10 Over-the-Top Gingerbread Creations

For 33 seasons and counting, The Broadmoor has created a larger-than-life gingerbread display in its lobby. The hotel broke with tradition in 2016 when 10 master pastry chefs and two carpenters constructed a 12-foot-long, 8-foot-high train that took an estimated 288 man-hours to make. The life-size gingerbread engine celebrated the 125th anniversary of the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. (A 150-square-foot replica of the property’s Pauline Chapel in 2017 was equally awe-inspiring.)

In 2017, the hotel’s culinary team transformed 350 pounds of gingerbread into an 8-foot-tall Victorian house decorated with hundreds of gumdrops, lollipops, and licorice whips. The display also included a train station—and moving locomotive that thrilled young onlookers.

No detail was overlooked in the 6-foot-tall grandfather clock that the Kingsmill Resort’s executive pastry chef built from scratch in 2015. The level of detail in the towering timepiece was truly extraordinary. Perhaps most memorable were the clock’s inhabitants—a bevy of mischievous marzipan mice that had their own furnished apartment in the clock’s center. (Talk about prime real estate!)

This resort pulled out every stop in 2017 when a team of pastry chefs led by Executive Pastry Chef Erich Herbitschek spent more than 400 man-hours baking the gingerbread for a life-size house—make that mansion!—which took an additional 160 hours to construct and decorate. The structure was so large that it was able to house an actual bake shop, where guests could purchase ornaments and cookies made from an Austrian gingerbread recipe.

It took 340 hours to build the property’s 2017 display, which featured a replica of D.C. made with hundreds of pounds of candy. Included were a 3.5-foot-tall Washington Monument, a reflecting pool, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and the U.S. Capitol.

Each year, local architecture firms team up with the hotel’s culinary team to custom design, bake, and build jaw-dropping gingerbread villages as a fundraiser for juvenile diabetes. Last year’s display embodied the theme 25 Years of Cheer: A Celebration of Seattle, and reflected on what makes the city special, including its cobblestone streets of yesteryear.

Ahoy, merrymakers! This property’s 2017 display was an impressive 17-foot pirate ship, The S.S. Ginger Amelia. The vessel took a crew of eight pastry chefs more than 350 man-hours (and 600 individual pieces of gingerbread) to create. The ship, manned by 10 nautical characters created with color fondant, paid tribute to the legends and lore of historic Amelia Island.

Of all the things to make out of gingerbread, a bar probably isn’t the first to come to mind. But that’s just what this property did in 2017. Adults enjoyed Santa’s Tavern, the life-size bar made from 1400 pounds of cookie dough, which served seasonal cocktails including a classic mule spiced up with gingerbread liqueur. The structure required a whopping 624 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of sugar, 144 pounds of brown sugar, and 144 pounds of molasses—enough to make any dentist’s day.

In 2017, a 46-inch-wide gingerbread display mirrored the resort itself—complete with a pool and a teepee. After viewing the resort-within-the-resort, guests could treat themselves to seasonal spa treatments, including the Arctic Berry Peel and Sugar Plum Restorative Oxygen Ritual.

In celebration of the property‘s 90th anniversary in 2017, Executive Chef Mario Garcia created a 6-foot replica of the hotel out of gingerbread along with a Chicago skyline that included edible replicas of the John Hancock building, Willis Tower, and Prudential Plaza, among other landmark buildings.