It’s a Christmas classic: the gingerbread house. But have you ever seen a REAL one, let alone made one yourself? If the answer is no (and we’re guessing it is), here’s how you can make a gingerbread house of your own – and impress any family baker in the process.

Instructions & Tips

1. Choose a Style & Theme - From fancy to farmhouse, you can make your gingerbread house any way you imagine. Here are a few ideas to follow or be inspired by, from the simple to the colorful and elaborate. You can select a style based on the type and amount of candy used or the level of difficulty.
2. Pick Your Dough Recipe - You can find all kinds of recipes online for gingerbread but for us, when it comes to building structure of gingerbread, don’t mess around: go with Betty Crocker’s Limited Edition Gingerbread Cookie Mix. It makes this easier as Mrs. Crocker has done all the hard work for you – it’s sturdy yet cuts easily.
3. Create Patterns for Your Houses - One of the most challenging steps in making a gingerbread house is creating the template—making sure you have all of the measurements correct and the pieces are proportional. The beauty of the internet is that you can find a variety of house patterns to pick from! Just print and cut out the designs, transfer to lightweight cardboard, place the templates over rolled-out dough, and cut.
4. Rolling & Cutting Your Dough - Roll the dough onto parchment paper instead of a pastry board or countertop so you won’t have to worry about it sticking. Also, using a pizza cutter makes cutting shapes really simple.
5. Baking Your Dough - Never pick up individual rolled and cut pieces of gingerbread by hand to transfer them to a baking pan. This will distort them. Instead, pick up the parchment paper by opposite corners and place it on the baking pan. Bake as the recipe instructs. Make sure the pieces are slightly brown around the edges and bottom. Repeat until you have all the pieces you need cut and baked.
6. Making the "Glue", aka Royal Icing - Nothing is worse than watching your completed gingerbread house come tumbling down, so it is important that you use a reliable "glue" to keep the pieces together. Royal icing, a mixture of sugar, egg whites, and cream of tartar, is essentially the mortar that will keep the walls intact and the roof in place. It is easy to make and comes out perfect every time.
7. Assembling Your House - Before you can begin assembling the house you need to choose a base—a cardboard cake round works well. Then pipe an "L" of icing and secure two gingerbread house walls. Continue with the icing – piping between the cookie pieces as well as on the base – until you are ready to attach the roof. Let the house dry before beginning to decorate.
8. Decorating Your House - Cover the base of the gingerbread house with the leftover royal icing and then coat with shredded coconut to cover up any of the mess you left on the board. It also looks like beautiful snow. You can also pipe icicles onto the edges of the roof using a piping bag. Now you can have fun decorating the house further:
   • Foil-wrapped Santas, snowmen, toy soldiers, medallions, bells
   • Shutters: Wafer cookies, Andes Mints, mini candy bars, sticks of gum
   • Roof Decorations: Nonpareils, gum drops, vanilla wafers, mini cookies, Necco Wafers, mini frosted Shredded Wheat
   • Fences: Chocolate-covered pretzels, regular mini pretzels, mini cookies, mini Teddy Grahams, mini gingerbread men, candy canes, Star Brite Mints
   • Ice Skating Pond: Blue mints microwaved on parchment paper until they melt
   • Trees & Bushes: Green leaves
   • Snow: Powdered sugar or edible glitter (available at cake supply stores)
   • Pile of logs: Tootsie Roll Midgees