It took about 20 Culinary Arts students nearly 24 hours to complete this year’s Japanese-inspired gingerbread house now on display in the OSU Institute of Technology State Room lobby.

It’s become an annual tradition for the School of Culinary Arts to create a massive gingerbread house just in time for the holidays.

The whole structure stands nearly 6 feet tall and is made up of about 250 pounds of gingerbread made from scratch in the OSUIT kitchen.

It took the students three days to mix, roll, cut and bake the dough before using melted sugar and royal icing to adhere the gingerbread to the plywood frame created by the Construction Technologies division several years ago.

“I never want to see gingerbread again,” said student Amanda Sparlin after day two of rolling out sheets of gingerbread dough.

The only experience Sparlin had ever had with making a gingerbread house was putting together one of the pre-made kits available at stores during the holiday season, so this project was a little daunting.

“I did not realize it was going to be that big,” she said.

Chef Grady Perryman, School of Culinary Arts instructor, organizes the project and designs the gingerbread house every year.

Perryman said the house typically weighs between 200 and 300 pounds and takes about 80 pounds of flour, 25 pounds of sugar, 25 pounds of eggs and seven gallons of royal icing to make all the gingerbread needed to put the house together.

“It’s fun. Not many people get a chance to make a six-foot tall gingerbread house,” he said.

The process didn’t seem all that fun to the students making all that gingerbread, but the work was worth it.

“Seeing it all done will be the rewarding part,” said student Wyatt Rogers. “We were part of making something huge and beautiful.”

See more pictures of the making of this year’s Gingerbread house.