University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: December 7, 2006

By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer

When the time comes to start whipping up a big batch of gingerbread, Dawn Rojek can tell the holidays really are here again.

Building the gingerbread houses that are used as decorations at UB holiday events is a high point of the year for UB bakers. Left to right, both photos: Jennifer DiFrancesco and Karen Duysters use royal icing to cement the walls and roof...

"When you start the gingerbread houses, you know it's getting close to Christmas," says Rojek, an employee in the baking department of Campus Dining and Shops (CDS). "It gets you in the holiday spirit."

Gingerbread houses have become an annual tradition at UB. For the past five years, a gingerbread house has welcomed guests to holiday events at the president's residence on Lebrun Road, and four more houses greet students participating in special holiday dinners in the dining centers in Governors, Red Jacket and Richmond on the North Campus and in the Main Street Market in Goodyear Hall on the South Campus.

...and then decorate the houses with 15 different kinds of candy and other ingredients.
PHOTOS: NANCY J. PARISI

The entire baking department gets into the act creating the gingerbread houses, says Karen Duysters, bakery manager for CDS. "We all came up with the idea as a team," she says. "It's the one extra thing we do ourselves." The entire eight-person staff—service employees and bakers—contributes to the project at some point in the construction and decoration process, she adds.

Work on the houses begins about three weeks before the dining halls serve their annual holiday dinner—the dinner this year was served yesterday—because employees squeeze the project in between regular duties, says Duysters.

Constructing the houses requires more than 50 pounds of gingerbread dough, which CDS employees, including Rojek and Paul Wisniewski, mix together and flatten into sheets with an industrial rolling machine.

Since the houses are unique each year, no molds are used to cut out the pieces; each part must be formed using a precision knife. Duysters says employees decided to create an old-time general store this season. The design required 18 pieces per house—90 precision-cut parts in all—including one panel containing 30 miniscule squares cut out to resemble multiple latticework windows.

All the pieces are baked for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees, continued Duysters. The oven used is so big it can hold 18 large cookie sheets at the same time. Construction begins soon after the main walls are erected. Both the construction and decoration are done on a steel table behind a makeshift barricade in the storeroom in Statler Commissary—the only place far enough from the hustle and bustle of the kitchen to perform the delicate operation.

Helping out on the construction can be a fun change of pace, notes Doreen Clarkson, a longtime bakery employee who doesn't otherwise bake; her normal duties involve shipping orders to units across campus.

Duysters explains that decorators pipe royal icing along the joints of the gingerbread pieces in order to cement the house together. She says the special frosting remains edible, despite drying into a smooth, hard finish.

"We make sure everything is edible," she says. "There's nothing on the house that you can't eat." Although she quickly points out that no one will consume these particular houses, Duysters notes that all the ingredients in a traditional gingerbread house must be good enough to eat.

"Once you start using things you can't eat," she says, "then you're not really making a gingerbread house."

But you need a lot of willpower not to turn into Hansel or Gretel after decorators complete the final touches. Candies and sweets of all kinds—at least 15 additional ingredients in all—coat the outside of the houses from top to bottom.

The roof of the general store is thatched in Golden Grahams cereal and bins out front overflow with marzipan fruit. Icing icicles and red cinnamon candies accent the building, and a marzipan proprietor sits beneath a gingerbread awning in front. A stone walk made from crumbled Necco wafers bisects the lawn, upon which stand fir trees—ice-cream cones covered in green icing—and a pond created from hard blue mints melted with a cr�me brule torch. Shredded coconut snow completes the scene.

"This is one of our favorite things to do because it lets us get creative with the design," says baker Jennifer DiFrancesco. "I look forward to it throughout the semester."

The project also is important to the baking department staff because the gingerbread houses are donated to local charities following the holiday events at UB. Local Buffalo charities slated to receive houses this season are the Niagara-Lutheran Nursing Home, Salvation Army, St. Mary's School for the Deaf, Veteran's Administration Medical Center and Wyndham Lawn Home for Children.

"It's a big decision every year as to where we're going to send them," Duysters says of the houses, adding that children and senior citizens seem to enjoy them the most. "Last year," she says, "the residents of Beechwood Nursing Home loved their gingerbread house."

That the houses are consistently beautiful and on schedule—despite December being the busiest month in the bakery—underscores the importance of the tradition to the people who have created and sustain it. In addition to the gingerbread houses, Duysters says the baking department produces numerous special seasonal goodies, including yule logs, red velvet cake, pumpkin pie, fruitcake and cranberry nut bread. Rojek adds that as many as 10,000 cookies also can be baked during December.

"Everyone is really proud of what we put out," says Duysters. "There's a lot of independent work in the bakery, but [the gingerbread houses] are the one thing everyone works together on. It's been a great team effort."