Looking for the perfect gingerbread house? There's a shop in Massachusetts that can help
WAKEFIELD - When you drive down Main Street in Wakefield during the holidays you may notice the smell of gingerbread.
It's all thanks to the Gingerbread Construction Company, which has been serving customers in Massachusetts and beyond for 44 years.
"Nobody else was making gingerbread houses," chief operating officer Ali Palmer told WBZ-TV.
Gingerbread Construction Company history
"My grandparents used to be bakers and then kind of taught my dad the trade," said Palmer.
They've been helping families build the perfect gingerbread house for generations with pre-made kits. Now it's in Palmer's hands.
"We're still hand cut, hand made, hand assembled, so it's a little different than the bigger manufacturers," she told WBZ.
They opened their first store in Winchester in 1980, but soon found another space in Woburn for production. They opened their second store in Wakefield in 1996, which helps bake hundreds of thousands of fresh gingerbread sheets and cookies.
"Ours are cut to be a thicker cookie that you can actually enjoy and eat," Palmer said.
She told WBZ the trick to building the perfect gingerbread house is their homemade icing.
So what happens when the holidays are over? Palmer's father had that figured out.
"Knowing that gingerbread houses were not something that would be supported year-round, he introduced the line of muffins and gourmet cookies, so that he had products to sell all year-round," Palmer said.
Giving back to the community
Palmer said that they also make it a priority to give back to the community that has embraced them.
"We do bake fresh every day," Palmer explained, "Anything that's left over the night before we kind of hold on to, and we donate it to homeless shelters because everyone deserves a nice breakfast."
They've been using the same family recipe since 1980, but don't ask them to share the secret ingredient that makes their gingerbread so tasty.
"Watching your parents go to work at one and two o'clock in the morning, it instills a work ethic that holds up really high standards and never compromise," Palmer said.
The store is only closed two days a year, on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, so there's plenty of time to pick up one of their kits. For more information, visit their website.
