Cakes by Beatriz

Gingerbread takes an artful turn in the hands of a master baker.

Beatriz Müller remembers her mother teaching her to beat egg whites at age eight. Her mother was a professional baker. Müller didn’t know it then, but she would follow in her footsteps later in life. After emigrating to Canada from Argentina in 1989, she worked as a teacher before returning to her love of baking, opening Cakes by Beatriz in Innisfil, Ont. (cakesbybeatriz.com).

Today, Beatriz is known internationally for stunningly detailed gingerbread houses, complete with LED lights and secret compartments to hide gifts. Her artistry earned her top spot at the 2016 National Gingerbread House Competition in Asheville, North Carolina. She entered on a whim, inspired to design a piece based on the architectural paintings of New England artist Daniel Merriam.

Her surprise win was followed by a third-place finish in 2017, then a trip to Los Angeles last year to film Food Network’s Holiday Gingerbread Showdown, which she also won. During the holidays, she offers gingerbread creations to her customers.

“It’s art,” she says. “It’s my passion. I do it because I love it.” Last Christmas, she was also commissioned by Williams Sonoma to construct a scaled replica of the New York skyline out of gingerbread to be displayed in the Time Warner Center in Manhattan.

Müller taps into her German heritage to make a traditional molassesbased dough with spices such as cinnamon, allspice, ginger and nutmeg. She also uses an Eastern European recipe that substitutes honey for molasses to craft gingerbread boxes. They are decorated with icing piped into delicate embroidery-like motifs that take five hours— and a very steady hand— to create and are filled with Christmas cookies. The results are both beautiful and delicious.

More than 90 kg of gingerbread and 27 kg of royal icing went into Müller’s New York skyline masterpiece.