From frozen in fictional carbonite to trapped in bread?
That’s right, “Star Wars'” legendary scoundrel Han Solo is in another sticky spot, this one more glutinous than the last.
One House Bakery in Benicia, Calif. has created an impressive, life-sized replica of the frozen Han Solo made entirely out of bread dough – mirroring the fate that the hero, played by Harrison Ford, meets at the end of the 1980 film “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.”
“Pan Solo has been encased in levainite ☺️😉… we’re giant nerds!” One House Bakery wrote in a Sunday Instagram post.
The bread sculpture is an entry for a local scarecrow contest, the bakery said. One House’s co-owner and head baker Hannalee Pervan and her mother Catherine Pervan, the bakery’s chocolatier and co-owner, created Pan Solo.
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“We’re super fan girls when it comes to science fiction, and the Star Wars franchise obviously is just so iconic,” Catherine told USA TODAY, adding that Han Solo frozen in carbonite is “an image everybody knows, and I don’t think anyone’s ever done it out of bread.”
The two started planning their creation three months ago. “Then it took about a month working after hours,” Hannalee said, noting they worked several hours each night after the bakery closed to build the 6-foot structure.
They started with plywood and a Harrison Ford mask to get the body ratio right, the Pervans explained. They then built and baked layers and layers of dough to form the body and Pan Solo’s details.
Pan Solo is made of “dead dough,” which doesn’t contain yeast. Otherwise, he’s pretty much a mixture of flour, water and sugar.
“You could eat it,” Hannalee said, laughing. “It’s just that it would taste very gross at this point – because we shellacked it (so the birds and squirrels wouldn’t eat Pan Solo).”
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Hannalee also served as a model for Pan’s body in the process.
“I’m basically the same height as (Harrison Ford),” she said. “So I just laid down… It was like 11 o’clock at night (and) I was like, ‘Just trace me this is gonna work.'”
Pan Solo will be on display outside One House Bakery until after Halloween, Hannalee and Catherine said.
“People come by day and night,” Catherine said. “We have a camera outside so we can see people here at like 1 or 2 a.m.” They’ve seen people posing for photos, smelling the structure and poking it. “The response has been just crazy, people are fascinated by it,” Catherine added.
Pan Solo is part of the Benicia’s annual Scarecrow Contest, an event where businesses downtown display “scarecrows” for much of October. This year, visitors can vote for their favorite through Oct. 23.
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Hannalee and Catherine Pervan are dedicated participants. And this isn’t the first time One House Bakery has gotten creative with impressive, bready replicas for the contest.
In 2020, the bakery made “Pain-dough-lorian,” accompanied by “baby dough-da” and a “pandroid.” And, last year, they created “Dough-ki,” inspired by Marvel’s Alligator Loki.
