Gingerbread medical center a sweet creation
It took three years to build the Canandaigua VA Medical Center before its opening in February 1933. So Jean Roberts figured spending three months building a replica of the venerable site in honor of its 75th anniversary was the least she could do.
"I adore the veterans," said Roberts, who worked for years at the VA and now runs a catering business. "My plan was to do something for the veterans."
That something was a gingerbread sculpture of the VA's main building and grounds, now on display at the Fort Hill Avenue campus.
Calling herself a "self-taught pastry chef," Roberts pulled out all the stops in creating the replica. It wasn't the first project of its kind she has tackled. Roberts has made gingerbread models of Granger Homestead and the Phelps Hotel. She has won accolades for her various gingerbread houses at the annual Gingerbread House Contest at the Corning Museum of Glass. Even so, the gingerbread VA "is the biggest and most complicated" project she has ever done, Roberts said.
The creation, mounted on a 4-by 4-foot board, began with 25 pounds of dough made with 40 cups of flour and "a lot of butter," said Roberts.
Mixing up heaps of ingredients was only the beginning.
First, the recipe is different from those used for making gingerbread cakes and cookies. This one requires a carefully calculated baking and cooling process that yields a dough just the right consistency to work into a sculpture.
Roberts built the structure in sections over the course of weeks. To suggest the brick exterior, she scored the red-colored gingerbread with an exacto knife. She made the VA hollow inside and cut out windows. Then, she filled each window with crushed candy and put it through another baking process. The result: candy window panes that look like the real thing. Inside the little VA, she attached tiny lights that shine from the inside.
"People are amazed by it, how much detail and work she put it into it," said Dan Ryan, VA public relations director.
Those details also include evergreen trees of frosting-covered waffles cones, little chocolate cars in a parking lot and outdoor lanterns of gumdrops.
The replica was on display in Building 5 auditorium during February, where events were held for commemorating the VA's 75th anniversary. This month, it was moved to the main dining room in Building 2 at the VA where it will remain on display for as long as it holds up.
Roberts, who lives in Clyde, Wayne County, is a frequent visitor to the VA, where her twin sister, Jane Roberts, is a secretary in food service. Jean was a nursing assistant at the Canandaigua VA in the 1980s and then spent much of the 1990s as an administrative assistant at the Bath VA.
Jean said she will keep an eye on sculpture, though she expects it will hold up without repairs for a good two years since she sealed it with polyurethane.
Ryan said he expects the creation will continue to attract a lot of attention. "Everyone is commenting on it," he said.
Daily Messenger writer Julie Sherwood can be reached at (585) 394-0770, Ext. 263, or at jsherwood@mpnewspapers.com.