And so we find ourselves in a similarly unsettling festive period as we did in 2020, with the new Omicron covid variant wreaking havoc on our desire to return to a more traditional Christmas.
It’s been a difficult year for me personally, as I continue to suffer with long-covid symptoms, after my positive covid test on January 1 2021. There is no denying the severity of this disease in our household!
The USS Defiant – A gingerbread version
The USS Discovery gingerbread I made last year was an epic endeavour and took a couple of days to re-create, and there was no chance I was going to be able to undertake a similar endeavour without giving myself a severe overload spell. And so my fatigue has meant that I had to scale back my gingerbread aspirations this year.
But, notwithstanding this, I am very pleased with how my tough “little” cookie has turned out. Introducing the USS Defiant – one of our favourite Star Trek Deep Space Nine characters and key component to the Dominion War story arch.
The Defiant was StarFleet’s first custom-built war ship and had some awesome defences including a cloaking device (kindly on loan by the Romulans!). She also appeared in the Star Trek: First Contact movie where Riker famously utters the observation “tough little ship” to which Worf has a stern response “little?!”! Great moment!
Developing the prototype
I sketched some outlines from pictures online and decided to give some in-built lighting another go (I originally tried this with my Nakatomi Plaza and Tardis models).
Having recently used the US candy, Jolly Ranchers, for my Harry Potter Luna Lovegood spectrespecs, and having a few blue and red sweets left over, I figured they’d be perfect for adding some dynamic flair to this wonderful little ship.
Getting everything to stick together was the main challenge, but using the decorative snowflake icing pattern helped to keep the ship in action and defending Federation space.
The pictures don’t really do it justice.
I also made some regular gingerbread biscuits using the fabulous cookie cutters I received for my birthday from the wonderful Gail Quick!
In such challenging times, it’s been a welcome distraction to bring my cookieologist skills and love of Star Trek together.
What’s great about it too is that, as Jay Stobie on Twitter said this morning, once you’ve eaten it, you can just say it’s cloaked!
Need more USS Defiant?
For more of the USS Defiant, you can watch Deep Space Nine, available in the US on Paramount+ and Netflix in the UK or old school DVD or VHS if you’d prefer.
And for a DS9 and new Trek series review, please subscribe to The 7th Rule Podcast with Ryan T Husk, Malissa Longo and Cirroc Lofton on YouTube and other podcast channels.
More Trektastic gingerbread
And for those of you who may have missed my previous creations, here is a selection of the Star Trek iterations I’ve enjoyed making in the past.
Links to other gingerbread pages
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
Geek Chic HQ 