Make this classic gingerbread house recipe with family and friends to get into the holiday spirit.
Ideas for Decorating a Gingerbread House
This gingerbread house project necessitates a trip to your local grocery store’s candy section. You can decorate your home with whatever candy you want.
But if you bring kids with you to the store, you’ll always buy more candy than you need, even though they have the best ideas about which candies would work best for different effects.
Red Hots, as well as small gumdrops and candy canes, are extremely useful. Chocolate truffles can be used to make a stone wall surrounding the house, and waffle-patterned cookies can be used to make roof tiles.
Decorate the house and roof with royal icing. Royal icing “glues” candy to the house.
These houses required several gatherings: one to make the dough and pattern pieces, one to roll out and bake the dough, one to assemble, and one to decorate.
The joy is really in the making—of coming together to work on all the steps that are required to build a gingerbread house from scratch.
My gingerbread house instructions are below. I hope they help you make a gingerbread house!
Eat This Gingerbread House?
Yes, you can eat this gingerbread house. But it’s ma It’s more decorative than edible. craving gingerbread? Make our gingerbread cookies and enjoy them.
Action Plan for Gingerbread House
step by step if you’re overwhelmed. Here’s a schedule.
- 4 days prior: Buy all ingredients.
- 3 days prior: Make dough.
- 2 days prior: Print and cut the pattern pieces.
- Day prior: A base, cookie sheets, parchment paper, rolling pin, sharp knife, electric mixer, and pastry bag with tips (or plastic freezer bag) are needed to build the house.
- Day of: Bake, assemble, and decorate your house! (Or add a day and bake one day and decorate the next.)
Best Gingerbread House Candy
Here are some popular candies and non-candy items to decorate a gingerbread house.
- Gumdrops
- Round peppermint candies
- Candycanes
- Nonpareils
- M&Ms
- Hershey’s Kisses
- Regular or mini marshmallows
- Red licorice twists
- Evergreen tree and snowman Peeps
- Sprinkles
- Shredded coconut (to use as snow)
- Colored cereal o’s
Holiday Gingerbread Recipes
- Cookies Ginger
- Cupcakes Gingerbread
- Gingerbread Cake Triple
- Gingerbread Vegans
- Pumpkin-Gingerbread
Editors of Simply Recipes
How to Make a Gingerbread House
Prepare Time
2 hrs
Preparation
15 mins
Total Time
2 hrs 15 mins
Servings
12
Yield
1 gingerbread house
Measuring 6 cups of flour matters. Lightly fluff the flour in the container, scoop it up with a cup measure, and level it with a blunt knife. Do not pack or tamp down the flour in the cup.
not cookies, but gingerbread houses. I like my gingerbread cookie recipe.
When building and decorating the gingerbread house, keep pets away. Non-gingerbread house-building adults and children should also stay away from the house!
Ingredients
Gingerbread house dough
- 6 cups (828g) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling the dough (see recipe note)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 teaspoons ground ginger
- 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves or allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (170g) butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups (284g) packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup dark molasses
- 1 tablespoon water
Royal icing
- 2 large egg whites
- 2 2/3 cups powdered sugar, divided
Special Equipment
- Stand mixer
- Piping bag or freezer bag
Method
Make Gingerbread Dough
- Whisk the flour and spices: In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and salt. Set aside.
- Butter, sugar, egg, and molasses: Beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Beat in the eggs, molasses, and water until well combined.
- Mix the wet and dry ingredients and knead: Mix half the flour mixture into the molasses mixture until smooth. Add in the remaining Mix the remaining flour into a soft, cohesive dough. to a slightly floured work surface and knead by hand 5 or 6 times until the dough is smooth and combined. If dough is too soft, add a little more flour.
- Divide, wrap, and chill the dough: Pat each half into discs and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate overnight. You can make it 3 days ahead. Roll after 10 minutes at room temperature.
Make Gingerbread House Pieces
- Make and cut the pattern:
Cut a gingerbread house pattern from cardboard or stiff paper like a manila folder. Cardboard is almost as thick as gingerbread house pieces, so you can easily build a house model with it. These houses can be made using this printable template. They should print correctly (1 inch on the pattern = 1 inch in real life), but if not, the dimensions are on the pattern so you can use a ruler to make your own.- Gingerbread Templates
- Check the printed templates with a ruler. Many people print them smaller than the scale, so you need to make your own templates with a ruler.
- Prepare oven and cookie sheets: Preheat oven to 350°F, with the oven rack in the middle. Pre-heat oven to 350°F with middle rack.
- Roll the dough on parchment paper. Flour paper lightly.
Roll each portion of dough to 1/4 inch thickness with a rolling pin. Roll the dough with a little flour and check for sticking.
Add flour if it sticks to the rolling pin or surface. Before cutting out patterns, freeze soft rolled dough for an hour. - Cut dough shapes with pattern pieces: Rub a little flour ovDust the dough with flour. as many pattern pieces as will fit oFit as many pattern pieces as possible m dough, wiping the knife frequently. nding on how soft the dough is, you may need to use scissors to cut the parchment paper. You can cut out thCut the parchment paper with scissors if the dough is soft. ng parchment paper, you may need to use a large metal spatula to transfer the dIf you don’t use parchment paper, use a large metal spatula to transfer the dough pieces to a greased cookie sheet. reshape them during transfer. You can cut out a door and window(s) at this point, or you can wait until after baking, soon after the pieces have come out of the oven while the cookies are still warm.
- Bake: Bake in a 350°F oven until the edges begin to darken, 11-15 minutes for large pieces, 6-8 minutes for small pieces.
Rotate the cookie sheets halfway through the baking for more even browning. Remove the sheets to racks to cool, about 15 minutes. - Trim the pieces while warm: Lay the pattern pieces over them and use a large straight chef’s knife to trim off any parts that have spread beyond the pattern.
Remove pieces to cool directly on racks to cool completely.
Make the Royal Icing
- Make royal icing: Whisk the egg whites and 1 1/3 cups of the powdered sugar together until smooth .
Whisk egg whites and 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar until smooth. Use pasteurised dried or liquid egg whites. - Beat the sugar egg mixture to stiff peaks with the remaining 1 1/3 cup of powdered sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form with an electric mixer. Add powdered sugar if it doesn’t form stiff peaks.
- To keep royal icing from drying out, cover it with a damp towel.
- When ready to mortar or decorate, fill a pastry bag with icing. You can make a pastry bag from a resealable plastic freezer bag by cutting off the tip of one corner. Supermarkets sell plastic or metal piping tips for freezer bag piping.
Build the House with Royal Icing Mortar
This is why making a gingerbread house with others is more fun. If you are working alone, use canned goods from the pantry to prop up the pieces while the icing mortar dries.
- Choose and line a base: Use a cookie sheet or thick cardboard to build your gingerbread house. If you want, line the base with aluminum foil or wax paper.
- Royal icing house sides:
Pipe a thick line of icing along a short side piece. Press the iced side piece against the front or back. Hold until the icing sets. Do the other side. Prop up with cans if necessary.
Repeat with the other side pieces and front/back piece.
To fill gaps and add stability, pipe icing along house seams inside and out. Pipe icing along the edges of the house where it meets the base.
Wait an hour before adding the roof pieces.
You can probably fix broken gingerbread house pattern pieces. I forgot to cut out my house’s door and window until the front piece had almost cooled. I broke it while cutting. Royal icing helped fix it.
We attached a cardboard “splint” with royal icing. Let harden completely before using the piece for the house construction. When decorating, pipe icing over the broken seam. - Royal icing roof mortar: Once the base structure is solid, you can work on the roof. Pipe icing all along the top edges of the structure, front and back and two sides.
The roof pieces are rectangular-shaPipe icing along the structure’s top edges—front, back, and two sides. the top of the house.
Two people working together to place the roof pieces on the house at the same time helps them meet easily at the top centre and extend out slightly, forming an overhang at each end.
Hold the roof pieces for a few minutes until they’re secure.
Pipe the top seam of the house with extra icing. Let the house stand forExtra icing the house’s top seam. decorating. - Royal icing the chimney: The roof angle makes chimney dimensions tricky. Although you may have cut your chimney out of a pattern, these small pieces may have spread a bit during cooking, so you may need to use a chef’s knife to cut and adjust the angles to match the roof.
Upside-down chimney assembly is easiest. Let royal icing set before assembling.
Turn the chimney right-side-up and attach it to the roof with piped royal icing. After the house is set (1 hour after assembly) or during decorating, you can do this.
| Nutrition Facts (per serving) | |
| 632 | Calories |
| 14g | Fat |
| 124g | Carbs |
| 7g | Protein |
Here’s everything you need to know about how to make a gingerbread house! Make this classic gingerbread house recipe with family and friends to get in the holiday spirit.
In This Recipe
-
Decorating Tips
-
Can You Eat This House?
-
Gingerbread House Timeline
-
The Best Candy to Use
Making a gingerbread house is no simple task (unless, of course, you get one of those pre-fab houses, in which case these notes will be of little help).
Tips for Gingerbread House Decorations
This gingerbread house making project requires a trip to the candy section of your local grocery store. You can decorate your house with whatever types of candy please you.
Be careful taking kids along to the store, however, as you will invariably buy more candy than you actually need (though they do have the best ideas of what candies would be good for various decorative effects).
Red hots are really practical, as are small gumdrops, and candy canes. Chocolate truffles can be used to create a stone wall around the house, and waffle-patterned cookies can be used for roof tiles.
Pipe royal icing to make decorative designs around the walls of the house and roof. Use royal icing to “glue” pieces of candy to the house.
These houses took several gatherings, one to make the dough and the pattern pieces, one to roll out the dough and bake the pieces, one to assemble the pieces, one to decorate.
The joy is really in the making, of coming together to work on all the steps that are required to build a gingerbread house from scratch.
The following are instructions I used with a gingerbread house making endeavor with a young friend. If you plan on making a gingerbread house yourself, I hope you find them useful!
Can You Eat This Gingerbread House?
Technically, yes, this gingerbread house is edible. But it’s made more for decoration then deliciousness. If you’re craving gingerbread, make our Gingerbread Cookies, and enjoy them to your heart’s delight.
Your Gingerbread House Action Plan
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, break the process down into steps. Here’s a suggested timeline.
- 4 days before: Do the shopping for all ingredients.
- 3 days before: Make the dough.
- 2 days before: Print and cut out the pattern pieces (download the templates HERE)
- 1 day before: Gather all the tools you’ll need to make the house: a base for the house, cookie sheets, parchment paper, rolling pin, sharp knife, electric mixer, and a pastry bag with tips (or plastic freezer bag).
- Day of: Bake your house pieces, assemble, and decorate! (Or add an extra day and bake the house pieces one day and decorate the next.)
The Best Candy to Use for a Gingerbread House
You can use any candy you want as long as it fits on the house, but if you’re looking for suggestions, here are some popular candies, plus a few non-candy items, to decorate a gingerbread house.
- Gumdrops
- Round peppermint candies
- Candy canes
- Nonpareils
- M&Ms
- Hershey’s Kisses
- Regular or mini marshmallows
- Red licorice twists
- Evergreen tree and snowman Peeps
- Sprinkles
- Shredded coconut (to use as snow)
- Colored cereal o’s
More Gingerbread Recipes to Make This Holiday
- Gingerbread Cookies
- Gingerbread Cupcakes
- Triple Gingerbread Cake
- Vegan Gingerbread People
- Pumpkin Gingerbread
How to Make a Gingerbread House
With 6 cups of flour, how you measure the flour makes a difference. Lightly fluff up the flour in the container, use a cup measure to scoop up flour, then use a blunt knife to level the flour. Do not pack or tamp down the flour in the cup.
This recipe is best for making a gingerbread house, not cookies. For cookies, I prefer my gingerbread cookie recipe.
If you have pets in your house, keep them away from the gingerbread house during all phases of construction and decorating. Non-gingerbread-house-building-participating adults and children should be informed to keep their hands off the house as well!
These instructions were adapted from those found in the 1996 Joy of Cooking.
Ingredients
For the gingerbread house dough
- 6 cups (828g) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling the dough (see recipe note)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 teaspoons ground ginger
- 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves or allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (170g) butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups (284g) packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup dark molasses
- 1 tablespoon water
For the royal icing
- 2 large egg whites
- 2 2/3 cups powdered sugar, divided
Special Equipment
- Stand mixer
- Piping bag or freezer bag
Method
-
Whisk the flour and spices:
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and salt. Set aside.
-
Make the butter, sugar, egg, and molasses mixture:
Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until fluffy and well blended. Beat in the eggs, molasses, and water until well combined.
-
Combine the wet and dry ingredients, and knead the dough:
Beat half of the flour mixture into the molasses mixture until well blended and smooth. Add in the remaining flour and continue to mix until well blended and a soft cohesive dough forms.
Turn the dough out onto a slightly floured work surface and knead by hand 5 or 6 times until the dough is smooth and combined. If dough is too soft, add a little more flour.
-
Divide the dough, wrap and chill it:
Divide the dough in half, pat into disks, and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
You can make it up to 3 days ahead of time. Let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before rolling out.
-
Create and cut out the pattern pieces:
Create a gingerbread house pattern by cutting out pieces of stiff paper (like that of a manila folder) or cardboard. I like cardboard because it’s almost as thick as the gingerbread house pieces will be, and you can create a house model easily using the pieces.
The following link will take you to a printable template that you can use to make these houses. They should print out with the correct proportions (1 inch on the pattern = 1 inch in real life), but if not, the dimensions are also given on the pattern so you can use a ruler and create your own.
- Gingerbread House Templates
Make sure that you use a ruler and check the templates after they print out. For many people they print out smaller than the scale noted, so you would need make your own templates using a ruler.
-
Prepare the oven and cookie sheets:
Preheat oven to 350°F, with the oven rack in the middle. Have several flat cookie sheets ready, preferably ones that you know will not warp in the oven heat.
-
Roll out the dough:
Spread parchment paper on a large flat surface for rolling. Dust the paper lightly with flour.
Working with one portion of the dough at a time, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to an even thickness of 1/4 inch. Add a little flour to the surface of the dough, and check for sticking as you roll it out.
If it sticks to either your rolling pin or the rolling surface, dust with more flour. If the rolled out dough is very soft, you may want to freeze it for an hour before cutting out the patterns.
-
Cut out shapes in the dough with pattern pieces:
Rub a little flour over the surface of the dough. Place the pattern pieces on the dough, as many pattern pieces as will fit on the dough. Use a small sharp knife to cut out the pattern pieces from the dough, wiping the knife surface clean frequently.
Depending on how soft the dough is, you may need to use scissors to cut the parchment paper. You can cut out the patterns through the dough and parchment paper, placing the dough pieces with the paper directly on the cookie sheets.
If you are not using parchment paper, you may need to use a large metal spatula to transfer the dough pieces to a greased cookie sheet.
Space the pieces on the cookie sheet an inch apart from each other. If dough pieces stretch during the transfer process, push them back into shape.
You can cut out a door and window(s) at this point, or you can wait until after baking, soon after the pieces have come out of the oven while the cookies are still warm.
-
Bake:
Bake in a 350°F oven until the edges are just beginning to darken, 11-15 minutes for the large pieces, 6 to 8 minutes for the small pieces.
Rotate the cookie sheets halfway through the baking for more even browning. Remove the sheets to racks to cool, about 15 minutes.
-
Trim the pieces while warm:
While the pieces are still slightly warm, lay the pattern pieces over them and use a large straight chef’s knife to trim off any parts of the pieces that have through cooking spread beyond the pattern.
Remove pieces to cool directly on racks to cool completely.
-
Make the royal icing:
Whisk the egg whites and 1 1/3 cups of the powdered sugar together until smooth .
If you are planning to eat your gingerbread house and are concerned about the safety of raw eggs, you can cook the egg white powdered sugar mixture in a double boiler until the mixture reaches a temperature of 160°F, but not higher than 175° (for more information, read How to Pasteurize Eggs at Home). You can also use pasteurized dried or liquid egg whites.
-
Add more powdered sugar, beat to stiff peaks:
Add the remaining 1 1/3 cup of powdered sugar to the sugar egg mixture. Using an electric mixer, beat on high speed until the icing holds stiff peaks. If it doesn’t form stiff peaks, add more powdered sugar.
-
Place a dampened clean towel over the bowl of royal icing:
Keep this towel over the icing to prevent it from drying out while you work with it.
-
Pipe the icing with a pastry bag or cut freezer bag:
When you are ready to mortar or decorate, fill a pastry bag with the icing. If you don’t have a pastry bag, you can make your own with a re-sealable plastic freezer bag, just cut off the tip (a small cut) of one of the corners of the bag. Plastic or metal piping tips are available in supermarkets which you can also use with a freezer bag, for more controlled piping.
This is where it really helps to have more than two hands working on a house, and why making a gingerbread house is so much more fun with company than alone. If you are working on this alone, it may help to grab some canned goods from the pantry and use the cans to help prop up the pieces while the icing mortar is drying.
-
Pick and line a base:
Pick a solid base for your gingerbread house – either a flat cookie sheet, or a thick, sturdy piece of cardboard. If you want, line the base with aluminum foil or wax paper.
-
Mortar the sides of the house with royal icing:
Pipe a thick line of icing along a short end of one of the side pieces. Press the iced side piece against the edge of either the front or back pieces.
Hold in place for a few minutes until the icing is partially set. Repeat with the other side piece. Prop up with cans if necessary.
Repeat with the other short edges of the side pieces and the remaining front/back piece.
Pipe icing along the seams, inside and outside of the house, to fill in any gaps and to add extra stability. Pipe icing along the edges of the house where it meets the base.
Let set for at least an hour before attempting to add the roof pieces.
If any of the gingerbread house pattern pieces break, as can happen easily when working with what are essentially cookies, most likely you can repair them.
On my house I forgot to cut out the door and window until the front piece had almost completely cooled. When I went to make the cuts, the piece broke. Fortunately, it was easy to mortar back together with royal icing.
We even created a “splint” out of cardboard and used royal icing to hold the splint to the piece. Let harden completely before using the piece for the house construction. When it comes time to decorate, you can pipe icing right over the broken seam and no one will be the wiser.
-
Mortar in the roof with royal icing:
Once the royal icing has dried enough so that the base structure is solid, you can go to work on the roof. Pipe icing all along the top edges of the structure, front and back and two sides.
The roof pieces are rectangular-shaped. Place the roof pieces so that the long ends of the rectangle are running along the top of the house.
It helps if you have two people working together to place the roof pieces on the house at the same time so that they meet easily at the top center, and extend out a little bit, forming an overhang at each end.
Gently hold the roof pieces in place for a few minutes until they are set enough so they don’t slide off when you remove your hands.
Pipe the top seam of the house with extra icing. Let the house stand for at least an hour, and preferably 8 hours before decorating.
-
Mortar the chimney with royal icing:
The dimensions of the chimney can be a bit tricky because of the angle of the roof.
Although you may have cut your chimney out of a pattern, these small pieces likely have spread a bit through cooking, and you may have to use a chef’s knife to cut the pieces and adjust the angles of the pieces so they align better with the roof.
It’s easiest to assemble the chimney first upside down, separate from the house. Pipe the pieces together with royal icing and let set until stable.
Then, turn the chimney right-side-up and attach it to the roof using piped royal icing. You can do this either right after the house has initially set (1 hour after assembly) or later, during the decorating process.
