Students build gingerbread castle

Dec. 20—POINT PLEASANT — A group of students in the Mason County Career Center's Pro Start class took the annual gingerbread house building to a new level this year with a gingerbread castle.

The castle, inspired by the Hogwarts castle from J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series, is the largest gingerbread creation that Susan Saunders, Pro Start instructor, said she has had.

"We [usually] put two kids together and we'll work on one together," Saunders said. "These girls decided they would do one big one."

The project was a group effort, Saunders said. The girls took an inspiration photo from the internet and drew out plans with diagrams and sizing for each building piece. The engineering class then took the information and made a template for the castle. The agriculture class cut out a board to fit the structure and give the castle a foundation.

"We had a couple different classrooms involved in it because we try to do things with other classrooms," Saunders said. "This will make our ninth day working on this and we work on it [for] two and a half hours a day. I think they've done a wonderful job."

The Pro Start class is a a two year program where students will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the course. They will also work on receiving an OSHA-10 and some will work on an OSHA-20 certificate. Students also complete a portfolio that includes a resume, reference letters and examples of work the students have completed, Saunders said.

"We try to get them as many certifications as we can," Saunders said.

The current class of students that did the Hogwarts castle include five students — Jillian Love, Carolee Hoffman, Lexi Smith, Hayley Keefer and Brooke Warner.

Saunders said last year gingerbread houses were not done due to COVID-19 restrictions.

"I'm hoping we're going to to set it out in the hallway, hopefully, and display it so students can see it," Saunders said. "After the holiday season, I'm not sure, we might keep it in here, just look at it because we're in awe of it."

Saunders said she told the girls to not expect to make it look just like the inspirational picture, but they did anyway.

"I said don't get your expectations too high, but man, they did and it turned out really good," Saunders said.

The gingerbread castle includes gingerbread buildings, Rice Krispies making the mountains and foundation over a small box, fondant and icing.

"I think the hardest part was laying the Rice Krispies down in a way that looks like a mountain," Keefer said.

All five of the girls said they would love to do something bigger if they had more time, Saunders said many did not think the castle could be done.

"More time to challenge themselves, because a lot of kids didn't think they could do it," Saunders said. "That made them try even harder."

The castle includes a number if intricate details that the students said while difficult, made the structure.

"These little details really make it look a lot better too," Hoffman said. "It definitely brings it together."

Saunders said this was also the first time students had used fondant.

When asked what they learned the most out of the project, the girls were unanimous that it was the teamwork and using an "all hands on deck" approach.

Saunders said there was a lot of correcting errors, as well.

"When you make a mistake, trying to correct your mistakes," Saunders said. "Because we have mistakes that we had to work on how to improvise. We had to collaborate on how we [were] going to fix things. The cooperation with them was awesome."

The gingerbread house is a castle that sits on top of a mountain that is covered in rocks, trees and grass. The castle has 10 different building pieces. There are also a number of other little details that tie the castle together.

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Brittany Hively is a staff writer for Ohio Valley Publishing. Follow her on Twitter @britthively; reach her at (740) 446-2342 ext 2555.