The ferris wheel kept snapping and the rollercoaster kept sinking; not the news you’d want to hear if entering a theme park.
It’s just as well that Richmond’s latest fairground, called “Enchanted,” was made almost entirely out of gingerbread and other sweet treats.
The magnificent creation was the work of McNair secondary culinary program students Lorraine Cabe and Sayyeda Mulla, who entered the third annual McNair Gingerbread Competition for the first time.
The pair of Grade 11 girls had been working on their intricate design since October and every evening for the last month, ahead of the judging on Friday, which the Richmond News was part of.
Such was the quality of the competition, however, the McNair students could only finish second overall, beaten out for gold by Richmond secondary’s “Christmas Express.”
“We’ve been hard at it every single day for a month, after school until 8 p.m., in the cafeteria,” said Lorraine, while the designs were still being judged.
“Even the janitor kept coming in and wondering what we were doing.
“Our biggest issues were the gingerbread ferris wheel breaking, and the Rice Krispie structure for the rollercoaster kept sinking; it took us quite a few attempts to get it to set.”
Also entered in the competition, were students from MacNeill secondary and L.A. Matheson secondary from North Surrey.
Criteria for the designs included the necessity to fit on a table and everything in it had to be edible.
Entries were judged on originality, best use of gingerbread, best use of icing, best overall and best use of candy.
The top three overall winners were:
Gold: Richmond secondary’s “Christmas Express” (S. Gouden, Hannah Durland, Stephon Mok and Nicole Tan);
Silver: McNair secondary’s “Enchanted” (Lorraine Cabe and Sayyeda Mulla);
Bronze: MacNeill secondary’s “Starring Christmas” (Denise Leung, Chloe Ma, Gina Jiang and Tina Su).
And in the category of originality and precision, the top three were:
Gold: McNair’s “Enchanted;”
Silver: Richmond secondary’s “Sleeping Beauty Castle” (Emma Louise Marcotte, Monica Lee, Casandra Melanson and Samantha De La Torre);
Bronze: MacNeill secondary’s “Starring Christmas.”
The top three overall winners and out-of-district participants were awarded with gift bags filled with baking tools and supplies, most of which were donated by Snowcap Baking & Restaurant Supply.
