moment this one moment and we're we don't want to ruin it so we're just going to make something really tasty we're going for a feast of the seven fishes turned out to be more than seven it's gonna be a feast it's gonna be a feast of eleven fishes so this is the model that we're going to build the house on we wanted something iconic and architectural so we baked off 25 sheets of gingerbread and cut out all of the topography and you all have seen my kitchen so you know how small it is this was the only thing we prepared in advance and the only reason we did this in advance was because we didn't want to bring a pressure cooker we planned this two days ago we were really craving fish yeah so i think that had something to do with yeah that's basically with what we're doing here this is our cracker dough and it's going to be our roof hopefully uh do you want to chop up the tentacles and put it in the rice can we also save some for eating we've got dashi dip with caviar and smoked fish along with uh everything crackers and nori breadsticks apple chip and sable moose no apple and sable mousse riyettes no apple and cigarette no apple christmas trees with sable riyette and chive roasted onion snowman with squid ink scarf octopus salad with beans potatoes and celery billy bee soup with saffron and then our entree is a stuffed squid with a rose negro yeah our plan is we're gonna be snacking on that while marveling over seth's handiwork now we're going to start layering gingerbread layer by layer i'm most nervous about uh like messing up this structure because like it's all on me to place these pieces on here and it's sort of like the most complicated ikea instructions you can imagine we've put one down so last night i basically royal icing these little labels on each of them so i'll remember but this is still going to be tricky at first when seth showed me these sheets i was like paralyzed i was literally like how does this work together you were like we will not finish yeah yeah sometimes seth has like two b's so there'll be like a l 35 b over here and l 35 b over here so can you remind me where this piece goes hey seth where do these ones go and do it is there a 9b that i'm missing that's 14. where where are they supposed to put them oh like where did these guys go this was 10. so we should do these first okay i can i can do this aha i figured out where one piece goes on my own this is literally like trying to figure out how seth's brain works i i really like playing with legos when i was uh when i was a kid i think that was the last time i built anything with any kind of structural integrity i cannot use a hammer i think it's happening at about the speed although i do have to make a bunch of other stuff so but i'm hoping it'll get a little easier because i think the pieces get well the pieces get smaller and more intricate so maybe this is just only going to get harder what time is it right now we're at 11 44. okay so this is going a lot slower than i thought we're doing what we can that has to go in the dehydrator right away and then i'm going to start on bread dough because that is the foundation of our house so if that doesn't have time to ferment we have nothing but if it doesn't stand up we'll just eat bread with smoked fish the hopes and dreams of a house you know so we're gonna have three nori walls and one accent wall with squid ink rocks there's also no measuring involved seth can build it that's a lot less dough than i thought it would be it's going to be really short i i don't know i don't know about this ham i don't think i made enough dough do you have time to make more yeah i just don't really want to should we make it round how are we going to make our own is this roof gonna fit i'll just stick with the original plan this is a very dry dough this is drier than usual this is drier than usual significantly higher yeah probably should have tested this i'm just gonna keep going because what else can you do at this point there's going to be emotional highs and lows you know i think i'm in a low i found layer 20 when we were on layer 30 we kind of snuck it in right here so chugging right along seth has made his like seated serially rice crispy walls so i'm taking this and i'm starting to build the stove walls for the entryway you've got meringue in the oven i'm gonna work on a streusel after i finish this and make trees uh well seth and i watch a lot of baker seth byram lives in brooklyn with his partner in his spare time in addition to baking he likes going to the gym and like visiting museums with his mates oh it's it's very collaborative yeah very collaborative right wouldn't you say yeah we kind of sit down on the couch watch this as us and then pass the laptop that's actually exactly how it happened this is the reason yeah so this has the roasted onion stock a little dashi powder in the meringue powder and it's going to be for a little snowmen that we're going to pipe the scarf for the snowman it's in the glucose onion stock and squidding here we go buddies we're all gonna win because we all get to eat this and then we all get to have champagne it's not a competition there are no winners because yeah it's there no it's not a competition i feel like everyone's kind of performing at the top of like what they're best at which is great and i'm a very hard worker so i'm also performing at the top of what i'm the best at i tried to make a gingerbread house it was the first time for me and my mom and we knew we needed to get cream of tartar because you need cream of tartar apparently for your royal icing but neither of us knew what cream of tartar was so we bought tartar sauce tartar sauce would work really well in this in this dish i am essentially seth's intern today i've actually made tons of gingerbread houses and i did a pretty good job decorating which is why i feel confident in my decorating abilities if you see a built gingerbread house in your travels bring one of those over fantastic thank you we did it we did it okay that's our back of mine back up gonna be seth against target our assembly is going to be very simple so once we are we have our components it'll be fast because we think it'll take an hour oh i think we can get this together in 15 minutes so we're gonna do it the last possible moment we need the caviar to stay cold this is the last piece wow i finished so exciting i finished the base all right now we have to build a house i've aged like 100 years it's like uncovering dinosaur bones i'm so relieved to be doing something other than constructing this how many trees i'm going to say 10. i think 10 trees what say make like some eight foot trees and some 16 foot trees so make some that are like two inches and some that are four inches okay sure you just don't want them all the same size i guess perspective is a thing i care about now this is giving me like fifth grade arts and crafts flashbacks i was not good at that and i was still struggling brown butter mushroom like popping popcorn got a little saffron in there oh kabocha gonna reduce it a bit wait until that kabocha is nice and soft then we're gonna blend it all together and then pass it through a fine sieve that's really good so i'm gonna roll these into little balls which is probably gonna take a very long time we got time we got time let's start rolling my balls start rolling i'm gonna go check on the dogs make sure that they haven't killed each other this house yeah we bought it in hudson we bought it online on zillow i think it's a haunted house yeah when we see it all together it's definitely gonna look haunted we all go in only one comes out and i'm losing it losing it i'm gonna start making bread more so many tiny balls every time i lift the bowl there's more oh okay come on tiny balls come on now we're just making snacks i should probably cook those waffle fry soon all right whoa i didn't plan my rack placement okay they're very rustic they're fine they taste like rolls not that much left now ham's gonna finish up the octopus salad the soup's good yeah we're looking pretty good hey guys how's it going oh are you filming now yeah why are you filming taking a little break you know hey we got pretzel sticks too those must be pretty good if you're taking time to be the camera nothing we have nothing so far and ham's walking the dogs what i guess i should go back to work make streusel very crispy treats you only got these are hard maybe you don't you don't have to don't include this cream cheese this is gonna be the dashi dip it's gonna be like the snow the snowy base oh gosh i am you're back there's literally sugar everywhere i look i mean we're not that messy i'm gonna sear everything off let it cool it's a room temp salad and then i'm going to mix everything together let it hang out and get tasty it's really good i'm excited to eat coconut shrimp this is just what we want to eat this is what we do on the weekends we don't turn it into a house but everything else is pretty accurate i mean these trees and just like the amount of sugar work that needs to be done makes me a bit nervous bear with me we're just brainstorming here yeah no we're just ripping they're just riffing hang on hang on no i see your vision i see your vision would you classify this as a tree oh no nice should i start assembling yeah this wasn't so bad i'm speaking too soon i should shut the hell up this is when it all falls apart the savory powdered sug savory powder we're in like two different episodes of british bake off yeah they're in cookie week we're in bread week seth did you laminate anything i never want to see you without a box of croissants seth's lamination is better than pastry chefs the audience needs to know touch that oh my god it's so crunchy they're the dogs running around in the back here the shrimp doggies these are little bushes little calamari bushes dust them green with a little chai powder that's exciting this is going to be the river and however it looks that's how it's going to look that well let's go in there this ain't working why look that's the wrong side of the blade it's been a really long day it was too good i need a i need i need something to secure this oh god moving in unison turning turning turning turning oh guys we really do do this on the weekend alone stay with me ham stay with me never let go i will never let go okay i can let go completely and it's good after we finish this is us you want to watch titanic we have to now rose is selfish those are cute i wish we had a few more hours i'll tell you that we need more time how is it good use cocktail sauce i'm having a snack we worked really hard to stick it up there's no other choice i'm gonna ask you what time it is every five minutes the house might be too big huh so these are the only ones you need to see hey ham what time is it it's starting to feel a little fluffy that comes oh did something fall what happened it fell oh no how do we repair this what if it's just drafty oh wow what time is it ham oh jeez okay i don't know if we're gonna get the terrazzo oh you haven't even made the no i'm really sad about it yeah i don't there's no way we still have to get the roof on i know somehow i'm more hopeful than i i thought i would be at this stage yeah what i'm trying to say it's go time we're in the hudson valley it's cold think about what absolutely has to be done and don't do anything else the latest update is that we have nixed the window no time you know how i told you we're like chill at the beginning at the end we're like maybe i'll make these they're very delicate that's where i was leaning all right oh god it's so good oh it looks great we're ridiculous humans i really want to put this tree on maybe in like the very back i want to put it in the front perspective seth perspective i think it looks lovely wow they sound so calm over there what's that like oh my gosh oh those are so cute oh my god it happens it happens and then they're gonna like cut to sola and ham it'll be like doo doo doo it's can we do this every weekend hey ham what time is it there's the shrimp doggos christmas tree i'm a little scared of putting a roof on this that looks kind of cool yeah are you gonna stay should i just hold it until the time ends dang we made a house clean at so many points i did not think this was going to work out this hippie whoa buttermilk snow storm seth dry ice dry ice fill her up fill her up surprise we have a dry ice compartment this is fun guys we did it we're done with one with like 30 seconds oh man oh my god so tired look at this kitchen i think it's time to step away from your benches do i have to can i just stay here oh my god this this oh my god it's a dip oh my god a squidding scarf this is this is so amazing oh my god the coconut is incredible whoa that's crazy this is the best part seeing it seeing it torn apart and eaten this is how you know they're restaurant people they just want to like feed everyone it's amazing just another day just another day there we go oh now it's really it's incredible i just i don't understand how you baked off so much gingerbread i was expecting an elevator or a garage door that opens and closes there is a staircase how many hours later did you individually because seth took thursday and friday of work off are you gonna shellack this and keep it forever yes i really feel like we both did kind of exactly in our wheelhouse and it worked out sola and ham made something super culinary we made something very architectural and seth spent a week on it and we did it today youshould we do this intro we are in the brand new new york times cooking studio we've got eight hours to build our dream gingerbread house oh there's literally sugar everywhere i look probably should have tested this when we see it all together it's definitely gonna look confident we need more time this is so amazing christmas miracle it is there may not be a house it might just be a pile of breadsticks there will be food though it's gonna be tasty hey everyone it's priya krishna and i am here with hello seth my partner baker extraordinaire and we are very excited to be doing a gingerbread showdown with sola and ham elwhaley we're going to be baking something that's going to look like a house hopefully hopefully if we do things right but it'll be fine it's going to be great it's going to be something thank you so much for bringing us this idea we're so excited we apologize for the mess we are going to make of your brand new kitchen space breaking it in yeah exactly breaking it in a big way what the hell is that seth it's the base this is ridiculous what a lovely mountainside we borrow these designs we're wondering how we're gonna get four walls to stand up right i'm an architect um i've always had a love for pastry and design i feel like this is kind of the meeting of all of his interests seth is gonna be ridiculous the model starts with traditional gingerbread topography base a traditional ginger red topography base just think about that for a second so we decided we're gonna be so different you can't even compare us like his whole life has led up to this moment this one moment and we're we don't want to ruin it so we're just going to make something really tasty we're going for a feast of the seven fishes turned out to be more than seven it's gonna be a feast it's gonna be a feast of eleven fishes so this is the model that we're going to build the house on we wanted something iconic and architectural so we baked off 25 sheets of gingerbread and cut out all of the topography and you all have seen my kitchen so you know how small it is this was the only thing we prepared in advance and the only reason we did this in advance was because we didn't want to bring a pressure cooker we planned this two days ago we were really craving fish yeah so i think that had something to do with yeah that's basically with what we're doing here this is our cracker dough and it's going to be our roof hopefully uh do you want to chop up the tentacles and put it in the rice can we also save some for eating we've got dashi dip with caviar and smoked fish along with uh everything crackers and nori breadsticks apple chip and sable moose no apple and sable mousse riyettes no apple and cigarette no apple christmas trees with sable riyette and chive roasted onion snowman with squid ink scarf octopus salad with beans potatoes and celery billy bee soup with saffron and then our entree is a stuffed squid with a rose negro yeah our plan is we're gonna be snacking on that while marveling over seth's handiwork now we're going to start layering gingerbread layer by layer i'm most nervous about uh like messing up this structure because like it's all on me to place these pieces on here and it's sort of like the most complicated ikea instructions you can imagine we've put one down so last night i basically royal icing these little labels on each of them so i'll remember but this is still going to be tricky at first when seth showed me these sheets i was like paralyzed i was literally like how does this work together you were like we will not finish yeah yeah sometimes seth has like two b's so there'll be like a l 35 b over here and l 35 b over here so can you remind me where this piece goes hey seth where do these ones go and do it is there a 9b that i'm missing that's 14. where where are they supposed to put them oh like where did these guys go this was 10. so we should do these first okay i can i can do this aha i figured out where one piece goes on my own this is literally like trying to figure out how seth's brain works i i really like playing with legos when i was uh when i was a kid i think that was the last time i built anything with any kind of structural integrity i cannot use a hammer i think it's happening at about the speed although i do have to make a bunch of other stuff so but i'm hoping it'll get a little easier because i think the pieces get well the pieces get smaller and more intricate so maybe this is just only going to get harder what time is it right now we're at 11 44. okay so this is going a lot slower than i thought we're doing what we can that has to go in the dehydrator right away and then i'm going to start on bread dough because that is the foundation of our house so if that doesn't have time to ferment we have nothing but if it doesn't stand up we'll just eat bread with smoked fish the hopes and dreams of a house you know so we're gonna have three nori walls and one accent wall with squid ink rocks there's also no measuring involved seth can build it that's a lot less dough than i thought it would be it's going to be really short i i don't know i don't know about this ham i don't think i made enough dough do you have time to make more yeah i just don't really want to should we make it round how are we going to make our own is this roof gonna fit i'll just stick with the original plan this is a very dry dough this is drier than usual this is drier than usual significantly higher yeah probably should have tested this i'm just gonna keep going because what else can you do at this point there's going to be emotional highs and lows you know i think i'm in a low i found layer 20 when we were on layer 30 we kind of snuck it in right here so chugging right along seth has made his like seated serially rice crispy walls so i'm taking this and i'm starting to build the stove walls for the entryway you've got meringue in the oven i'm gonna work on a streusel after i finish this and make trees uh well seth and i watch a lot of baker seth byram lives in brooklyn with his partner in his spare time in addition to baking he likes going to the gym and like visiting museums with his mates oh it's it's very collaborative yeah very collaborative right wouldn't you say yeah we kind of sit down on the couch watch this as us and then pass the laptop that's actually exactly how it happened this is the reason yeah so this has the roasted onion stock a little dashi powder in the meringue powder and it's going to be for a little snowmen that we're going to pipe the scarf for the snowman it's in the glucose onion stock and squidding here we go buddies we're all gonna win because we all get to eat this and then we all get to have champagne it's not a competition there are no winners because yeah it's there no it's not a competition i feel like everyone's kind of performing at the top of like what they're best at which is great and i'm a very hard worker so i'm also performing at the top of what i'm the best at i tried to make a gingerbread house it was the first time for me and my mom and we knew we needed to get cream of tartar because you need cream of tartar apparently for your royal icing but neither of us knew what cream of tartar was so we bought tartar sauce tartar sauce would work really well in this in this dish i am essentially seth's intern today i've actually made tons of gingerbread houses and i did a pretty good job decorating which is why i feel confident in my decorating abilities if you see a built gingerbread house in your travels bring one of those over fantastic thank you we did it we did it okay that's our back of mine back up gonna be seth against target our assembly is going to be very simple so once we are we have our components it'll be fast because we think it'll take an hour oh i think we can get this together in 15 minutes so we're gonna do it the last possible moment we need the caviar to stay cold this is the last piece wow i finished so exciting i finished the base all right now we have to build a house i've aged like 100 years it's like uncovering dinosaur bones i'm so relieved to be doing something other than constructing this how many trees i'm going to say 10. i think 10 trees what say make like some eight foot trees and some 16 foot trees so make some that are like two inches and some that are four inches okay sure you just don't want them all the same size i guess perspective is a thing i care about now this is giving me like fifth grade arts and crafts flashbacks i was not good at that and i was still struggling brown butter mushroom like popping popcorn got a little saffron in there oh kabocha gonna reduce it a bit wait until that kabocha is nice and soft then we're gonna blend it all together and then pass it through a fine sieve that's really good so i'm gonna roll these into little balls which is probably gonna take a very long time we got time we got time let's start rolling my balls start rolling i'm gonna go check on the dogs make sure that they haven't killed each other this house yeah we bought it in hudson we bought it online on zillow i think it's a haunted house yeah when we see it all together it's definitely gonna look haunted we all go in only one comes out and i'm losing it losing it i'm gonna start making bread more so many tiny balls every time i lift the bowl there's more oh okay come on tiny balls come on now we're just making snacks i should probably cook those waffle fry soon all right whoa i didn't plan my rack placement okay they're very rustic they're fine they taste like rolls not that much left now ham's gonna finish up the octopus salad the soup's good yeah we're looking pretty good hey guys how's it going oh are you filming now yeah why are you filming taking a little break you know hey we got pretzel sticks too those must be pretty good if you're taking time to be the camera nothing we have nothing so far and ham's walking the dogs what i guess i should go back to work make streusel very crispy treats you only got these are hard maybe you don't you don't have to don't include this cream cheese this is gonna be the dashi dip it's gonna be like the snow the snowy base oh gosh i am you're back there's literally sugar everywhere i look i mean we're not that messy i'm gonna sear everything off let it cool it's a room temp salad and then i'm going to mix everything together let it hang out and get tasty it's really good i'm excited to eat coconut shrimp this is just what we want to eat this is what we do on the weekends we don't turn it into a house but everything else is pretty accurate i mean these trees and just like the amount of sugar work that needs to be done makes me a bit nervous bear with me we're just brainstorming here yeah no we're just ripping they're just riffing hang on hang on no i see your vision i see your vision would you classify this as a tree oh no nice should i start assembling yeah this wasn't so bad i'm speaking too soon i should shut the hell up this is when it all falls apart the savory powdered sug savory powder we're in like two different episodes of british bake off yeah they're in cookie week we're in bread week seth did you laminate anything i never want to see you without a box of croissants seth's lamination is better than pastry chefs the audience needs to know touch that oh my god it's so crunchy they're the dogs running around in the back here the shrimp doggies these are little bushes little calamari bushes dust them green with a little chai powder that's exciting this is going to be the river and however it looks that's how it's going to look that well let's go in there this ain't working why look that's the wrong side of the blade it's been a really long day it was too good i need a i need i need something to secure this oh god moving in unison turning turning turning turning oh guys we really do do this on the weekend alone stay with me ham stay with me never let go i will never let go okay i can let go completely and it's good after we finish this is us you want to watch titanic we have to now rose is selfish those are cute i wish we had a few more hours i'll tell you that we need more time how is it good use cocktail sauce i'm having a snack we worked really hard to stick it up there's no other choice i'm gonna ask you what time it is every five minutes the house might be too big huh so these are the only ones you need to see hey ham what time is it it's starting to feel a little fluffy that comes oh did something fall what happened it fell oh no how do we repair this what if it's just drafty oh wow what time is it ham oh jeez okay i don't know if we're gonna get the terrazzo oh you haven't even made the no i'm really sad about it yeah i don't there's no way we still have to get the roof on i know somehow i'm more hopeful than i i thought i would be at this stage yeah what i'm trying to say it's go time we're in the hudson valley it's cold think about what absolutely has to be done and don't do anything else the latest update is that we have nixed the window no time you know how i told you we're like chill at the beginning at the end we're like maybe i'll make these they're very delicate that's where i was leaning all right oh god it's so good oh it looks great we're ridiculous humans i really want to put this tree on maybe in like the very back i want to put it in the front perspective seth perspective i think it looks lovely wow they sound so calm over there what's that like oh my gosh oh those are so cute oh my god it happens it happens and then they're gonna like cut to sola and ham it'll be like doo doo doo it's can we do this every weekend hey ham what time is it there's the shrimp doggos christmas tree i'm a little scared of putting a roof on this that looks kind of cool yeah are you gonna stay should i just hold it until the time ends dang we made a house clean at so many points i did not think this was going to work out this hippie whoa buttermilk snow storm seth dry ice dry ice fill her up fill her up surprise we have a dry ice compartment this is fun guys we did it we're done with one with like 30 seconds oh man oh my god so tired look at this kitchen i think it's time to step away from your benches do i have to can i just stay here oh my god this this oh my god it's a dip oh my god a squidding scarf this is this is so amazing oh my god the coconut is incredible whoa that's crazy this is the best part seeing it seeing it torn apart and eaten this is how you know they're restaurant people they just want to like feed everyone it's amazing just another day just another day there we go oh now it's really it's incredible i just i don't understand how you baked off so much gingerbread i was expecting an elevator or a garage door that opens and closes there is a staircase how many hours later did you individually because seth took thursday and friday of work off are you gonna shellack this and keep it forever yes i really feel like we both did kind of exactly in our wheelhouse and it worked out sola and ham made something super culinary we made something very architectural and seth spent a week on it and we did it today you\n"