Is NC the epicenter of competitive gingerbread? Local ‘gingerfriends’ make the case

Jenna Stutsman’s Cary home is known as “Gingerbread Chalet.” Not just in passing among friends, but because a lawn sign tells you that’s its name.

The pathway to the front door is lined with gingerbread people poking up out of the grass. You have to squeeze by a four-foot-tall gingerbread man just to get to the doorbell.

Stutsman, 37, is a competitive gingerbreader, as is her mother Juli Bisenius, 57, and her six-year-old son. The three generations of creative bakers are part of a relatively large community in the Triangle who work on their creations practically all year long, ahead of wintertime competitions.

The group of “gingerfriends,” as they like to call themselves, trade secrets and recipes, helping one another perfect their creations. They’ve formed a warm, family-like community over the years while practicing their craft.

“It’s all about lifting each other up so we can have fun off of each other,” Bisenius said.

Cary-area gingerbreaders often place in the top 10 (out of hundreds of entries) at Omni Grove Park Inn’s National Gingerbread House Competition, which is widely considered the biggest and most intensive gingerbread competition in the United States. An aunt-niece duo from Fuquay-Varina took home the top prize this year, and Cary’s Ann Bailey won the year before (and three other times).

Triangle gingerbreaders have taken home top prizes at the national contest nearly every year since 2016, Grove Park’s spokespeople told us.

Why are so many of our locals into competitive gingerbreading? And how did they get so good?

For many of them, they told The News & Observer this month, the answer is simple: The Triangle’s community of “gingerfriends” works year-round — and they work together.

At this year’s national competition, Bisenius entered a two-foot-tall nutcracker, naming him Harold. He survived the drive to Asheville in one piece, but when Bisenius returned from grabbing dinner with her daughter and grandson, he had broken at the ankles and fallen face-down on the table.

A quick text was all it took to surround Bisenius with support — and to get Harold standing upright again.

“Wake County strangely has some of the best gingerbread artists. And they are all willing to share their skills,” said Stutsman, Bisenius’ daughter.

“I’ve seen countless other times in competition settings that if somebody’s piece doesn’t make it intact, their competitor will stop whatever they are doing to come and help. And they’re both trying to get first place!”

The mother-daughter duo has been competing for six years, thanks mostly to the support they’ve received from Cary’s gingerbreading community.

Asheville-based competition attracts local makers

Triangle bakers are quick to point out that Grove Park’s local-ish competition does pull together a lot of nearby gingerbreaders — whether they haven’t made a house since pulling one out of a supermarket-packaged box in elementary school or they plan their creations months in advance.

“It’s a national competition, though it definitely started at a local level, and for that reason, a lot of the longtime competitors live in North Carolina,” said Meghan Morris, a professional gingerbread artist with national contest top-10 wins both as a teen and adult.

Since the competition is only a few hours’ drive from the Triangle, spectators can visit for a pretty display but quickly get “bitten by the gingerbread bug,” as the friends like to say. From there, they’ll start searching for people and groups nearby to get involved, both at show-stopping and weekend hobby levels.

Local competitions, like the town of Cary’s gingerbread house contest, can also help people get comfortable competing. Raleigh, Chapel Hill and other Triangle towns have held their own contests in past years too.

“There are different Facebook groups that have splintered off of the national ‘gingerfriends’ group, like Gingerbread Tips & Tricks and The Art of Gingerbread, which are largely for people nearby,” Morris said.

Even so, the local gingerfriends feel lucky to have each other a short drive away.

“Nobody has the mindset that their gingerbread has to be the best. We’re all encouraging each other to do more and get crazier and go bigger,” Bisenius said.

“We start as strangers, building gingerbread together. But you build these really strong friendships too.”

Gingerbread contests are cutthroat, but friendly

As sticky sweet as the community is, the competition is still fierce. These gingerbreaders don’t enter just for a good time. They play to win.

“I sketch a draft, then I make a design on my computer, then I make a prototype, then I keep building them until I feel like it’s perfect. One year, I did a piece 31 times before I got it right. Then 11 times another year,” said Bailey of Cary, a four-time grand prize winner and unofficial mentor to many of the Triangle’s gingerbreaders.

“I’m not going to spend that much time and energy and money not to take it seriously. Most of us feel that way.”

Bailey hosts twice-yearly gingerbread workshops in the Triangle, gathering sometimes dozens of gingerbreaders to practice and learn from one another. Some attendees fly from across the country to attend, but most are local gingerfriends.

These are the friends who helped Bisenius put Harold “the face-planting nutcracker” back together in Asheville last month.

“The nose was a little bit crooked. It was more of a hockey player nose than a Brad Pitt nose, but there are a lot of great-looking hockey players out there!” joked Stutsman, her daughter.

Harold didn’t place in the national contest, but the experience cemented (or better yet, edible-glued) Stutsman’s place in the gingerbread community.

“I have a full-time job. I have a six-year-old son,” she said. “But this is the best group of people you could ever ask to be around, and I’m never leaving.”

Can you make a living from competitive gingerbreading?

Most gingerbreaders don’t make a dime from their months-long creations. (In fact, many of them go into debt, Bisenius said, noting Harold the Nutcracker cost $500 from start to finish.)

Contest money, like Omni Grove Park Inn’s $7,500 grand prize, can help offset gingerbreading costs, but getting first place at the prestigious competition is no easy feat.

Still, there are a few gingerbreaders in the Triangle who make part of their living from gingerbreading.

Morris, who grew up in Apex and now resides in Durham, won the Food Network “Haunted Gingerbread Showdown” with an ablaze Freddy Krueger creation in 2019. She competed alongside Cary’s Grier Rubeling, a previous winner at nationals who judged the Town of Cary’s contest this year.

Morris won $25,000 for her Krueger and $10,000 for winning another Food Network show, “The Big Bake,” last year. She’s a powerhouse in the gingerbread community, having won Top 10 prizes at Grove Park since her teens, and she brings an RDU flare to the Asheville contest.

This year, Morris entered a piece centered around The Green Room pool hall — an “iconic Durham establishment,” she said — complete with its green-and-white (and notably cracked) linoleum floors. Biker gang Santa played Rudolph in billiards atop a gingerbread pool table.

A week after the national competition, the gingerfriends began finalizing their plans for next year’s contest entries. They keep their creations a secret until they arrive with their masterpiece in tow, asking their community for help along the way only in nondescript queries.

“Don’t ask me what I’m making, because I won’t tell you,” Bisenius said. “You’ll just have to spend time with us next year to see.”

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