Han Solo, once encased in carbonite, gets trapped in bread

Catherine and Hannalee Pervan have used their baking powers for years to unleash bread-related madness upon the world.

First, they made an ice zombie from the TV show “Game of Thrones.” Then came the alligator form of the mischievous Norse god Loki. And last year, they sculpted their dough into Baby Yoda.

Now, the mother-daughter duo have created a 6-foot baked version of an even more iconic Star Wars character: the lovable space scoundrel and captain of the Millennium Falcon, his face and hands contorted in agony as he was frozen in carbonite.

They call him “Pan Solo.”

The Pervans, who co-own the One House Bakery in Benicia, California, made the Han Solo sculpture as an entry for a local scarecrow contest, their fourth in as many years. This year, they chose to re-create Solo after he was frozen into carbonite-induced hibernation at the end of the 1980 film “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” capitalizing on the nostalgia evoked by a highly recognizable image from a 42-year-old classic.

Catherine, 64, and Hannalee, 37, started their project more than a month ago with a sheet of plywood, their eyes set on finally winning the Benicia Main Street Downtown Scarecrow Contest, in which voters decide which business has the best deterrent of birds. Because she’s about the same height as Harrison Ford, the actor who played Solo, Hannalee served as model while her mother traced an outline around her. Then, they baked a strong, dense layer of “dead dough,” so named because it doesn’t have any yeast, for five or six hours to make “it essentially like a rock.” Their foundation in place, they added layer upon layer to bring Pan Solo to life, using a heat gun to bake his features into place.

The face and hands were the toughest, they said. Catherine Pervan wanted to get Solo’s features just right, including his “luscious lips,” so she ordered a Ford mask online to use as a model. And as in any medium, getting the intricacies and proportions right for Solo’s hands was a challenge. So they spent a lot of time making sure they looked like they did in the movie.

“We didn’t want them to look like gloves,” Catherine said.

All the while, mother and daughter exaggerated Pan Solo’s features, knowing they would be muted by the “super thin” final layer with which they blanketed their entire creation to give it a uniform look.

The Pervans estimated spending about 100 hours over the course of a month on Pan Solo.

Finally, they sprayed on a sealant to protect him from wildlife and weather, then posted their scarecrow in front of the bakery with a message about their creation – and the coffee and baked goods they sell inside.

“Our hero Pan Solo has been trapped in Levainite by the evil Java the Hutt.”

Although no one has freed him, Pan Solo is a hit. Passersby touch him, smell him, pose next to and take photos with him. Catherine said that they installed surveillance cameras to make sure no one tries to kidnap their bounty and steal their dough. Sometimes, they peek at the footage and see people taking selfies with him, even in the dead of night.

“They just want to stand beside him and take their picture and touch him,” she said.

In a world that can feel like a dark, overwhelming place, she added, “everyone needs a little bit of whimsy and silliness.”

The Pervans are no strangers to whimsy. In 2019, a year after they opened the bakery, they made their first entry for the scarecrow contest – a White Walker and an iron throne made of baguettes instead of swords, both nods to the HBO megahit “Game of Thrones,” which the Pervans remixed as “Game of Scones.” Their sophomore effort included several riffs on the Star Wars streaming show “The Mandalorian” – pardon, “The Pan-dough-lorian” – including “Baby Dough-da,” a play on the character commonly known as Baby Yoda. And last year, they crafted “Dough-ki,” the carbohydrate cousin of Alligator Loki, the animal version of the impish Norse god whose human iteration is played by Tom Hiddleston.

“You can tell we’re a bit of science fiction nerds here,” Pervan said with a laugh.

Baking science fiction classics is part of “a whole new life” Catherine and her husband, Peter, 63, started after their son, PJ, died from a wasp sting in 2014. For years after PJ’s death, his parents were in a “horrible rut,” Catherine said. When Hannalee floated the idea of them moving from Canada to the United States, where she’d established herself as an elite baker, they agreed and made the trek in 2017.

The following year, the three of them opened One House Bakery, and since then, the city of Benicia has “just opened their arms and welcomed us.”

But it hasn’t been easy. Like many other small-business owners, they struggled when the pandemic hit. Then, about 18 months ago, Hannalee got COVID, which inflicted upon her a particularly cruel symptom – she lost her senses of taste and smell. When they finally returned, they had gone haywire.

Now, onions and garlic taste like rotting trash, popcorn like burning wood.

It’s robbed her of a key part of a passion she’s had all her life. Still, she muddles through, relying on decades of expertise and muscle memory to create the food she loves, only to have another taste it to confirm it’s up to snuff.

The Pervans have worked hard to keep their business afloat and its more than 50 workers employed. That’s meant long hours. But the Pan Solo project gave them an oasis.

When the hustle and bustle eased, the bakery got quiet. They put on music and enjoyed collaborating on how to turn Han Solo into bread.

“I really, really look forward to these times when we’re working on the sculptures, and we have this, you know, something we can share and remember,” Catherine Pervan said.

Mark Hamill, the actor who played Star Wars protagonist Luke Skywalker, tweeted about the Pervans’ work Sunday, writing “Mmmm. … Pan Solo!” with a face-savoring-food emoji.

Hamill’s tweet made Catherine’s day, week, year – you name it, Hannalee said, adding that since PJ’s death eight years ago, “I haven’t seen her that happy in so long.”

Voting for the scarecrow contest ends Sunday, but the Pervans plan to keep their carbo Solo out until after Halloween. Then, if someone is aching to have him, they’ll pass along their captive. If not, he’ll probably end up in a compost heap.

Hey, it’s better than a Sarlacc pit.