The smell of ginger wafts from the Gingerbread Wonderland village at the Minneapolis Norway House, where more than 200 gingerbread creations sit on snow-like fabric surrounded by twinkling lights.
The exhibit is inspired by Pepperkakebyen, the world’s largest gingerbread city in Bergen, Norway and runs until early January.
In its 11th year, the Norway House display takes about three weeks to assemble and has become a beloved tradition at the center, drawing roughly 13,000 visitors last year, said Gingerbread Wonderland coordinator Heather Vick.
Entries are set against a hand-painted snow mountain scene created for the center by artist Jessica Barnd. A toy train winds through the gingerbread village. Every entry is accepted, and most come from amateur artists such as community members and children, with a few professional submissions sprinkled in, Vick said.
“What’s really fun for me is to watch the kids that have been doing it and watch them get better and better and better,” Vick said. “There’s a brother-sister team that are serious about becoming pastry chefs.”
Last year, the sister won best teen submission, Vick said. This year, her brother took the title, and both were connected with pastry chefs they could learn from.
There are seven judging categories, and entries must be fully edible to qualify. Judges selected this year’s gingerbread champions.
Categories include themed and age-based divisions, such as best pop culture or best emerging baker for ages 0-7. This year’s emerging baker winner built a gingerbread house with cat ears, with “kitty paradise” spelled out in candied letters on the front.
“I heard there was a lot of cooperation with Grandma,” Vick said. “They knew the pieces they needed for the design, and then Grandma helped bake it.”
A Roseville Girl Scout troop won best pop culture for recreating a scene from “The Wizard of Oz,” complete with a yellow brick road, tornado and the ruby slippers peeking out from beneath Dorothy’s house. During the opening-night party for the bakers, the troop came together and erupted with cheers when they learned they had won the category, Vick said.
“They were here having fun all night and were so happy,” Vick said.
A new category this year, “Home Is Where You Bake It,” highlights the ways home is created through tradition, creativity and community. Participants were asked to draw on family stories and heritage.
The category also reflects the 200th anniversary of the first organized Norwegian emigrant crossing. Among the entries was a gingerbread replica of the emigrant boat, with some of its passengers represented by gummy bears.
Zara Coakley and her mother built a replica of her family’s log cabin in Norway for her third year participating in the exhibit.
“My cousin and aunt also came over. It was fun to make something together,” Coakley said. “I’m always so impressed with people. They just make amazing things. It’s so neat.”
Coakley also painted 3-D-printed trolls that hide in the Gingerbread Wonderland exhibit, and are traditionally thought to cause mischief in Norway’s forests and mountains.
The competition aims to draw in the community around the center, Vick said.
Norway House hosted around 100 people to build gingerbread houses for free with funding from Minneapolis’ Cultural District Arts Fund and the Ventura Village Neighborhood Association. During and after the competition, the houses are displayed on shelves near the entry of the center.
At the end of the exhibit in January, after bakers have a chance to pick up their creations, the center hosts a smash party for volunteers who helped set up the village, Vick said. She said a tarp is spread out on the floor, and gingerbread explodes onto it, marking the end of another successful year and the beginning of the countdown to the next one.
“I love the whole tradition of it,” Vick said. “It’s a way for people to let out their creativity and their artistic skills. Being part of a group like this, doing it all together, it’s so fun.”
