How to Make Gingerbread Houses

Want to learn how to make gingerbread houses? It's not difficult. And... it's fun to learn, practice, and perfect! Even if something doesn't go quite right, it can almost always be salvaged and turned into a yummy, colorful, edible creation.

If you want to keep things simple, you might choose to use a gingerbread house kit. But if you want to make a one-of-a-kind gingerbread house, we are going to help you from start to finish with some easy to follow instructions.

Gingerbread house construction is an important part of the gingerbread experience. Below are directions to tell you how to make gingerbread houses and to guide you through the process from beginning to the beautiful and delicious, ending result.

The gingerbread house base

Every great gingerbread house needs a base. The exact dimensions of your base will vary depending on what you want the total size of your house to be. It's a good idea to build your house first out of paper (card stock works great) or cardboard. Click here to open our free, basic gingerbread house pattern. Or, if you want something a little different, click here to see our template for sale. These can be immediately downloaded and printed. Of course, you can also design your own house.

The term "gingerbread house base" can either refer to the board that the house sits on or to the frame of the house that the gingerbread is attached to. Most houses don't require a cardboard frame (and it's not typically allowed for gingerbread competitions,) but it CAN be helpful to make the building process a little easier.

If you're using one of our templates, you can print out the template pieces and then use the paper pieces to cut out the same template pieces out of cardboard.

Here are some basic guidelines for making the base or structure for your gingerbread house (if you're making your own template rather than using one of ours):

First, cut out of thin cardboard:

2 equal Rectangular Side Walls
2 equal Rectangular End Walls
2 equal Triangular Gables (bottom side of Triangle should match End Wall width)
2 Roof Rectangles (long sides of Rectangle should be slightly longer than the length of the Side Walls)

Tape the rectangular End Wall piece to the Triangular Gable piece (so that the ends can be made as single gingerbread cookies.)

Now that you have a frame for the base of your house, you need to actually make the gingerbread that you will be constructing into a house.

Gingerbread House Templates

Here, we're demonstrating the most simple of gingerbread house plans. Click here to open our free, basic gingerbread house pattern.
Click here for our more elaborate Gingerbread House Templates.

Gingerbread Recipes

Next, you'll make the gingerbread house parts. Choose either the basic, easy gingerbread house recipe or our other house recipes to choose from. Either way, it will be terrific.

Easy Gingerbread House Recipes (including a mini house version with graham crackers)
More Gingerbread House Recipes

Icing Recipes

While the gingerbread is baking, you can start making the icing "glue" that will hold it all together. Click here to choose an icing recipe.

House Construction

Click here to see tips and techniques for constructing your house.

Decorating your House

Here's the most fun part of the gingerbread house experience Choosing Your Decorations.
That's it! You've learned how to make gingerbread houses. If you already knew how, I'll bet you learned something you didn't know. Browse around our site for examples, photos, and more tips and tricks for making your next gingerbread house creation.

And don't forget to share a photo of your finished product! Click here to see others' contributions and to share your own. You can also include tips and ideas for how to make gingerbread houses.

Watch these Videos if you'd like to see a hands-on Demonstration of making and building gingerbread houses.

Now that you've learned how to make gingerbread houses, return Home to find more tips and techniques