How To Make a Gingerbread House

Make the Gingerbread Dough

1. Gather the ingredients.

2. Combine the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Paddle on low speed for approximately 10 seconds to combine then increase to medium speed and continue to paddle until smooth, light, and fluffy.

3. Stir together the eggs, molasses, and water in a liquid cup measure with a fork until combined.

4. Turn the mixer off, scrape down the sides and turn it back on medium-low speed and drizzle in some of the liquid a little at a time until everything is fully incorporated and homogenous.

5. Turn the mixer off, scrape down the sides, and add the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, cloves, and salt.

6. Turn the mixer back on starting at low speed so the flour doesn’t explode in your face. Continue to mix until it forms a ball of dough.

7. Divide the dough in half then form into rectangles and wrap each one in plastic. Place them in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

8. Gather a baking sheet, several sheets of parchment paper, and a rolling pin.

9. Once the dough is chilled, place some of the dough in between two sheets of parchment paper and roll to ¼” thickness. Try to fill up as much space on the paper as possible so you can get more pieces out of it when ready. Repeat with the second piece of dough.

10. Stack the rolled-out sheets of dough on a baking sheet and place in the freezer for at least 3 hours. If you are making the gingerbread house over several days as mentioned in the schedule above, leave it in the freezer overnight until the next day. Working with frozen sheets of dough will give you much cleaner and more precise cuts for your gingerbread house pieces.

11. Gather your printed template pieces, transfer the designs to your pieces of cardboard or poster board, and recut. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
    

12. Take one sheet of rolled dough out of the freezer and peel off one side of the parchment paper. Place the paper back on lightly, flip the dough over, and remove the other piece of parchment. Doing this will allow you to easily pick up your pieces and transfer them to the baking sheet for baking.

13. Place your cardboard templates over the dough and use a chef’s knife to cut out the pieces.

    Note: You can either cut out window and door openings in the templates and the dough or use decorations to create windows and doors on the finished house.

14. Transfer your pieces to parchment-lined baking sheets, making sure to leave one-inch of space in between each piece and bake the sheets for about 12-15 minutes or until the dough is set and dry to the touch.

15. Remove from the oven and place the baking sheets on top of wire racks or trivets to cool. Store the pieces flat on clean parchment-lined baking sheets and wrap the whole sheet in plastic wrap at room temperature until ready to assemble and decorate.

Make the Royal Icing

1. Gather the ingredients.

2. Combine the powdered sugar, egg whites, lemon juice, and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.

3. Whisk everything together starting on low speed working up to high speed until the icing is stiff but still pipeable.

4. Transfer some of the icing to a piping bag and cut a ¼” opening off the tip.

5. Keep the rest of the icing in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap until ready to use.

Assemble and Decorate the House

1. Gather all the cookie pieces, cake board or platter, piping bag with royal icing, and an elf assistant.

2. With the help of your assistant, arrange the four wall pieces in the center of the board standing up to mark where the house will sit. Keeping each wall in its place, lay the pieces flat and outwards like the flaps of an open cardboard box, with the bottom corners touching. This should reveal a negative space rectangle that would be the “floor”. Use a pen to trace that rectangle.

3. Remove the wall pieces and pipe a thick line of icing over the traced rectangle onto the board.

4. Place the front and side pieces over the piped royal icing and hold the walls in place while your elf helper pipes more icing in the seam where the two walls meet. Repeat the steps with the other sides and seal all the seams. Allow the walls of the house to dry for an hour before attaching the roof pieces.

5. Pipe thick lines of icing on the top of the walls and attach the roof pieces. Then pipe another thick line in the seam of the rooftop. Allow the roof to dry for at least an hour before decorating. If you will be adding a lot of icing and heavy candies to the roof, let it dry for 3 hours before continuing.

6. Once the structure of the house is set, decorate the gingerbread house as desired. At this point you can transfer more icing into prepared piping bags with decorative tips, and/or use a small offset spatula to spread icing on the roof to attach shingles. You can pipe shingles or use fun treats like thin wafer cookies, Chex squares, Frosted Mini Wheats (bonus because it already comes with powdered snow!), or gumdrops.

7. For windows you can pipe them in or use the square shaped pretzels. Feel free to add gel food coloring to the royal icing to pipe window shutters, wreaths, bows, and other decorations. A light dusting over the house with some powdered sugar through a fine mesh sieve adds a nice winter wonderland touch.

   Let the decorated house dry for at least 24 hours.