COOKEVILLE — Many people buy pre-made kits to put together their traditional holiday gingerbread houses each year. However, fifth grader Carley Cantrell and her brother, third grader Carter Cantrell, of Cookeville, spent about seven weeks building a scene from the Smurfs completely out of homemade gingerbread and other edible materials. They teamed up to win second place recently in The National Gingerbread House Competition in the youth division for ages 9-12.

“I like to bake and decorate,” said their grandmother, Jennifer Croteau. “I’m kind of a hobbyist with decorating cakes, and they always liked to get the (frosting) bags and help.”

Their first ever creation was a simple house with colorful hard candies on the roof, a gumdrop path to the door and frosted gingerbread men standing alongside it. They learned so much in the process, that Croteau and the siblings’ mother, Renee, decided to search for a competition.

“I Googled ‘gingerbread contest’ because I thought it would be fun for them to take part in one,” Croteau said. “So we Googled the one in Ashville, N.C., not realizing how big it is. It’s a huge, national competition.”

In fact, the judges are professionals in the field. This year the judging panel included experts like Colette Peters, who was named one of the “Ten Best Pastry Chefs in America” by Pastry Art and Design magazine; and Nicholas Lodge, a top instructor in the sugar craft and listed in the “Top 10 Pastry Chefs” and “Top 10 Cake Artists” in America by Dessert Professional Magazine.

In their first competition, Carley competed on her own with a peace sign-themed house and won second place. The next year she created a two story house with a “peace” van outside. This was the first year that her younger brother worked with her.

“Carley’s kind of a piping expert,” Croteau said. “She’s good at taking the bag and doing all the piping work, and Carter was real good at making fondant figures. … They’ve learned a lot of different techniques. They’ve learned a lot about gingerbread and a lot about fondant.”

The hardest part was getting the gingerbread to curve to make the roofs of the Smurf houses, Carley said. They also used a lot of poured sugar to make a river between the two Smurf houses. It was a rule that 100 percent of the piece had to be made of edible material, and 75 percent had to be gingerbread.

They constructed the whole piece before leaving Cookeville for the competition, only leaving off the roofs until they arrived in North Carolina.

For winning second place in their category, Carley and Carter received $150 and dinner for four at the Grove Park Inn, where the competition was held. The siblings hope to one day be able to compete in the adult competition, where the prize is $3,000.

“On the way home they started thinking about themes for next year,” Renee said.

“We might do (one based on) the ‘Puss in Boots’ movie, with all the little houses,” Carley said.

For anyone going to be in the North Carolina area, the winning gingerbread houses will be on display through January 1, at the Grove Park Inn.