Gingerbread fans

Sweet and savory confection becomes a holiday favorite in China, Mike Peters reports.

Yang Yongfang (also known as Chef Grace) is just one hotel pastry chef in China who's been in a gingerbread frenzy this month. For Domain bakery at Beijing's East hotel, she's created do-it-yourself gingerbread-house kits, and all month she's been hosting groups of local Chinese schoolchildren who squirt fat streams of white icing to glue the pieces together and then decorate them.

"When we came up with this idea, we thought we'd sell maybe 10," says the hotel spokeswoman, Mina Yan. "But thanks to social media, it really took off. I know we've done at least 200. Chef Grace says she's done nothing but made gingerbread all month. She probably wants to kill me."