Pinehurst Resort recently unveiled their sugary masterpiece that will put your box-made gingerbread yurt to shame.Because in true Pinehurst fashion, why make a house when you can make a whole gingerbread village?
Complete with a Pinehurst-esque hotel, a post office, a hospital, a bakery, dogs and smiling fondant village people, the village is the work of Pinehurst Resort’s head pastry chef, Shelly Taylor.
Shelly says her pastry team started working on the candy village over the summer.
“We pretty much have free rein over the design,” Shelly says. “It involves a lot of creativity and A LOT of patience..
Oh, and it also involves a lot of gingerbread, candy and fondant. According to Shelly, here’s what all went into the village.
- 13 pounds of molding chocolate
- 140 pounds of powdered sugar
- 38 pounds of gingerbread
- 24 pounds of assorted candy
- 300 square feet of cotton roll for the snow
And that doesn’t include the 500 plus hours of labor.
Gingerbread construction takes place in a temperature-controlled room in the resort’s kitchen. The “chocolate room,” Shelly says, is used to store things that require low humidity to function. They start out with a wooden structure and then begin developing the structures.
Her gingerbread-building advice? “Make some kind of structure. You can even use cardboard. Anything that will help keep things upright helps.”
Want to see it for yourself? You can take in the Wonkaville of gingerbread constructs at the Carolina Hotel now.
