Bakery Creates ‘Pan Solo,’ a 6-Foot Replica of ‘Star Wars’ Hero Made of Bread
They made him at night, in the quiet hours after the bakery had closed. Together they worked, mother and daughter, mixing the materials that would form their creation: flour, water and sugar.
Slowly, he began to emerge as each feature was sculpted and placed into the oven to bake. First came the basic contours of his body, then the details: the anguished expression, lips contorted in pain, hands reaching out in desperation.
Finally, after a month of work, he was ready: a lovingly wrought 6-foot re-creation of Han Solo frozen in carbonite, made entirely of bread. The duo behind the creation, Hannalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, called him “Pan Solo.”
On Sunday, the sculpture went on display outside their shop, One House Bakery in Benicia, California, about 40 miles north of San Francisco, next to an arrangement of seasonal gourds and a chalkboard that read, “Our hero Pan Solo has been trapped in Levainite by the evil Java the Hut.”
Customers and passersby have noticed.
“They kind of don’t believe you that it’s made out of dough,” said Hanalee Pervan, the shop’s co-owner and head baker.
The younger Pervan and her mother, co-owner of the bakery, made Pan Solo out of dead dough, which contains no yeast. Pervan learned to make the dough several years ago at Wheat Stalk, a baking conference, and started using it to bake Halloween decorations.
Then she and her mother, both self-described science fiction nerds, set their sights higher.
In 2020 they made the “Pain-dough-lorian,” clad in armor made of bread, “Baby Dough-Da” clothed in bread and “floating” in mixing bowls, and “the Pandroid,” made of pans and kitchen tools, all inspired by the television series “The Mandalorian.”
This year, they settled on Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, frozen in the mythic substance carbonite from the 1980 “Star Wars” movie “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Catherine Pervan said it was well worth the long hours it took to craft Pan Solo.
“It’s a little quiet time for us to have together when she’s not the boss and I’m not the mom,” she said. “It’s just us, hanging out and working together.”