Gingerbread Fairytales

I went to the lobby of the Sheraton hotel with The Conrad to check out the annual gingerbread "house" show. Every year, the architectural firms in Seattle team up with the chefs at the Sheraton and each firm designs a structure ("house" is too loose a term, here) with the help of a child who has diabetes (or whatever the chosen charity of the year is) to create blueprints for the pastry peeps at the hotel to construct.

This year's theme was "Nursery Rhymes."

There was Jack & the Beanstalk, complete with a green-dyed rice krispy stalk. Of course there weren't any beans in the display (there were Boston Baked Beans in there, too, but I don't think those count). Nothing even remotely healthy! The closest were Cheezits and pretzels. Best thing about this was all the Lego sweet-tart bricks used to make the wall.

There were some kinds of candy I had never seen before. Mostly they were pearlescent cake decorating gadgets that they'd sell at the "decorette" shop by my house. (See Christmas tree decorations on "Hickory Dickory Dock." Yes, those big yellow lumps are not a beehive, but rounds of cheese for the mice rushing up the clock.)

Prize for Most Traditional Looking is "London Bridge is Falling Down." I was tickled by the ingenuity of using gum for bricks for the turrets, but a little dismayed by the lack of originality of using candy rocks as the stonework for the towers.



Prize for Best Use of Nerds was the shoelaces of "The Little Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe". Candy wallpaper...hmmm....seems like something an Oompa Loompa would enjoy. I think I liked the use of texture in this the best.




Prize for Most Ingenious goes to the "Owl and the Pussycat." Look at those sails. I wish I had been able to get a better picture. It was truly awesome. 


Prize for Most Incredible of the Traditional Style goes to this one, where the dish ran away with the spoon. (at least, I assume that's what's happening. I got so lost in the real "stained glass" windows and all the fancy schmancy decorations that I forgot to note which rhyme this depicted. Does anybody know the name of the candy used on the roof? The stuff that comes in sheets that has sugar on it but is sour like Sour Patch Kids? (Far right, middle of the picture.)





And now, for my favorite of the whole exhibit: the mini marshmallow sheep. Baaa, they're so cute! I wanted to immediately go home and make myself a field full of them.