A Missouri church did its best to honor the historic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris by creating a seven-foot-tall gingerbread replica of the church.
The cathedral suffered substantial fire damage earlier this year, so parishioners at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Weston, Missouri, decided to bring the cathedral back to life — with gingerbread and 450 pounds of ingredients.
The confectionery delight measures seven feet tall at its highest point, eight feet long, and four feet wide.
Lisa Stiffler, one of the creators behind the masterpiece, says the work is a “feel-good project.”
“I think so many people are going to get joy out of it,” she told KSHB.
Stiffler said the project began three years ago when her parish priest asked the congregation to recreate the church in gingerbread.
The following year, Stiffler said the priest thought it would be a good idea to recreate the Vatican out of gingerbread. So this year, the parish thought it would be fitting to recreate Notre Dame in its gingerbread likeness.
Stiffler, her husband, and another parishioner began building the gingerbread cathedral in September, using a one-foot 3D puzzle as a model for the cathedral’s design.
Stiffler multiplied those dimensions by eight, created the right structures out of cardboard, and baked 400 to 450 gingerbread pieces to match the cardboard cutouts.
The gingerbread cathedral took about 450 pounds of ingredients, including chocolates for gargoyles and stained glass windows made out of melted jolly ranchers, and 50 batches of gingerbread to be completed.
The final product also has more than 500 LED lights.
The completed gingerbread cathedral will be on display at the church for free this weekend during the church’s European dinner. Tickets to attend the dinner are $10 for adults and $7 for children.