This Life-Sized Gingerbread Bank Actually Lets You Pull Out Money

If you think banks just focus on taking your money and sending you junk mail, you’re selling them short because sometimes they think about building giant gingerbread houses.

Using 5,000 pounds of gingerbread, 12 bakers and 6 months of prep-work, PNC Bank built a life-sized Gingerbread branch in Philadelphia.

From December 4-6, PNC opened the bank to the public handing out hot chocolate and letting customers pull out money from their cookie-covered ATM machine.

Why?

Supposedly, it was in celebration of the “Christmas Price Index,” but a more accurate answer would probably be that it just sounded cool.

All in all, the bakers used 3,000 pounds of flour, 1,000 pounds of shortening, 1,000 pounds of molasses, 50 pounds of cinnamon, 50 pounds of ginger, 25 pounds of cloves, 40 pounds of baking soda. That’s over 5,000 pounds of ingredients, which is the average weight of a white rhino.

Bredenbeck’s Bakery in Philadelphia were the masterminds that baked this thing for PNC, using 12 of their bakers and pastry artists to skillfully craft the giant building. Somehow they figured out the right mix of ingredients to let this thing hold up, regardless of winter weather and hungry children eager to munch on the walls.

I’m fully behind this. Gingerbread anything you can get your hands on.