It may not have been a wine pairing at the elegant Elkridge Furnace Inn, but pairing icing with sprinkles and gumdrops with just the right ratio of licorice is also important—especially if your aim is to make a superior gingerbread house.

Nearly 50 of these culinary creations were made at the Elkridge Volunteer Fire Department on Saturday, Dec. 11.

Open to area kids and their parents, the gingerbread-making event was sponsored by CrossLife Church of Elkridge. I was asked to be one of the judges. The other two judges were Tim Burkhart, from Mary Crow's office of State Farm Insurance in Elkridge, and Gina Stokes, principal of Elkridge Landing Middle School.

County code creations

Having never judged gingerbread houses before, I wasn't sure about the criteria. I knew that regular houses had to meet county code, one enforced by an inspector; in this case, it would probably be by someone like the Muffin Man. So I made a checklist of what I'd look for in a properly constructed gingerbread house:

• Would load-bearing interior walls support the heavy icing applied for a snowy Bavarian cottage look?
• The walls would be made from graham crackers, so could they hold up against curious fingers of baby brothers?
• Was there enough room for a ginger family?
• Were the doors high enough for the gingerbread man, or Gingy, to enter?
• Was the house eco-friendly—were enough green gumdrops used?
• Because the gingerbread man would have to "run, run as fast as he can," he'd need to keep in shape, so was the L-beam strong enough to hold up a workout room?
• Would the county allow candy-cane fences beyond the front yard setback?
• And finally, sidewalks should have no licorice rebars showing.

In the middle of my thoughts about gingerbread judging came an email from Rev. John Mackall, pastor of CrossLife Church and the event's coordinator. He had sent criteria for judging the houses. There were three categories, the last one all about engineering, so my obsessing wasn't a total waste!

Judges were required to adjudicate with three categories in mind:

• the house with the most Christmas spirit, displaying the true meaning of Christmas
• the most delicious looking house
• last but not least, the most well-engineered house

Ginger goo and winners too

At the contest, the fire station's community room was turned into a gingerbread house factory. Long tables were full of parents helping their kids construct creations with graham crackers, gumdrops, licorice and candy canes. They cemented all these sweet entities together with thick, gooey icing to bring their visions of the perfect gingerbread house into being.

There were tall houses and squat ones, crooked houses and handsomely made structures that looked like turn-key homes.

After an hour or so of building, the completed houses were set out on tables for viewing. Once each was numbered, it was time for the judging, which was difficult because there were 48 houses, all fantastic and unique creations. But after some consultation, we judges compared the numbered houses we chose, and made our decisions.

In the "Most Christmas Spirit" category, first place went to Paige Concha, 6.

The "Most Delicious Looking House" winner was Ava Faith Bartlinski, 6.

And the award for "Best Construction" went to Elizabeth Cooley, 9. Cooley was a winner at last year's contest, and evidently, a future engineer.

After the picture-taking session with the winners, the room cleared out quickly, with the multitude of kids taking their gooey treasures home to display or eat. And it's no question as to what drink is best paired with any delicious house from a gingerbread contest—ginger ale, of course!