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Bakery Creates Gingerbread Hogwarts Castle for Charity

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Harry Potter fans in the city of Edmonton, Canada, have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win their very own Hogwarts Castle – in gingerbread form!

Duchess Bake Shop in Edmonton has created a 50-square-foot Hogwarts Castle made entirely of gingerbread. The bakers took on this task as a part of a charity sock drive for Bissell Centre. Everyone who donates at least one pair of socks from now through December 31 will be entered to win the incredible sculpture.

The bakers were inspired to create Hogwarts Castle for the sock drive by everyone’s favorite house-elf – Dobby! In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry frees the house-elf with one of Harry’s own socks. Duchess Bake Shop is using its castle to encourage people to donate to a local charity sock drive.

This time of year there’s a really big need for fresh, clean socks. Personally, I love putting on a nice, new pair of socks in the morning and I think a lot of us take that for granted. But if you get your socks wet and if you don’t have anywhere to go warm up and you don’t have a new pair of socks to put on or you don’t have money to go do laundry, it’s a really awful thing to trudge around all day in old socks.

 

 

Owners Garner Beggs and Kelsey Johnson began planning in August and have spent hundreds of hours on the project since. Beggs even had time to listen to all seven Harry Potter audiobooks and a few podcasts. They based their gingerbread Hogwarts on the castle in London where Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was filmed. Features of the castle include colored tiles to represent each House, lanterns around the boat area and greenhouse, hand piping, and lots of Easter eggs for Harry Potter fans.

The magnificent castle will be on display at the bakery until January 13. The winner will then be able to do whatever they wish to the castle during the demolition party that same day.