Brandon's gingerbread train station creation makes stop at Putnam Inn

Friday, December 18, 2015

Visions of sugar plums weren't dancing in Richard Brandon's head this holiday season.

They didn't have to.

After all, gum drops, Jujubes, peppermints and more were already cavorting their way through his creative cranium.

Setting up his gingerbread train station, Richard Brandon tells Cassie Pehlps, his seven-year-old niece and daughter of Erica Brandon of Greencastle, about the project currently on display at Putnam Inn in Greencastle. Banner Graphic/ERIC BERNSEE

Brandon's "labor of love" -- a 40-pound gingerbread train station, slathered in more than 10 pounds of frosting and lovingly assembled with the candies of his youth -- is on display beside the Christmas tree in the front corner of Putnam Inn on Jackson Street in Greencastle.

After creating a gingerbread ski lodge when he lived in Colorado, Brandon sought a new challenge for his creative culinary mind after relocating to Greencastle last February. He chose a train station.

"Model trains as a kid with my brother and father, that was our hobby," Brandon said, adding that they still have train layouts in the basements of their current residences.

His appreciation and fascination with miniatures also helped fuel the four-month project. In fact, Brandon had originally thought about tackling a gingerbread doll house, complete with furnishings and the traditional open back.

"But that was probably a four-year project," he smiled in showing off his latest effort to Putnam Inn diners.

In creating a "classic, turn-of-the-century" train station, Brandon used a gingerbread dough recipe specifically created for construction use. Meanwhile, Royal frosting "is the absolute must, as the cement, in gingerbreading," he said.

"Here's the fun part," Brandon continued. "When the frosting is done, I took some aside and diluted it with water to create a thinner product for different sections of the house."

The original thick frosting was used to hold the initial support walls and roof together, but a bit thinner version was used for attaching the majority of pieces of candy to the project.

"The sidewalk, laying of the bricks and Necco patio and chimney was even thinner so that I could lay pieces atop the frosting before it dried," added Brandon.

The end result is a shiny finish with the appearance of stonework and masonry.

But the piece de resistance in this gingerbread fantasy is his use of the candy.

"Ahh, the candy," Brandon responded. "As I mentioned, this took four-plus months from the time I put the initial plans on graph paper. During this time, of course, I'm getting ideas for decorating and started to create a list of what was going to be used for what, and improvisation along the way."

That resulted in such ingenuity as using Big Red gum for the brick work.

"I think I probably used over 500 pieces of gum," Brandon said, explaining that the window panes are actually made of gelatin sheets that "just happened to have a cool crisscross pattern to them."

He added orange slices for accents above the windows, employed candy sticks for posts, licorice pipes for light poles, pretzel twists for fences and pretzel logs for the exterior of the station.

The clock is a gingerbread circle with the hands frozen at 5:05 in homage to his parents. Brandon was born at 5:05.

Meanwhile, the railroad crossing sign took some ingenuity as well. Brandon was looking for just the right yellow sucker to transform but found limited possibilities at area candy stores. So if you look at the back of the railroad crossing sign, you'll see it was actually a smiley face sucker.

Flat (in both shape and taste) Necco wafers make up the terrazzo stonework of his patio, Nerds provide miscellaneous stonework, while four kinds of crushed-up Lifesavers creatively became stained glass windows.

Hedges along the railroad station are green Rice Krispie treats and cornflakes, while the Christmas tree on the grounds is also made of Rice Krispie treats.

Sticks of gum balanced upon Starbursts yielded benches while pieces of Pez are everywhere for accent brick and more.

"I bought Pez candies by the bulk," Brandon smiled.

Other candy creations include:

-- Strawberry/watermelon Sour Power Strips for shingles (one of the most time-consuming portions of the project).

-- Trident Watermelon/Tropical Fruit gum for a flower box.

-- Pastel mints for stones.

-- Graham cracker crumbs for dirt.

-- Jujubes, spice drops and candy beads for ornamental decoration.

Overall, Brandon laughed, "it makes for a good opportunity to play with our food, doesn't it?"

Admittedly, Brandon did a "lot of nibbling" along the way typically licking the icing and all off his fingers. It wasn't uncommon for him to wake up with a headache from the sugar rush, he said.

When he removes the gingerbread creation from the Putnam Inn after Christmas (probably in January), he'll spray it with a clear shellack in hopes of getting a second season out of it.

Doing a little minor repair work, gingerbread train station creator Richard Brandon puts his 40-pound handiwork on display at the Putnam Inn in Greencastle.

However, Brandon -- who makes his living cooking meals for the men of Sigma Chi fraternity through Bon Appetit at DePauw University -- knows the Hoosier humidity will ultimately take its toll.

"The humidity will probably eat it alive and it'll end up collapsing," he said of his four-month effort.

"What I went into as a labor of love and something to try again," Brandon noted, "really turned out to be quite emotional, bringing back memories while doing something I enjoy at a little higher level."

He said his friends followed the process on Facebook, encouraging him to share his gifts and talents with others, including his new Greencastle hometown.

"I moved here to move another stage forward at a time in my life, as well as being with my family. The gingerbread station was something I had to prove to myself, to make sure I had it in me. I pulled so much from my past to accomplish that. That is why I mentioned it was 'all-consuming.'"

"It was a difficult decision to move here from Colorado. But my immediate family had found Greencastle and I longed to be back in the Midwest, having grown up in Ann Arbor, Mich. Now that I am settled in, I am very happy to be here. It's a wonderful community and DePauw is remarkable. I've always enjoyed the relationship between the town and its college. Coming from a musical family, I have been very impressed with the music school here and have enjoyed numerous concerts at the Green Center and around town.

"So, I'm starting to feel Greencastle as a home."

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