'Pan Solo': California bakery makes life-sized sculpture of Han Solo from Star Wars
A bakery in California in the United States is in it for the money. It just made a life-size bread sculpture of the Star Wars character Han Solo.
Dubbing it "Pan Solo," One House Bakery's six-foot replica of the iconic scoundrel, portrayed by Harrison Ford, depicts his being frozen in the mythic substance carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
This time around, the character is encased in a mixture of "dead dough" (which has no yeast), flour, water, and sugar, as The New York Times reported.
Catherine and Hannalee Pervan, mother and daughter co-owners of One House Bakery in the city of Benicia, made Pan Solo in the quiet hours after their shop had closed.
It took them a month to mold, bake, and assemble his body's basic contours and details like his anguished face and hands straining to reach out.
Hannalee Pervan (R) and Catherine Pervan (L), mother and daughter co-owners of One House Bakery. They made "Pan Solo," the six-foot bread sculpture inspired by Han Solo of Star Wars. Josh Edelson/AFP
Pan Solo will be on display outside the bakery until after Halloween (Oct. 31).
"People come by day and night," Catherine told USA Today, noting people pose for photos, smell the sculpture, even poke it. "We have a camera outside so we can see people here at like 1 or 2 a.m."
Hannalee, meanwhile, said while Pan Solo could be eaten, it would taste "very gross" since they shellacked it to repel birds and squirrels. The Associated Press also noted that the sculpture will eventually be composted.
Catherine told The New York Times that making Pan Solo was "particularly meaningful" for her, because contracting COVID-19 in January 2021 made her lose much of her senses of smell and taste.
“So just to find joy in a different part of food is really important,” she said.
Above all, the long hours of work meant having quality time with her daughter, she told The New York Times.
“It’s a little quiet time for us to have together when she’s not the boss and I’m not the mom,” she said. “It’s just us, hanging out and working together.”
Pan Solo will be their entry to the annual Downtown Benicia Main Street Scarecrow Contest, an event in which local businesses make "creative scarecrows" in line with Halloween. Residents may vote from over two dozen entries until Oct. 23.
The self-described "science fiction nerds" Catherine and Hannalee have been making magnificent bread sculptures since 2018, the year they also started business. Their first creation was the Game of Thrones-inspired Game of Scones, which featured a White Walker made of bread next to an iron throne of baguettes.
Following the positive response, in 2020, they made The Mandalorian-inspired items: "Pain-dough-lorian,” clad in armor made of bread; “Baby Dough-Da,” clothed in bread and “floating” in mixing bowls; and “the Pandroid,” made of pans and kitchen tools.
Last year, One House Bakery made “Dough-ki,” a menacing alligator with curved horns inspired by the creature Alligator Loki in Loki.