Holiday Models

It goes unsaid that we have all experience never-ending model-making nights at the studio. Meticulously slicing away at museum board and dabbing on Elmer’s to ever-so-carefully piece together what we hope will be a masterpiece. Well, imagine having one of these for a review! The first image is Sugar Castle which took 400 hours to make. The creator, Executive Pastry Chef Jean-Francois Houdre was inspired by European architecture and used a variety of tools to create this cookie-beast, including X-Acto knives, glue guns, and rulers (sound familiar?). The piece features a motorized base which allows the castle to slowly rotate (that could definately come in handy during a crit) and a hole in the base accommodates wires for lights in the pulled sugar pane windows.  The second image features a tasty Victorian-era rowhouses. They take about 50-60 hours to complete and are made using a wood rasp to fit the gingerbread molds together and the icing shingles are piped onto the roof using a ruler and toothpick. The windows are glazed with carmelized sugar panes. I don’t know about 400 hours for a castle, but a 50 hour model seems very reasonable. Perhaps I will make a model out of gingerbread for my next review.

-Pam