Double it or triple it to make multiple houses, print out the gingerbread house template printable, and grab the recipe for the gingerbread house icing to glue it all together. It makes for such a fun family project! Making Gingerbread Houses is such a perfect family tradition that your kids will love and will always remember. And it doesn’t have to be a stressful project. I have an easy to follow recipe, easy to use templates to cut it all out, and the best gingerbread house icing to glue it all together! You can see in the photo above that a little icing on the bottom and the side are holding those two pieces up. That being said, I highly recommend that you go slow when constructing. Add pieces one at a time with some drying time in between.
Grab parchment paper and a wet paper towel for dough rolling. When you roll out your pieces of dough, put a wet paper towel on the counter, then a piece of parchment paper, the dough and another piece of parchment paper. Rolling out the dough between the two pieces of parchment makes for easy rolling. The wet towel beneath keeps it all from sliding around.Beware of your template sticking to the dough. You can either sprinkle some powdered sugar on the dough to keep that from happening or make the templates out of parchment paper.Use excess dough to make small gingerbread men.Make sure your cooked gingerbread house recipe dries out in the open at least overnight.Double my gingerbread house icing recipe. This will ensure that you have enough to do all the decorating you want to with a little left over.Decorate your pieces before you put it all together. This will keep you from fighting gravity as you add icing and candy decorations. Use a piping set to decorate. I love this one because it comes with lots of tips and something couplers which allows you to switch out tips. This is perfect if you are keeping all white icing, but even if you want a few colors, this set comes with three bags, so you could have three colors ready to go and switch out the tips you pipe it on with.Go slowly while constructing. Start by putting two pieces up (as seen above), then add the next wall, and then add the front. Once all of that is dry and stable, put on the roof.
Miniature candy canes and peppermint stirring sticks: These make for cute additions. Skittles: These are easy to find and add a lot of cute color to the houses. You can see them on my roof. Candy Dots: These are so fun to make a path at the front of the house.Ice Cream Cones: I coated these with gingerbread house icing that I colored green and then added white sugar pearls.Graham Crackers: These were used both to make the door of the house and then I crushed some and used that as a dirt path (with icing to hold it down).