Artistic touch on gastronomic ventures
Christmas Gingerbread houses around the world :
Bakers and confectionary designers from New York to Hawaii have been
hard at work crafting these sweet-scented masterpieces, employing
thousands of gallons of icing, as well as thousands of pounds of
chocolate, gingerbread dough, fondant, and candy to capture the essence
of the holiday season.
Baba Yaga Gingerbread House
Irina
Brandler, a Russian immigrant and owner of Sugar and Spice Bake Shop in
Bronx, NY, headed a team of four bakers to make a gingerbread house for
Baba Yaga, a witch-like character from Russian folklore who lives in the
forest in a hut that stands on chicken legs. Irina's version of the
house stood more than two feet tall and featured a roof covered in
shredded wheat cereal and Necco Wafers, pretzel fences and ladder, a
trail formed with Boston Baked Beans candy, and Christmas trees made of
frosted ice cream cones and pretzel rods. Three domes on the top of the
house were all shaped out of fondant one dome made of a Hershey's
chocolate kiss melted and had to be replaced.
The English Cottage
Ten-year-old Lydia Gentry of Hendersonville, North Carolina, made
creative use of edible materials to construct her prize-winning
gingerbread house. Lydia thatched her cottage's roof with shredded wheat
cereal, used chocolate rocks on the foundation and chimney, and poured
hard candy to create the cottage windows. Outside, frosting-covered
pasta formed porch supports while a chocolate candy and tapioca pearl
walkway wound its way beneath a vine-covered trellis (gum paste, pasta
and frosting), past rose bushes made of crushed cereal and marshmallow,
and through a lawn made of frosting and speckled with coconut "snow."
Santa's German Gingerbread Village
Hotel executive chef Ralf Bauer and a team of culinary architects
spent over 660 hours designing and constructing a gingerbread village
that paid homage to both Bauer's native Germany and to old Hawaii.
Medieval churches, bell towers, train stations, a carousel and skating
rink mingled with iconic Hawaiian structures like the Kawaiha'o mission
church and the magnificent Iolani Palace. The winter wonderland stood
more than 14 1/2 feet high and 24 feet wide and was made with 200
gallons of icing, 100 pounds of dark chocolate, 30 pounds of white
chocolate, and 60 sheets of gingerbread.
Pied Piper Gingerbread House
The mother-daughter duo behind Ardsley, New York's Riviera Bake House
took inspiration from daughter Liv Hansen's favorite childhood fairytale
to create their 2-foot tall structure. No candy was used to decorate;
Liv instead completed detail work using a pipeable, watered-down recipe
for gingerbread. She sculpted all of the mice and the Pied Piper from
marzipan, and constructed the roof from cereal. The team dedicated five
days to the project, using approximately 10 pounds of gingerbread and
two to three gallons of icing.
First Family Holiday House
Carolina Montoya and husband Fernado Puga spent 302 hours over the
course of two months to create their gingerbread house. The
traditionally designed structure featured President Barack Obama, who
appeared to be climbing out the window and up onto the chimney with a
bag full of toys. Montoya and Puga's all-edible entry was constructed of
gingerbread, fondant, gum paste, coconut, Rice Krispies cereal, and
breath strips for window panes.
Gingerbread creations |
A Christmas Story
Prompted by the theme "Reel Christmas," a team of Seattle Sheraton
culinary staff and area architecture firm DLR Group created this cheeky
homage to the 1983 Christmas comedy film classic A Christmas Story.
Weighing around 200 pounds, the gingerbread structure featured edible
reenactments of memorable movie scenes including fondant versions of
Ralphie and friend Flick by the flagpole in an amazingly detailed
gingerbread neighborhood, and a recreation of the film's iconic leg lamp
sporting licorice "fringe."
Gingerbread Ranch
Rita and Monte Adams' scene tells the story of Santa getting ready to
ride out of an old western town following dinner at the Jingle Caf‚,
gift shopping at the Rocky Mountain toy shop, and a night's rest at the
Holly Tree Hotel. In the scene, Santa has saddled up a solid chocolate
horse while elves have loaded his coach with Christmas toys. The couple
used 15 pounds of flour, 22 1/2 pounds of fondant, 12 pounds of sugar,
and dozens of other ingredients to make this gingerbread tableau.
Three Little Pigs Gingerbread House
For her fairy-tale-themed confection, Cake Power's Kate Sullivan
constructed an 18-inch-tall gingerbread house featuring three little
pigs and a wolf all made of fondant (the original versions, made of
modeling chocolate, melted in the Botanical Garden's greenhouse). The
house itself, constructed of embossed gingerbread, featured such
incredible tiny details as a jellybean-covered fireplace, string
licorice rag rug, gumball lamp and vase, windows made of poured
blue-tinted hard sugar, and a whimsical hanging portrait of a Star Wars
clone trooper drawn in food marker.
London Theatre: The Gingerbread
Nutcracker
It took four full days, two bakers (Kate Sullivan of Cake Power and
Patti Paige of Baked Ideas) and two interns to complete this theatrical
project from beginning to end.
Modeled on the stage of the London Coliseum opera house, the
structure - measuring 18 inches tall - and characters were all made of
gingerbread, while the red curtain above was covered in fondant.
Everything except the red-and-white striped mint balls was either baked
from scratch or rolled, cut, piped or painted in food color by hand.
Cathedral of the Angels
Inspired by the way light illuminates the Bernini sculpture, "Ecstasy
of Saint Teresa," in Rome, Billie Mochow set out to construct a
gingerbread recreation that also appeared to have light coming from it.
She began her building from the inside out, forming the mother and child
figures from gingerbread and "dressing" them in gumpaste.
The faceless people surrounding were similarly constructed from
hand-cut gingerbread cookies dressed to appear dimensional. Outside the
architectural cathedral, Mochow stacked ice cream cones to form the
snow-covered evergreen trees.
Delish.com |