Living up to its reputation of largeness, the state of Texas has now become home to the world's largest gingerbread house. Located at the Traditions Golf Club in the city of Bryan, the larger-than-life gingerbread house measures 39,201.8 cubic feet (1,110.1 cubic meters) and officially holds the new Guinness World Record. This defeats the record previously held by the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, with its 36,600 cubic foot (1,036.4 cubic meter) gingerbread house.
"The inspiration came from being a foodie and noticing the [Guinness] record at some point," General Manger of the Traditions Club, Bill Horton tells Gizmag. "Then I felt like this may be a fun way to build a venue that could create excitement and awareness to raise funds for the St. Joseph hospital."
It took 7,200 pounds (3,266 kg) of flour, 7,200 eggs, approximately 3,000 pounds (1,361 kg) of brown sugar, 1,800 pounds (816 kg) of butter and 22,304 pieces of candy to build the fairytale house, which measures 20.11 ft (6.12 m) high, 60 ft (18.3 m) wide and 42 ft (12.8 m) deep.
"We had more than 200 volunteers help on the project," says Horton. "The entire exterior is edible with close to 4,000 12 by 17 inch (30.5 by 43.2 cm) gingerbread bricks that were cooked by our chef and volunteers."
The edible house required a building permit to go up and was built with traditional techniques, which include a solid foundation, wooden framing, and trusses. The interior of the house consists of two large rooms; one is used for storage and the other is decorated with candy canes and a fireplace where visitors can meet with Santa. Surprisingly no animals have tried to take a bite out of the sugary building, however it has attracted bees on warmer days.
The house will be on display until December 14th, and visitors can enter the house with a small donation of US$3 for adults and $2 for children. All proceeds will go to the St. Joseph Level II Trauma Center, with over $150,000 having been raised to date.
"We have no immediate plans to break any more records but that could very easily change in 5 minutes … I'm a bit crazy! Who knows?" concludes Horton.
Source: Traditions Club via Today
