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Steps for Building Your Gingerbread House
Ready to dig in? Here are the steps to building your own made-from-scratch gingerbread house:
- Gather your supplies and equipment
- Make the dough
- Roll, cut out and bake the walls and roof
- Make the icing
- Decorate the house
- Build the house
Make-Ahead Tip: If you have the time, we recommend making your dough and even baking off the roof and walls ahead of time. If you can’t manage all those steps, making the dough is worth your while, since the gingerbread requires a two-hour chill in between mixing and rolling.
Gingerbread House Building Supplies
It’s time to gather your ingredients and equipment. First, print out the template and read through the recipe.
Printable Gingerbread House template—print on 8.5x11-inch paper then cut out your pieces for a perfectly proportioned house.
What You’ll Need for Making a Gingerbread House
Though the list is long, ingredients called for are standard. For the few that are not, we’ve included notes to help you find what you need (or hack another solution). As for equipment, you probably have most of what’s needed, particularly if you bake often.
Gingerbread Ingredients
All the baking ingredients below are easy to find at most grocery stores.
- 10 1/2 cups Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking soda
- 3 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
- 2 cups mild molasses
- 1 1/8 cups cold water
- 2 clear hard fruit candies (red, yellow, blue or green)
Royal Icing Ingredients
If you don’t think you’ll use meringue powder or cream of tartar for anything besides this recipe, look for these items in the bulk section of your grocery store.
- 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Decorating Ingredients
Raid the cake decorating aisle of your craft store or the candy aisle of your grocery store to find decorations. We used the items below to decorate our house, but let your creativity guide you.
- Green gumdrops
- Snaps pretzels
- Candy canes
- Candy-coated chocolate balls
- Assorted holiday sprinkles
Equipment
Look for the more specialized items in the cake decorating section of your local craft store; see notes below.
- Stand mixer or electric hand mixer
- Rolling pin
- Decorator bag and small round tip (check your craft store or substitute a resealable plastic bag with one of the corners snipped off)
- Squeeze bottle
- Pizza cutter or sharp knife
- Rubber spatula
- Cookie sheet
- Cooling rack
- Parchment paper
- Resealable plastic bag
- 1-inch round cookie cutter
- 1 ½-inch round cookie cutter
- Cans or bottles (for propping up house from the inside)
- Gel food coloring, if desired
- Tree-shaped cookie cutters, if desired
- People-shaped cookie cutters, if desired
Make the Dough
Dough will roll out better after a rest of at least 2 hours, so do this step ahead if possible.
1. In large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cloves and salt. In bowl of a 5-quart (or larger) electric stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat shortening and brown sugar on medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally, until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; beat in molasses and 1 1/8 cups cold water until mixed well. On low speed, beat in one-fourth of the flour mixture until mixed well, repeating in one-fourth amounts of flour mixture, beating well after each addition, until mixture forms into a ball. Scrape side of bowl occasionally. Divide dough into 4 equal portions; shape into round disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to overnight.
EXPERT TIP: We tested this recipe with a 5-quart electric stand mixer. A combination of an electric hand mixer and mixing by hand may also be used. Since all mixers vary, you’ll want to be sure the mixer’s motor can handle it; the beating and mixing time may take a little longer. Depending on your style of stand mixer, you may also need to mix the last amounts of flour by hand if you notice that the motor seems to be working too hard.
