NSCC students build historic house model from gingerbread

LYNN – Just in time for the holidays, North Shore Community College students have the perfect cookie recipe wrapped up and ready to go, and they are sure to make anyone a hit at that next family gathering.The equation is simple: add one part science, one part engineering and a dash of creativity to some gingerbread cookies and come out with some of the most delicious scale models of local architecture around.The impressive feats of baking originate from a volunteer class in the college’s culinary program located at Essex Agricultural High School in Danvers, where students began making gingerbread houses for a contest in New York, called “Gingerbread on Broadway” about four years ago.After having been featured in the New York Times and the Food Network, the students decided to do some local work when the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston recently asked them to build a gingerbread model of a new museum wing last month.Most recently, the chefs have constructed a holiday-themed model of the Gardner Pingree House for the Peabody Essex Museum, which they put together and displayed for the public Saturday morning.The gingerbread structures are more than just giant cookies, featuring tiny details such as confectionary furniture and wall decorations, all carefully crafted to the closest detail, and all edible.”We support a lot of it with chocolate and royal icing, that is really the glue,” said student and Lynn resident Tom Mosychuk. “The windows are made of poured sugar, and we have done buses made out of Rice Krispies. Everyone kind of has their own strengths, we just jump in on different things.”The process of making a gingerbread house – especially one that is based on an actual existing structure – is no easy task; students must first do an architectural analysis on the building and determine how to build a scale model, and then break down the science of cooking in order to convince the confections to form the shapes that they need.Students use different techniques for smaller details, such as trees and furniture, much of which is carved out of gingerbread and bulked up with chocolate and other confections.”There is a lot of science involved with a lot of this stuff, a lot of baking is science, it really is,” said Mosychuck. “It is a lot of fun, you learn so much about cooking and you get to try out different things.”Associate Professor and Head Chef Charles Naffah says most of the students who volunteer for the class are relatively new to cooking and discover a lot about themselves as they experiment with building the structure.”This is my first year in the culinary program and I love it. I am getting ready to carve out a window with that Dremel drill,” said Lynn resident and student Paul Bethune. “I am having a great time, now I can’t wait to get out (of school) and open my own bakery.”Students say the project for the Peabody Essex Museum has been a bit easier than the MFA building because they have been given more creative license and will assemble most of the structure on site as part of a demonstration.”We are doing an on-site construction, so we really are not stressing out very much about this one. With the MFA one we were under the gun,” said Nahant resident Colin Roy. “We are having a lot of fun with this one because the other one was more architecturally important where this one is almost like a doll house. It is kind of holiday oriented.”Naffah says his students’ models are a hit wherever they go, but the MFA cookie was especially impressive as it attracted more visitors to the museum.”The inspiration really comes when you tell them that they are rubbing shoulders with world-renowned artists,” said Naffah. “They really enjoy all the different cooking mediums involved. I call it ‘extreme chefs’ because they get to use power tools.”