Some last tasty scraps from the gingerbread house project

It’s here: One of French Lick Resort’s favorite holiday traditions, the grand 6-by-7-by-8-foot gingerbread house, has been rolled out for display in the Event Center. In case you missed it, a recent blog post detailed the behind-the-scenes story of the gingerbread house and its construction, and you can read about it here.

Just like making gingerbread at home, one of the best parts is eating the scraps. So here’s a few extras to nibble on. Some more fun background and side notes about the gingerbread house from pastry chef Dalyn Roney, who heads up the massive project:

On being surrounded by the rich gingerbread aroma day after day: “I’m kind of nose blind to it. It’s like when I go down to the floral department, and they say they don’t smell (the flowers).”


On problem-solving during construction:
“Last year the main thing we couldn’t do that ended up keeping me up for weeks was trying to figure out how to make these corbels, the curly Q's you see at the top of columns and ceilings. We knew we wanted to make it out of cereal treats, because then it wouldn’t be so heavy that it would just fall off. We tried at first, but then you couldn’t see all the intricacy and carvings and definition. We tried all these different things, and then I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and I’m like, ‘ah-hah!’ We decided to pack fondant in the mold. We packed it just like when you transfer pie crust to a pie tin. We put fondant in first, packed it in, made cereal treats so they were light and then packed them in carefully, trimmed it, turned it, shook it out. It worked, and we started squealing, and it made people jump. I hurried up and wrote it down so we would remember for following years.”

On tasting the colors: “I had never had real gingerbread before I came here, and I quickly learned that I like the red gingerbread better, and the only difference is the food coloring. So apparently red food coloring tastes delicious. I didn’t know that, because I obviously don’t eat it in large quantities, unless it’s gingerbread.”

On mixing food with flair: “I’m Hawaiian, so my mother was a professional hula dancer for many years when she was in college, and my father took over his father’s theater company. They met in college in Hawaii, so I was just born to try to make people laugh and smile and create things. I am child 4 of 6, so I have this innate middle-child syndrome to try to outdo my very successful siblings. I’m really trying to have that ‘wow’ factor. I love music and I sing and I perform and all those things, but I’m very shy, so a long time ago I decided maybe I could express my art through food, because then people don’t see me – but they can see my food and see what I can do.”

On tearing down the gingerbread house after the holidays:
“People always say, ‘Does it make you sad to throw it away at the end of the year?’ I’m like, ‘Are you kidding?’ We’re like being ninjas and punching out sugar windows and being like, ‘Yeah, die!’ There’s a very strong love-hate relationship. Any time you spend that much time on something, you’re done. You’re ready for it to go.”

On the economics of the gingerbread house: “The amount of money actually spent on ingredients (last year) was less than 650 bucks, which is really affordable, when you think about it. And that’s the benefit of making it ourselves. I wanted to be able to bring products made in-house, practice those candy-making skills and do all those things, and that keeps the cost down. It’s just like doing custom cabinetry in your home … it takes skilled labor, but when we can, we want to be able to teach those skills and figure it out ourselves. That’s how all of us get better at what we’re doing.”

On specializing in sweets: “That’s why I love dessert, because people are so picky about their food: They don’t like parsley; they’re allergic to everything; they don’t like anything that’s green. But everyone loves dessert.”