Chef Alain Roby stretches for another world record: longest candy cane

Chef Alain Roby poses with his life-size white-chocolate astronaut sculpture, created to honor Neil Armstrong.

Mix one part Santa’s workshop with two parts Willy Wonka’s candy factory, and you might have a sense of what downtown Geneva will look like this Saturday. Resident Alain Roby—a renowned pastry chef, proprietor of the All Chocolate Kitchen and already twice winner of Guinness World Record titles for enormous cookie and chocolate creations—has spent weeks working with hard candy, forging and twisting what he believes will become the world’s longest candy cane. With an intended length of 45 feet (after it's assembled December 8), the enormous holiday confection will stretch down Third Street, from the west-surburban town's courthouse to the intersection near his bakery. And the best part? Once it's all measured and documented, he intends to take a hammer to it, so you can take a piece of it home with you.

Earlier this week, Time Out Chicago Kids talked to the chef to get all the sticky details, including the thought process behind his drive to make these enormous confections. “With pastry chefs, each one has his niche: One is famous for chocolate, one is famous for this, one is famous for that. I wanted to find my niche, my little spot somewhere,” he said. “I really wanted to make an impact as a chef. A two- or three-feet centerpiece doesn’t really create the wow I’m looking for. So I came up with the life-size things. The first piece I built was a life-size chocolate astronaut of Neil Armstrong. Life-size! Astronaut! With the helmet and the whole thing, on a moon landscape. And I got the oh wow! from people ... and since then, I can’t stop. Oh boy!”

You can read the entire interview on TOCK’s blog.