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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Home Sweet Homes Baking Students Display Their Tastes

Mike Prager Staff Writer

William Pitt put Fruit Loops on his roof. Chex cereal covered the walls.

Stanley Sherman paved his walkway with red M&Ms and bordered it with a pretzel fence.

They were competing Monday in the annual gingerbread house contest in the baking program at Spokane Community College.

Chef and instructor Harry Wibisono said the idea was to stimulate students’ creativity. He got that.

“They have to use their imagination,” he said.

The students want to be bakers and cake decorators.

Terri Palmer is taking the classes to establish a new career. She worked as a waitress at a Western Washington resort, and was severely injured in an assault three years ago.

The state’s crime victim program is helping her with her studies, she said.

“It’s soothing in a way. It calms you down,” she said, placing candy canes on a gingerbread sleigh.

Sherman, of Newport, was laid off from a Spokane electronics firm, and at age 57, enrolled in the baking course as part of a state retraining program.

He wants to open a cake decorating shop in Newport.

His house shows potential. He laid slivered almonds onto a layer of icing for the roof, hand-carved a Santa Claus and snowman out of hard frosting and sprinkled powdered sugar to make it look snowy.

Danielle Balzano adorned her roof with little red-hot candies and ran gumballs along the edges.

“I’d love to have my own bakery, an Italian bakery,” she said.

The contest, held each year for nearly 20 years, started at 7 a.m. Monday, and the students were given more than four hours to finish.

Wibisono told the students to stick with the basic gingerbread cottage.

“I just want the basic old-fashioned gingerbread house,” he said. “It’s more traditional, more the old way.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo