Bakery Creates ‘Pan Solo,’ a 6-Foot Replica of ‘Star Wars’ Hero Made of Bread - The New York Times

They made him astatine night, successful the quiescent hours aft the bakery had closed. Together they worked, mother and daughter, mixing the materials that would springiness signifier to their instauration — flour, h2o and sugar.

Slowly, helium began to look arsenic each diagnostic was sculpted and placed into the oven to bake. First came the basal contours of his body, past the details: the anguished expression, lips contorted successful pain, hands reaching retired successful desperation.

Finally, aft a period of work, helium was ready: a lovingly wrought 6-foot recreation of Han Solo frozen successful carbonite, made wholly of bread. The duo down the creation, Hannalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, called him “Pan Solo.”

On Sunday, the sculpture went connected show extracurricular their shop, One House Bakery successful Benicia, Calif., astir 40 miles northbound of San Francisco, adjacent to an statement of seasonal gourds and a chalkboard that read, “Our leader Pan Solo has been trapped successful Levainite by the evil Java the Hut.”

Customers and passers-by person noticed.

“People are conscionable ace funny by it, and you spot radical smelling it and poking it and they’re conscionable like, ‘What is going on?’” said Hanalee Pervan, the shop’s co-owner and caput baker. “They benignant of don’t judge you that it’s made retired of dough.”

But it is. The younger Ms. Pervan and her mother, co-owner of the bakery, made Pan Solo retired of dormant dough, which contains nary yeast. Ms. Pervan learned to marque the dough respective years agone astatine Wheat Stalk, a baking conference, and started utilizing it to cook Halloween decorations.

Then she and her mother, some self-described subject fabrication nerds, acceptable their sights higher.

In 2018, the twelvemonth they opened the household bakery, they made Game of Scones, featuring a White Walker made of bread, adjacent to an robust throne of baguettes.

Encouraged by the affirmative effect from the public, successful 2020 they made the “Pain-dough-lorian,” clad successful armor made of bread, “Baby Dough-Da” clothed successful breadstuff and “floating” successful mixing bowls, and “the Pandroid,” made of pans and room tools, each inspired by the tv bid “The Mandalorian.”

Last year, they created “Dough-ki,” a menacing alligator made of bread, with crisp teeth and curved horns, modeled aft “Alligator Loki,” a carnal connected the Marvel tv bid “Loki,” starring Tom Hiddleston.

This year, they thought astir baking Audrey II, the bloodthirsty works from “Little Shop of Horrors,” but disquieted it wouldn’t acceptable successful the oven. So they settled connected Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, frozen successful the mythic substance carbonite from the 1980 “Star Wars” movie “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Hannalee Pervan served arsenic a exemplary for the body, which was placed connected a plywood committee and past layered with dough. Getting the last details close was not easy.

“Mom made maine permission it due to the fact that I was obsessing implicit the lips,” said Hanalee Pervan, who has worked astatine Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery successful Yountville, Calif., and was portion of the squad that made breadstuff for Mr. Keller’s famed edifice The French Laundry, besides successful Yountville. “She was like, ‘You request to locomotion away.’”

All of their breadstuff sculptures were made for Benicia’s Downtown Scarecrow Contest, which encourages section businesses to show originative scarecrows for Halloween.

Ms. Pervan said making Pan Solo was peculiarly meaningful for her due to the fact that she mislaid overmuch of her senses of odor and sensation aft contracting the coronavirus successful January 2021. She had ever recovered pleasance successful the smells and tastes of the room and had dreamed of being a baker since she was 10.

“So conscionable to find joyousness successful a antithetic portion of nutrient is truly important,” she said.

Catherine Pervan said it was good worthy the agelong hours it took her and her girl to trade Pan Solo.