The Gingerbread Man Rockport pastry chef builds sweet scenes for the holidays

loading...

When I was a little girl, my mother read all the women’s magazines – Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, Family Circle, and the occasional Ladies Home Journal. Every December, they’d feature elaborate gingerbread houses, mansions really, with “slate” roofs made of Necco Wafers, stained-glass windows made of melted lollipops, licorice bricks and pretzel-rod columns.

I would pore over the pages, enchanted by the sugary scenes, and wonder why we couldn’t make one at home. We tried it once, and it probably wouldn’t have made the pages of Good Housekeeping, even if it hadn’t fallen apart. In Girl Scouts, we pieced together graham-cracker Capes trimmed with gumdrops or nonpareils and called them gingerbread houses. But I knew these weren’t the real deal.

Steven Watts’ gingerbread houses are. For years, the Rockport pastry chef has created edible masterpieces, from modest cottages to towering churches and Victorian mansions. He even built a sprawling model of downtown Camden one winter.

“Christmas is the best time of year for a pastry chef because there’s so much you can do as far as showpiece work,” Watts said in the kitchen of his Rockport shop, Sweet Sensations. “Kids come in here and they don’t know which way to look.”

Neither do adults. Suffice it to say that Hansel and Gretel wouldn’t have had a chance here – there are frosted gingerbread men, women and snowmen in one case, decadent cakes and French pastries in another, and a giant gingerbread mansion on the counter.

“Christmas was always a big deal in my family,” Watts said. “I like Christmas, I think, because I make so many people happy. It’s such a fun time of the year.”

Watts, 42, started building gingerbread houses with his mom when he was 13. He always knew he wanted to be a pastry chef, and he left his native Tenants Harbor to study at several prestigious culinary schools. He honed his talents in some of the country’s top hotels and restaurants before returning to midcoast Maine to open his own shop.

“It’s not an easy job. It’s not a 9-to-5 job. This business is just a total commitment,” he said. “One of the best things about being a pastry chef is that you are able to create.”

Watts creates replicas of people’s homes and businesses in gingerbread with his own special flair. He has dozens of patterns that he painstakingly designs from pictures, and he has developed a gingerbread dough that holds the shape of even the most detailed cutouts – the “gingerbread” work on a house.

“Oh my god, I’ve perfected the recipe,” he said. “It’s taken me years.”

He recently switched from his tried-and-true Royal Icing recipe to a meringue powder-based icing, which has a long shelf life. It also dries as hard as concrete, so his houses won’t fall apart like mine did.

But the real secret to gingerbread lies in the decoration – shutters created from sugar wafers, icicles made from water-thinned icing, a “brick” path made from licorice bits and dusted with cinnamon “sand.” A coat of green frosting turns a sugar cone into a Christmas tree. Gumdrops make a festive fence, and gummy spearmint leaves double as sugary shrubs. Mounds of Royal Icing turn into snowdrifts, and a swatch of aluminum foil becomes a skating pond.

“All the little things, all the details bring it to life,” he said.

You can bring your own scene to life by following Watts’ gingerbread recipe. He suggests using meringue powder, which is available at grocery and craft stores, for the icing, following the directions on the can. After baking the gingerbread, join it together with the icing, using a piece of cardboard or foam board as a base. From there, you can let your creativity – and your sweet tooth – take over.

“It’s whatever your imagination can come up with,” Watts said.

Sweet Sensations is located on Route 1 in Rockport. Watts taught a two-day gingerbread class in Belfast this year and plans to hold a similar class next November. For information, call 230-0955 or visit www.mainesweets.com.

Gingerbread House Dough

This makes a mansion-size batch, but the recipe can be halved and the dough can be frozen..

15 cups all-purpose flour

5 cups granulated sugar

2 cups shortening

3 tablespoons cinnamon

4 tablespoons ginger

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon vanilla

11/2 pounds (24 ounces) sour cream

5 eggs

1/3 cup water

Combine all ingredients in a mixer with a paddle. Mix until smooth. Refrigerate until needed. Roll to 1/4-inch thickness and cut to suit. Bake at 375 degrees until golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Watts recommends decorating and joining together the gingerbread with a meringue-powder based icing. Meringue powder is available in the baking area of most grocery and craft stores. Follow package directions and decorate as desired.