PHOENIX — The Valley is home to some of the top culinary chefs in the country...and gingerbread artists?
The Merry Mischief Bakers, whose gingerbread house won the 28th Annual National Gingerbread House Competition earlier this month, are made up of sugar artists Ted Scutti, Adam Starkey and Tim Stewart who are based Phoenix, along with Sachiko Windbiel and Evonne Darby whoa are based in California.
“The ultimate goal was to create a gingerbread house that people would get a sense of nostalgia from and joys of the holidays and connect with,” said Ted Scutti, who also co-owns Sugar Sugar Cake Studio in Phoenix with Adam Starkey.
Their gingerbread house is titled ‘St. Nick’s Christmas Décor Shop.’ It stands 12 inches tall but it has lots of details telling a Christmas story.
“Over 6 weeks about 12 hundred hours,” said Tim Stewart.
The piece features Santa holding two little kids. One of them crying. A Christmas tree with ornaments and gifts. Characters shopping or peering into St. Nick’s shop.
“I think we topped out over 5,000 individual items – and some of the stuff is smaller than the size of a pencil eraser,” said Adam Starkey.
“Tim made all of the bricks on the interior. He made over 3,000 bricks in 12 different colors,” said Ted Scutti.
One obstacle the team faced was the pandemic – splitting the team between Arizona and California.
“This year, all five of us were never in the same location before we took the piece to Asheville,” said Starkey.
It was still enough to win the National Gingerbread Competition in Asheville, North Carolina – where the piece will be on display at The Omni Grove Park Inn for a year.
“We wanted this piece to remind people that there’s better days coming. There are beautiful holiday memories in the past but there’s going to be beautiful holidays in the future as well,” said Scutti.
The team says they are already making plans for next year’s competition.