How to Make a Gingerbread House
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Learn how to make a gingerbread house with these step-by-step instructions. Make and decorate this miniature a-frame gingerbread house with fondant and royal icing piping, and display it for all to enjoy throughout the Christmas season. I’ve included an option for making a homemade gingerbread house with light-up windows, too!
Why Learn How to Make a Gingerbread House?
If you’ve been following my baking adventures for awhile now, you’ll know that I absolutely love working with gingerbread. (In fact, I love it so much that some days I really wish I had this guy’s job!) A few years ago during the Covid-19 lockdown (when my beloved Broadway went dark for well over a year) I spent weeks recreating the New York Theatre District in gingerbread and royal icing. I paid attention to every detail, shaping teeny tiny stage doors, fire escapes, street signs, and marquees. So, I thought I’d share my tried-and-tested tips for how to make a gingerbread house and decorate it with icing and fondant.
In the past I’ve made much bigger gingerbread creations, but this year I decided to go micro instead. (This miniature A-frame gingerbread house measures just over 5 inches tall!) The piping requires a bit more effort (and teeny tiny piping tips!) but the smaller scale makes this project easy to finish in a day or two, rather than the weeks it takes to create large gingerbread houses. And because of the small scale, it’s also much easier to transport this house if needed.
Below you’ll find step-by-step instructions (with photos) for how to make a gingerbread house, but don’t feel that you need to stick to any of this too precisely. Feel free to express your creativity with the piping and decorations. There is no “wrong” way to decorate a gingerbread house.
Helpful Tools for Making a Homemade Gingerbread House
- Toothpicks or Cocktail Sticks – I use toothpicks to correct tiny errors in the piping. It’s also good to have a toothpick/cocktail stick handy to guide your sugar syrup into all corners of your window cutouts.
- Fondant Tools – A set of fondant tools works great for creating fondant details, or correcting mistakes.
- Miniature Cookie Cutters – A set of miniature cookie cutters allows you to create fun fondant decorations.
- Chef’s Knife – You’ll want to have a sharp chef’s knife available for slicing the gingerbread, and a smaller paring knife for cutting the fondant.
- Kitchen Scissors – For cutting the pattern pieces.
- J-Cloth – I place a wet j-cloth on top of my bowl of royal icing, to prevent it from drying as I work.
- Mini Palette Knife – I love my small stepped palette knife for lifting pieces from one location to another.
- Rolling Mat and Rolling Pin – You’ll need a rolling mat and rolling pin for rolling the gingerbread dough.
- Silicone Baking Mats – Silicone baking mats make flat gingerbread house pieces. I don’t recommend using parchment, which can make wrinkles in the dough.
- Piping Tips and Piping Bags – Piping tips and piping bags are a must for royal icing piping.
Tips, Tricks, and Variations
- Vary the decorations. For my gingerbread house, I chose white and purple fondant and royal icing, plus edible sugar pearls and silver balls. I also added a dusting of edible glitter to make the house sparkle. However, you can use any fondant and icing colors you’d like. Vary the sizes of your piping tips, or add different fondant shapes like hearts or stars. Some decorating options include edible foil stars, edible silver leaf, Christmas sprinkles (or homemade sprinkles!) miniature candy canes, Christmas M&Ms, or a dusting of edible glitter.
- Skip the sugar. If you’re short on time or don’t want to mess with hot sugar, you can skip the hard candy window step and use fondant or royal icing to add piped “windows” to your gingerbread house instead.
- Take your time. Take the time to cut out paper pattern pieces, rather than attempting to “eyeball” or freehand these. Precision is important, and will make it much easier to fit the pieces together after baking.
- Don’t skip the chilling steps. Chilling the dough, and the cut gingerbread pieces, will prevent the gingerbread from spreading and losing its shape as it bakes.
- Use a silicone mat. Although I use parchment for many baking projects, for gingerbread houses I recommend a silicone baking mat instead. The parchment can make small ridges or wrinkles in the gingerbread, while the silicone ensures a flat (and therefore smoother, and much prettier) gingerbread house surface.
- Plan accordingly. Making a gingerbread house is a time-consuming project, so it can be helpful to split the work into two or three days. (When I made my Broadway theatre gingerbread creation, it took more than week to complete.) Don’t feel like you have to rush to do it all in one day.
Notes on Sugar Windows
The hard candy windows add a fun element to this gingerbread house. They aren’t difficult to make, and require just a few ingredients (sugar, corn syrup, water, and food coloring). I also added edible glitter to my windows for a fun shimmer effect.
- Double the recipe. The recipe below will fill six approximately 1-inch gingerbread house windows, with a little bit left over for extra decorations. If you’ve created a lot of cutouts in your house, you might want to double the recipe.
- Proceed with caution. Molten sugar is very hot. While kids can definitely help with decorating, the sugar step should be reserved for adults only.
- Correct your mistakes. If, when pouring, you drip some sugar on the house, wait until it cools completely. Once hardened, it should be easy to scrape or crack off without damaging the gingerbread.
Making a Light-up Gingerbread House
The fun thing about adding sugar windows is that you can turn your gingerbread house into a light-up gingerbread house! To do so, I suggest using small LED tea lights, or any other small LED light (I found small touch lights similar to these for £1 in a local shop). A tiny flashlight might also work. Do not under any circumstances use a real candle. Not only will this create a fire hazard, but the heat will melt the fondant and the royal icing. Stick to LED lights instead.
How to Make a Gingerbread House
- Total Time8 hours (including chilling time)
- Yield3 5-inch tall gingerbread houses 1x
Step-by-step instructions for learning how to make a gingerbread house and decorate it with fondant and royal icing piping. Plus a light-up option, too!
Ingredients
Gingerbread Dough:
113 grams unsalted butter, softened (1/2 cup; 1 stick)
150 grams dark brown sugar (3/4 cup, packed)
100 grams black treacle (1/3 cup) or molasses
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons whole milk
320 grams all-purpose flour (2 1/2 cups), plus more for dusting
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Sugar Windows:
50 grams granulated sugar (1/4 cup)
50 grams corn syrup or liquid glucose
15 milliliters water (1 tablespoon)
Gel food coloring
Edible glitter
Royal Icing:
200 grams confectioner’s sugar (1 1/2 cups)
1 egg white, at room temperature
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice, to adjust consistency
Gel food coloring
To Decorate:
200 grams fondant (2 tennis ball-sized pieces)
Silver cake decorating balls
White sugar pearls
Edible glitter
Gel food coloring
Instructions
Gingerbread Dough:
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, mix butter and brown sugar on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 30 seconds.
Mix in the black treacle, followed by the egg and milk.
In a separate bowl, whisk flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, cloves, ntmeg, and kosher salt.
Add dry ingredients to the butter. Mix on medium-high speed until just combined, with no dry spots remaining. Do not overmix.
Flatten dough into a large disc. Wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to roll, at least 4 hours, or overnight.
Gingerbread House Pattern:
On a piece of paper or baking parchment, draw two pattern pieces: A 3-inch x 4 1/2-inch rectangle, and a 4-inch x 4 1/2-inch x 4 1/2-inch triangle.
Trace 2 of the rectangle pieces and two of the triangles onto a piece of cardboard. Cut out, then use tape to secure the pieces together, forming a gingerbread house shape. (Don’t worry if it’s not pretty. The purpose of the cardboard house is to serve as a guide/support during assembly, and to double-check that your pieces fit together. Nobody will see the cardboard!)
Cutting and Baking:
Line baking trays with silicone mats. (I used 6 small trays, but 1 or 2 large trays will work, too. Just make sure the trays will fit in your refrigerator.)
Unwrap the chilled dough and cut into quarters.
Dust countertop or a silicone rolling mat with flour. Place 1 quarter on the floured surface, and return the rest of the dough to the refrigerator.
Roll the dough to approximately 1/4-inch thickness. When rolled, it should be large enough to accommodate the paper rectangle and triangle pattern pieces.
With a sharp knife, cut one of each shape.
Repeat with the remaining dough quarters, then re-roll the gingerbread dough scraps. When finished, you should have 6of each shape. Arrange pieces to prepared trays.
If desired, use a small metal cutter (I chose a star) to create cutout shapes on the triangular pieces. You can skip this step if you prefer a window-less gingerbread house.
Refrigerate trays for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350° F (176° C).
Bake in preheated oven, 1 tray at a time, for 15 minutes per tray or until pieces are just slightly brown around the edges.
Cool on tray for 10 minutes, then transfer pieces to a wire rack to cool completely.
Sugar Windows:
Arrange baked and cooled triangular gingerbread pieces on trays lined with silicone mats.
In a small saucepan, stir together sugar, corn syrup, and water.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook until syrup reaches 300° F (149° C) on a digital candy thermometer.
Remove from heat. Stir in food coloring and edible glitter.
Immediately pour hot syrup into cut-out window shapes.
Allow to cool completely. Sugar will harden as it cools.
Royal Icing:
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whip egg white to soft peaks.
Add confectioner’s sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, and mix on high speed until all sugar has been incorporated and meringue is thick and glossy, with stiff peaks.
If necessary, add lemon juice (1 teaspoon at a time) to adjust consistency. The royal icing should be pipeable, but not thin or runny.
If desired, separate royal icing into bowls and tint with gel coloring. I used white and purple, but you can add more colors if you’d like. You can also use white royal icing only.
Transfer royal icing to piping bags fitted with very small round tips. You’ll also need 1 slightly larger (about 1/4-inch) tip to pipe the royal icing when joining the house pieces.
If reserving some of the royal icing for later, cover it with a wet j-cloth or tea towel. This will prevent the royal icing from solidifying in the bowl.
Decoration:
With gel food coloring, tint fondant into desired colors. (For each gingerbread house, I used 2 tennis ball-sized balls of fondant (about 100 grams each), 1 purple and 1 white.
With a rolling pin, roll the fondant to about 1/8-inch thickness.
With a sharp knife, cut the fondant into strips, each about 5/8-inch wide and about 5 inches long. (They should be long enough to cover the rectangular gingerbread piece from end-to-end, lengthwise.) I used 6 strips per roof piece, but you can make them wider or narrower if desired.
Apply the strips lengthwise to the rectangular pieces, forming a striped pattern. Use your fingertips to “pat down” the fondant to help it adhere to the gingerbread.
With a knife, trim away excess fondant from the edges
Pipe thin lines of royal icing to hide the seams.
Set roof pieces aside to dry while you decorate the front and back of the house.
Roll additional 1/8-thick pieces of fondant. With small metal cutters, cut desired decorations. (I created a wreath, bow, and door, but you can make whatever you’d like! Windows, stars, hearts, candy canes—feel free to be creative here.)
Place the fondant shapes on the triangle pieces as desired. Use your fingertips to “pat down” the fondant to adhere it to the gingerbread, then pipe royal icing as desired.
Pipe royal icing on triangular pieces, using any shapes or patterns you’d like. You can also add sprinkles, silver balls, sugar pearls, glitter, lustre dust, foil stars, or other edible decorations.
Allow royal icing to dry before proceeding to assembly. (This will happen quickly, about 10 minutes).
Assembly:
Pipe thick strips of white royal icing on inner edges of one of the triangles. Join it with one of the roof pieces, holding it in place for a few minutes as the icing hardens.
While working, use your cardboard “house” as a guide. I found that the cardboard was also helpful in keeping the pieces upright and in place as I worked.
Repeat with remaining pieces, adding more royal icing as needed to hold everything in place.
Set house aside to dry. Meanwhile, cut two 1 1/2-inch wide x 4-inch long strips of fondant, then use a triangle or other cutter to create a decorative edge.
Place these fondant pieces on the roof to hide the top seam.
Finish roof with additional royal icing piping or decorations.
- Prep Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
- Chilling Time: 4 hours (dough) + 30 minutes (cut pieces)
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Miscellaneous
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Desserts and Sweets
Make-Ahead and Storage Suggestions
To make ahead: You can prepare the gingerbread dough up to two days in advance. Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap it in clingfilm/plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to use. The gingerbread pieces can also be baked up to two days in advance, then stored in an airtight container between layers of parchment until ready to use.
Display your gingerbread house, uncovered, at room temperature for as long as you’d like. Do not put it in the refrigerator!
More Gingerbread Recipes You Might Enjoy
Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
Gingerbread Hot Chocolate Recipe
Gingerbread Christmas Simmer Pot Recipe
Gingerbread Wreath
Gingerbread Dip
And if you do make these, or if you make any of my recipes, don’t forget to tag me @bastecutfold or use the hashtag #bastecutfold on Instagram. I always love to see what you’re making!
