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Students Created A Gingerbread City

Klint Lowry/SUNCOAST NEWS

COMPLETE WITH CHRISTMAS lights and a red and green seashell over the door is this gingerbread house created by Tarpon Springs High school culinary arts student Andrea Strothers.

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BY KLINT LOWRY, SUNCOAST NEWS STAFF

Published: December 22, 2007

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - In what has become a holiday tradition, students in the Tarpon Springs High School culinary arts program decked the halls with gobs of icing, as well as the roofs, floors, walls and driveways – everything.

It was the food program's annual gingerbread house project, in which students are asked to design and build models of local buildings using nothing but ingredients usually only found in desserts.

"It's a lot of fun," said chef Bob Wright, one of the program's instructors. "We just like to ring in the holidays."

A lot of fun, and a lot of work. As whimsical as the structures may look in the end, the students learn building a gingerbread house is no stroll through Candyland.

The project came along just as the food program was celebrating its latest accomplishments. Three of its students won gold medals at the Pinellas County Culinary Student Invitational Competition, on Nov. 13.

Two freshmen, Kaylee Elkin and Tori Dublino, won for their gourmet desserts. Sophomore Taylor Clegg took the gold medal in the edible centerpieces category.

But building a serious gingerbread house is a challenge that test students in unusual ways.

"Number one, it has lot of math in it," Wright explained.

Just like with real construction, the first step is to draw up a precise blueprint.

Once the designs are approved, the students work in teams to get their fantasy buildings off the drawing board and into the oven. The final result is a gingerbread village of about 50 structures.

"It's not just a good test for students' ability to design and build a house out of edible parts, it also a good test of organizational skills," said chef Jason Ramze, program instructor.

The students were encouraged to base their designs on actual buildings around town. They also could create one of their own design. The one restriction was that whatever the design, they had to build their buildings entirely out of edible materials, including the landscaping around them.

"There are a couple that had plastic wrap for the windows, and they're going to get discounted for that," Wright said, "but besides that, they're 100 edible."

Many of the students did base their designs on local businesses. Many of them were eating and drinking establishments.

This year's gingerbread village included a confectionery Starbucks, a McDonald's, a Dunkin Donuts, an Applebee's and a Taco Bell. Other students built a SunTrust Bank, a church and police headquarters. One team with a delicious sense of the macabre made a sugar-coated cemetery.

Of the buildings based on actual businesses, Ramze and Wright were particularly impressed with the Starbucks, noting its builders thought to include a drive-through window.

Two of the best entries this year were buildings concocted out of imagination. Sophomore Andrea Strothers made a beach house and lighthouse. Basing her concept on a magazine picture, she added details like seashell friezes and a tropical color scheme. She set her structures seaside, using brown sugar as sand and shredded wheat as wild grass.

Bending the rules a bit, but in a way that could only be applauded, Strothers decorated her buildings with strings of working miniature Christmas lights, powered by batteries hidden inside the beach house.

From the culinary end, she found the competition experience was a good way to learn how to work with dessert elements.

For instance, she used fondant icing to coat the exterior of her buildings. Fondant is a thick, moldable icing that is excellent for ornate desserts such as wedding cakes. Along the way, Strothers learned a trick of the trade – adding a little cream of tartar makes fondant firm up quickly.

Although a student in the culinary arts program, Strothers still isn't sure if she wants to be a chef or a nurse. The competition, however, has given her food for thought.

Senior Bobby Daniels is not in the culinary arts program. He's taking his first culinary class as an elective.

"I've worked in restaurants, but this is my first time doing anything like this," he said. "I used to work at Albertson's and I used to see all the cake decorators. It might be something I'd want to pursue."

Daniels showed he has natural instincts, building a traditional gingerbread house that looked like something right out of a storybook, with nonpareil and M&M shingles and a Hershey Kisses hedge.

Daniels was creative with his choices, but knew when to quit, making his gingerbread house clever without being over the top.

"I felt like everything should be symmetrical," he said. "That's usually the design of a gingerbread house."

As is part of the tradition, the finale to the project is a party. Family and friends are invited to come spend an evening of hot cocoa, Christmas music and stroll amid the edible village.

So, when the party's over, does everyone get to pretend they're Godzilla and devour the city?

"Not really," Wright said. "They've been sitting out a long time."

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