What better way to get in the festive foodie frame of mind than with a Gingerbread House Challenge. Katharine Capocci finds out more from competition organiser Lisa Vincent.

DOLLY mixture and Midget Gem sweeties will no doubt feature large when it comes to a Gingerbread House Challenge with a difference.

And Lisa Vincent, seen here with her practice run gingerbread house, had plentiful supplies of jelly beans, Gems, Smarties and chocolates to hand for decorating the walls of her pretty-as-a-picture house.

Lisa, organiser of the Gingerbread House Challenge, and the lady at the helm of the hugely-successful Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club, has turned mini developer for the charity fundraising project.

The event is planned for the afternoon of Sunday, December 2, at Newcastle’s City Library and will run from 2.30-5pm in the Bewick Hall.

Lisa, along with fellow organiser, cake maker Kate Emmett from Jesmond, is thinking big.

A street of houses is planned and the multi-coloured display will be open to the public.

Organisers are hoping to raise hundreds of pounds for the Sick Children’s Trust at Newcastle’s RVI, which provides accommodation for families of poorly children being treated at the hospital.

Lisa, 34, who lives in Monkseaton with husband Carl, says: “That was my first attempt at making a gingerbread house. I did it from scratch and guessed the templates.

“The idea is to build a street of houses. It will look very striking. Everyone will have their own little design. It will look something really different. It’s the first time I’ve seen something like this in Newcastle.

“I’m entering one myself but I haven’t decided what to do yet.”

Lisa was planning to construct a lighthouse but has had a change of plan as it looks like that idea’s already spoken for. There’s even talk of an elaborate international space station construction!

Fellow baking enthusiast Kate Emmett, who runs her cake-making business, Cake Poppins, from the kitchen of her home, sums it up neatly, when she says: “There’s nothing more fun than sticking a lot of Midget Gems on a gingerbread house!

“It’s really Christmassy. People can look at the gingerbread houses, and there will be face painting. We’re having a judging competition.”

Kate hand bakes and decorates everything from birthday cakes and wedding cakes to her hugely- popular cake pops, which are delectable bite-size cakes on lollipop sticks.

You can catch our full interview with Kate in the Taste section of this month’s Culture magazine, out with The Journal on Tuesday.