Couple finds sweetness in shared gingerbread Alberta legislature project

An Edmonton couple is working on a one-of-a-kind miniature gingerbread model of the Alberta legislature. CTV Edmonton’s Connor Hogg has the story.

This is a love story made out of gingerbread.

Matt Intihar and Sheila Guevara spend often spend quality time relaxing together in a unique way: by making model houses from the sweet-and-spicy baked delight.

“Both of us inspired each other in doing a project, because he’s good at what I’m not, and I think for him, I’m good at what he’s not, so we compliment each other,” Guevara told CTV News Edmonton.

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The pair were in a local bake shop when they saw a gingerbread castle built by the baker.

“We thought, ‘Geez, that would be pretty neat if we could build something like that,” Inithar said.

“I don’t know if we’re up to it, but we can give it a try.”

Their first gingerbread house was simple, then they decided to go bigger.

At first, they planned to build a replica of the White House, home of the U.S. president.

They ultimately selected the Alberta legislature as their subject.

It was closer to home and easier to research in person.

“As time went on, we thought, ‘We can do this, we can add that on, and so slowly, it became a bit more detailed as time went on,” Intihar said.

Intihar and Guevara worked on their project together and separately, dictated by their shift-work schedules.

“He comes home, I’m sleeping, or I come home, he’s sleeping,” Guevara said. “But when I come home, I see something that he did. and I’m like, ‘Oh, cool! I can do this!”

Creating their delicious legislature took six months of manipulating gingerbread and key ingredient marzipan – plus painstaking research, baking, sculpting and re-sculpting.

“We managed to finish it, and we’re pretty happy with how it looks,” Intihar said.

The happy couple are in the process of finding a place to display their work and also sharing what they learned about each other in the process.

“He sits right there and he’s just doing his little thing,” Guevara said. “It’s very heartwarming, and he is very graceful doing it, and it makes me push myself harder, too.”

Intihar said the process brought them even closer.

“I guess this kind of thing could pull people apart, maybe they’d get fed up with each other,” he said. “I think, for us, it did bring us together.”