By Evelyn Mason
The scent catches you first. It’s rich and velvety, full of ginger, cinnamon, and molasses. Then, as you walk from the Galleries Reception Area into the Montgomery Room, you catch sight of it—a panorama of gingerbread trees, a train station, a train, and more, all in brown and white and vibrant red and green. This year’s gingerbread “house” is the historic train station at Winterthur.*
“Winterthur is full of stories—and each year I get to create a new one,” said Diana Anello, who made the gingerbread display for Yuletide. She headed up a team of six from Bredenbeck’s Bakery & Ice Cream Parlor, who spent more than 100 hours mixing, baking, and decorating the massive gingerbread creation. Made with 18 pounds of butter and 62 pounds of sugar, the finished creation, including a special support board, weighs almost 200 pounds. For the fourth year in a row, the bakery has collaborated with Winterthur to create a custom creation inspired by the estate.
Anello loves the fun as well as the challenge and frustration of trying to outdo herself each year. She started in early July, planning the design and figuring out the logistics. The display includes overpasses, plus extra lights powered by battery packs, hidden under the coal in a train and under a rock candy “puddle.” Some of the trees were made using snowflake cookie cutters and tilted on their sides, and others, across the display, are frosted in deep or bright green, flecked with white sprinkles. Snowflakes are scattered throughout.
Making a train from gingerbread was a first for Anello. She incorporated the Polar Express and added the W from the Winterthur logo to a train car, filling it with confectionery milk bottles and crates as a link back to Winterthur’s history as an award-winning dairy farm.
In one corner of the display, she crafted an illusion of an open book cover. Peering through, you can view the scene in a glance, like “a book that was opening up with the story coming out of it,” said Anello. “You’ll get my first impression of when we came to look at the railroad station.”
She wanted to create little moments and pay homage to the gingerbread houses of previous years, so there are elements from each. When you come to see it, look for seven hidden fairies with golden wings (Enchanted Woods), a vintage car (the mansion), and milk containers (dairy barn complex).
“I want to inspire other people to create gingerbread houses,” said Diana Anello. Come during Yuletide and see her wonderful, whimsical creation. You just might be inspired to craft a gingerbread display of your own.
*The Winterthur train station, situated at the back of the property near Route 100, served as a stop on the Wilmington and Northern Railroad and as Winterthur’s post office from 1900 to 1967. While freight trains still traverse Winterthur’s rails, they no longer stop at the station, which is now a private home for a Winterthur employee.