Chef Riona Buckle helps to make spirits bright with life-size gingerbread house

With less than a week before Christmas, The Jamaica Pegasus hotel launched its tree-lighting ceremony with a sweet spectacle: a life-size gingerbread house. One of the culinary artists responsible for making spirits bright with the pastry piece de resistance is Chef Riona Buckle.

“This is actually my first time making a gingerbread house,” Chef Buckle told Food, adding, “My boss had given us the challenge. He told us that he didn’t want just any gingerbread house; he wanted a gingerbread mansion.”

The successful creation comes after working with the hotel in dessert design and decoration for only two months. To say that the chef is proud of the remarkable outcome is truly an understatement of the year.

After creating and scaling the desired template, the layout of the gingerbread over the entire framework took a total of two days to complete. With the production department making the gingerbread from scratch, it was up to the two-member culinary arts team, including Chef Buckle, to work magic in the form of construction.

“The team had a lot of gingerbread to make. Doing approximately two recipe testings for texture, members did a fantastic job in giving us enough material to make our mansion and ensure that the structure couldn’t crumble.

Assembled for two weeks thus far, the life-size house is constantly repaired to maintain the structure’s integrity, with Buckle and the team patching things up where necessary.

Positive feedback

With this newly created passion project comes its fair share of perks, one of which is the positive feedback received from guests. “Interestingly enough, some persons didn’t believe that the mansion was made out of real gingerbread. They’re usually pleasantly surprised by that discovery.”

Because people pass and take pictures with the gingerbread mansion, they would also engage the culinary artist in conversation. “I’ve had to go out there from time to time to add more decorations or ice it back down. People are so much more fascinated when they see me working on it, whether it’s by piping royal icing on, placing another brick of gingerbread or adding marshmallows and chocolate.” Some have even offered to help with decorating the masterpiece. It has been a wonderful experience for the chef.

Though the gingerbread mansion is, in fact, edible, it’s not being served up, and Chef Buckle doesn’t recommend that anyone attempts to eat the structure.

Speaking of her sweet chapter, Buckle shared that it is in stark contrast to her days working in the savoury department with tacos, quesadillas and meats at Tac Bar located at Devon House in St Andrew. But it is a welcomed change for the culinary artist who has had an affinity for desserts. “I’ve always loved baking. But it was easier to cook than to be a pastry chef, So I’m excited for the new adventure,” she said.

She has always been looking forward to doing sugar and chocolate work in an industrial kitchen. “It takes a lot more precision in this field. And I love it,” she added.

After completing her associate degree in culinary arts overseas at Bermuda College, Buckles attained her bachelor’s at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. She returned to Jamaica in the latter half of 2023 and set her goals of balancing her nine-to-five with her personal pastry business, Kraven Delights and culinary business, Kraven Kitchen.

Specialising in signature cakes, cupcakes and cookies, Kraven Delights entices palates with desserts such as a red velvet stuffed cheesecake cookie, cookie monster cookie made with Oreos and marshmallows, trio cheesecakes, cheesecake brownies, pumpkin spice walnut brownie, strawberry shortcake brownie and brown butter blondie.

Buckle looks forward to further developing her expression and creativity. “I want to learn how to create houses out of tempered chocolate, work comfortably with isomalt sugar ... and make people happy because they’ve never tried something like this before.”

krysta.anderson@gleanerjm.com