Chef Morgan’s Gingerbread Village

The sweet season is upon us and we are happily delighting in all the confections Pastry Chef Morgan Gurney has created and is planning to share with us throughout the month. Currently, she is hard at work creating a Gingerbread Village, on display in the L’Auberge lobby.  She began crafting this architectural feat out of pastry on November 7th and hopes to have it completed the first week of December.

The first building is appropriately a Bakery, or “La Boulangerie” which took 2 full days, working 8 am to 9 pm, to complete.  The building details are unique and true to a small village. You can look through the “glass” window, made completely of sugar, to see the tiny pastries and the jolly baker.

While creating unique and delectable desserts is how she spends most of her time, this project is a labor of love for Chef Gurney as she grew up with gingerbread making as a seasonal tradition in her home.

“The tradition of making decorated gingerbread houses started in Germany in the early 1800s. According to certain researchers, the first gingerbread houses were the result of the well-known Grimm’s fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” in which the two children abandoned in the forest found an edible house made of bread with sugar decorations. After this book was published, German bakers began baking ornamented fairy-tale houses of lebkuchen (gingerbread). These became popular during Christmas, a tradition that came to America with Pennsylvanian German immigrants.” – Wikipedia

As the progress continues, you can look forward to seeing more homes, a pond, and a train continuously running through the village. Follow us on social media as we update with photos of the evolvement and the final Gingerbread Village.