GINGERBREAD ART MUSEUM

This year’s gingerbread house was one of the largest and most detailed ones I’ve ever created. Complete with interiors, this gingerbread masterpiece took more time than prior ones. Typical of me, to bite off more than I can chew, but still manage to pull it off anyway! It took more than 350+ hours of work and many sleepless nights to create this one!

After appearing as a contestant on the Food Network’s Gingerbread Showdown Season 2 - North Pole Games last year, I realized I needed to step-up my skills, after going up against professional pastry chefs!

I decided a mash-up of wold famous art museums would really allow me to learn and practice fondant and chocolate work, which is how I created all the art pieces that decorated the interior galleries. The overall size of the museum was 3’-0” width x 6’-0” length x 2’-6” height. More than 100lbs of homemade gingerbread was used to make the structural walls and architectural decorations.

For the main galleries, the face was inspired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City!

For the entrance to the museum I was inspired the British Museum, but for the interior I looked to the Louvre’s grand staircase of Victory where the Winged Nike statue is placed on the landing.

Pouring chocolate was something I had to try a few times to get right. White chocolate is harder than regular chocolate to melt and re-pour in large quantities because it can easily burn and start to get cakey, resulting in a more rustic and brittle travertine look. I think I went through 57lbs of white chocolate to get something that at least looked a little like smoothish marble!

All the sculptures were white chocolate poured into silicone molds and I used white fondant and an embossed rolling pin to create the interior wallpaper and a smooth roller for the flat paneling.

I made the paintings by purchasing an “edible printer” which is basically an inkjet printer, but instead of ink you use cartridges filled with CMYK food coloring and sugar or rice paper to print the image. I printed off a bunch of world-famous works of art and then frosted them onto gingerbread cookies and then added a gold fondant frame.

The glass ceiling of the main wings of the galleries is made from gelatin sheets.

All the detailed decoration was done with piped royal frosting. I ended up using over 52lbs of powdered sugar for the royal frosting!

Then I had to transport the museum in pieces so it could fit out of my front door and into my car, and then very carefully down the steep hills from my house to an event space where we were throwing a fundraiser for Lyric, a local non-profit that supports homeless LGBTQ+ youth in San Francisco. We raised $2,356! It was incredibly beautiful to see my community come out to support my artistry and a good cause! Can’t wait until next year!