Indiana University's campus replicated with special gingerbread recipe by IU bakers

Deep within the Indiana Memorial Union, people can follow the scent of warm spices and bittersweet molasses to a sprawling village of candied cottages.

Eagle-eyed onlookers may recognize the village's skyline. Miniature Sample Gates fringe the gingerbread hamlet. A steepled chapel is nestled beside a candy cemetery. Gingerbread men slide down a snowy, crested hill in Dunn Meadow. After a two-year hiatus, Indiana University's Sugar and Spice Bakery is back in the gingerbread building business — this time, with their most long-winding, vividly themed showpiece to date.

Gingerbread IU campus on display at the IMU

Around this time of year, Sugar and Spice Bakery truly lives up to its name. While working on the project in an IMU kitchen, bakers split off in their own little worlds. As Rocket Baucco rolled the spice-speckled dough, Abby Farrand sculpted fondant into fingernail-sized croissants and bowling balls. This is the first year of gingerbread making for both bakers, but for many families in Bloomington, this project is a return to form.

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This year marks the reappearance of a tried and true IU tradition, following a brief pause during the COVID-19 pandemic. With this return, chef Hayden Kemerly said she was inspired to make their usual gingerbread village with a twist. Instead of a generic farmstead, Kemerly sent out her staff to take a leisurely stroll around the Bloomington campus, noting specific buildings that were iconic to IU and could be emulated in cookie form.

With this in mind, the baking staff has assembled a village that clocks in at about 11.5 feet in total length with around a dozen buildings. With the exception of the candied décor, all of the structures are made out of IU's signature gingerbread. Nothing tastes quite like it, which is intentional.

“We have contractually obligated recipes that we use here that we cannot change and gingerbread is one of them," Kemerly said.

Kemerly estimates the gingerbread recipe is at least 40 years old. While IU Dining sells gingerbread cookies year-round, delighting students and alumni alike, this project is undertaken only once a year. Coupling the take-home kit orders and the village, this entire project uses about 340 pounds of flour. While it takes an entire week in a kitchen to make, the bakers began planning in August.

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"This is an amazing area where we get to learn how to do things that we wouldn't normally do on a day-to-day basis at all,” Kemerly said. “You know, everyone's gonna get a little bit out of their comfort zone, but we're all going to help each other.”

For this village, the bakers were pushed to be creative. The ice skating rink is covered in isomalt, a translucent sheet of sugar that has a glass-like gleam. In Dunn Meadow, they've figured out a way to make a three-dimensional gingerbread man sitting down on a toboggan. For decoration, they use a wide array of color and geometric shapes — starlight peppermints, candy canes, gummies, Smarties — just to name a few.

The gingerbread village will be on display in the top lobby of the IMU.

Order take-home kit, attend December gingerbread house workshop at IU

For many families, gingerbread houses are a holiday tradition, alongside caroling and sledding.

For the first time since the pandemic, IU is hosting a gingerbread house workshop for local families on Dec. 18. After registering for a table, families can come any time between 1 and 4 p.m. to assemble their house, enjoy freshly baked cookies and visit with Santa Claus. Kemerly will also walk around and provide tips or help while families build their structures. In a departure from previous years, the workshop will be in Alumni Hall to host as many as 350 groups throughout the day.

The first house is $75, and each additional house is $30. Builders can reserve their spot here at https://bit.ly/3EPf1hE.

If you want to build a gingerbread house from the comfort of your own home, IU is also selling a take-home kit starting at $55. The kits come with a wide assortment of candy, such as candy canes, Smarties, Twizzlers, Sour Patch straws and gummy bears, in addition to freshly made royal icing.

"Every bit of it is made from scratch. It's not a $10 kit you can get a Target, but we're giving you an entire box full of candy that we've hand-picked. We're making all this stuff specifically with you in mind to have a good time with your kids or your family or whoever it is," Kemerly said. "I think it's a lot different than buying something that just came out of a factory. I really think that that's what Bloomington is a little bit better about than a lot of other places."

Some of the sugar and spice bakers shared their gingerbread hacks. Despite what you may hope, there actually is such a thing as too much icing — at least when it comes to gingerbread houses, Kemerly said. If your structure has a penchant for toppling over, she recommends holding the pieces tightly in place for a minute after being iced. To add a layer of realism to her gingerbread house, Farrand mentioned she usually uses Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal for roof shingles. Both Kemerly and Farrand recommend using an upside-down waffle cone to emulate evergreen trees.

Kits can be ordered at https://bit.ly/3ONqqTw for Dec. 10 pick-up.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: IU Sugar and Spice gingerbread workshop and village are back in 2023