Fenway takes the cake

Gingerbread replica wins top honors in local contest

BOSTON. Forty pounds of gingerbread. Five gallons of icing. And more than 80 hours of hard work.

That’s what went into the sweetest creation this side of Yawkey Way, a hefty gingerbread replica of Fenway Park that won Cakes For Occasions in Danvers a first-place prize in an area contest among bakeries to recreate a Boston landmark.

It also garnered a Marblehead family an impressive centerpiece for the holidays.

With retired numbers above the field in right, an edible Pesky Pole below, a candy Citgo sign outside and a Green Monster scoreboard showing the Red Sox ahead of the Yankees, 10-1, this Fenway doesn’t miss many details.
The bakery staff of 25 die-hards wouldn’t allow it.

“We definitely had a plan. You can’t attack this without knowing what you are doing,” said Kelly Delaney, owner of the Maple Street bakery.

Delaney said her brother, an architect in Wenham, drew up a schematic, and she and her staff went from there, some waking up at night to jot down ideas.

Like the mini M&Ms lining the stands, or at least the fans they represent, her staff became “obsessed.”

When Delaney’s creation was named the winner by a local TV news outlet, it was raffled off, with more than $2,300 in ticket sales going to the Red Sox Foundation.

Karen Picariello, a mother of two in Marblehead, was on hand yesterday to claim her prize.

“It’s going on our dining room table,” said Picariello, whose son and daughter both plan to take the replica to school.

“The more kids that can see it, the better.”