Topics / THE HOLIDAYS : An Edible Gift That’ll Bring the House Down

The houses designed by Jeanne Benedict are unique, elegant and structurally sound. They also taste good.

Five years ago, as a struggling young actress in Hollywood, she began creating gingerbread houses as inexpensive, artsy holiday gifts for her friends. Now it has become a lucrative sideline: Benedict just released a how-to video, “Gingerbread House Party,” which provides a step-by-step guide to creating one’s own winter wonderlands.

“Half the fun is people doing it themselves,” she proclaims. “Kids have fun watching it, but it’s really geared for adults.” The houses are edible, she says, “but if you spray them with clear acrylic and treat them well, they’ll keep forever.”

The 45-minute, comedy-laced video--which offers instructor Benedict as “The Gingerbread Queen,” actor Frank Schultz as “Grammy Schultz” and an original score by guitarist Zachary Throne--features three gingerbread houses: a traditional Tudor home, a licorice barn and a Southwestern hacienda.

“I give you the recipes the dimensions, and a lot of decorating suggestions,” Benedict says. “Like, for logs you can use bread sticks or pretzels. And for shingles, Andes mints. I encourage people to stand in front of a candy store and let their imaginations go wild.”

Although the actress admits that thrift was one of her original motivations, she was also quick to realize she’d tapped into a relatively undiscovered market.

“I looked at Los Angeles--Christmastime without snow,” she said, “and gingerbread houses were not the trendy thing to do.”

She has capitalized on the novelty. With an average construction time of 1 1/2 days, Benedict’s homemade houses range in price from $100 to $500 (when she followed the design of a real house a man was buying for his wife).

Just a few years ago, the actress tried to drum up interest by going through San Marino and “putting a flyer on every house.” These days, her baking season usually begins in September, as gingerbread fans put in their orders for private decorations and corporate centerpieces.

Promoting “Gingerbread House Party,” the actress recently appeared on “The Suzanne Somers Show” and will bring her baking wares to the ABC morning talk-show “Mike and Maty” on Tuesday.

The point of the tape, Benedict says, is for families to be able to have fun together.

“You can have tradition,” she said, “and still be zany and creative. Kids can pick their own themes: sports, astronauts, whatever. And it’s important to know you can do this without spending very much money. There are a lot of things you have around the house--toy ornaments, old bells for Christmas trees, edible and non-edible materials. You can use animal crackers, cookie cutters. . . . I want this to be an Everyman project, to say to people, ‘You can do this.’ ”

For those who still feel hesitant about their culinary skills, listen to Benedict. “I cannot bake to save my life,” she said, giggling. “I can only make and decorate gingerbread houses.”