Gingerbread creation took more than 2,000 hours of work
The snow-dusted scene, a North Pole courtyard complete with Santa and Mrs. Claus, their reindeer in a stable, and a Victorian-style home draped with boughs of holly, looks like the perfect setting for a children’s Christmas special.
The creation, the work of a Valencia College instructor and two students, is no typical gingerbread village: The three spent seven months on this miniature architectural feat that involved testing dough that would hold up to Central Florida’s humidity; painting intricacies like the face of a clock; and using gelatin to craft windows that look like translucent plastic.
“It doesn’t look like something that was made to be eaten,” said Chris Russom, a student in Valencia’s baking and pastry program who worked on the project.
Along with chef professor Mackie Hefka and classmate Maria Harger, he wanted to create an edible version of something more sophisticated, like a mock-up of a movie set. They avoided using any kind of premade candy or relying on fluffy royal icing to cover mistakes. Even the sprinkles on a doughnut were made by hand.
The group started their work in the spring, when they decided they would use a dollhouse as the inspiration for a gingerbread piece that could showcase the talents of the faculty and students in Valencia’s baking and pastry program.
But they quickly decided to dream bigger, adding a toy factory and other elements that increased the time involved — and the wow factor at the end. Together, Hefka, Harger and Russom estimate they spent more than 2,000 hours on the project that used 130 pounds of dough. They crammed into a small storage room in order to protect their work and appealed to the college’s facilities department to keep the airconditioning on during a summer week when Valencia was closed so their project wouldn’t melt. Their days often ran 12 hours or more, and the group often stayed late on Fridays.
Even smaller elements proved time-consuming. Building just one tree, with all the leaves and ornaments, took Hefka 30 hours.
“Every piece has a story; every piece has a laugh, you know, a little bit of frustration,” she said.
The stones around the bases of the buildings have four layers of color over them. The roofs were painted green, then tinged with copper and pearl dust to create a sparkling metallic effect.
The group even sanded the gingerbread pieces and then incorporated the crumbs into a paste they used to “spackle” over imperfections.