My mother in England used to create this simple gingerbread house recipe when we were youngsters. Every year, it was the largest success. Create doors, windows, paths, and a garden using a variety of candies and your creativity. Note that it takes two to three days to create this gingerbread mansion. Various candies are available for purchase as decorations.
| Prep Time: | 2 hrs 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 24 days |
| Total Time: | 24 days 2 hrs 40 mins |
| Servings: | 15 |
| Yield: | 1 gingerbread house |
Ingredients
- ¾ cup butter
- ⅞ cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
- ½ cup molasses
- 2 eggs
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground allspice
- 6 egg whites
- 4 (16 ounce) packages confectioners’ sugar, sifted
Instructions
- First cut out in thin cardboard: a side wall, 4 1/2 x 8 inches; an end wall, 4 1/2×5 inches; a triangular gable, 4 1/2x3x3 inches; and a roof rectangle, 4 1/2×9 inches. Tape the rectangular end wall piece to the triangular gable piece: match the long side of the triangle, 4 1/2 inches, to one of the 4 1/2 inch sides of the end wall.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, and molasses. Gradually beat in 2 eggs. Sift flour, baking powder, ginger, and allspice together; stir into creamed mixture. Wrap dough in parchment paper, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degree F (190 degrees C).
- Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 6 portions, 2 slightly larger than the others. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the 4 smaller pieces to approximately the size of the side wall and the end wall with gable templates; cut out 2 of each.
- Roll out remaining dough, and cut into 2 rectangular roof pieces. Transfer gingerbread to greased baking trays.
- Bake gingerbread in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until crisp. Remove from the oven and leave gingerbread on the baking trays for a few minutes to set, then transfer to wire racks. Leave out 8 hours to overnight to harden.
- In a large bowl, lightly whisk 2 egg whites. Gradually beat in approximately 5 cups confectioners’ sugar. The icing should be smooth and stand in firm peaks.
- Spread or pipe a 9-inch line of icing onto a cake board, and press in one of the side walls so that it sticks firmly and stands upright. If necessary, spread or pipe a little extra icing along either side to help support it. Take an end wall and ice both the side edges. Spread or pipe a line of icing on the board at a right angle to the first wall, and press the end wall into position. Repeat this process with the other two walls until they are all in position. Leave the walls to harden together for at least 2 hours before putting on the roof.
- Spread or pipe a thick layer of icing on top of all the walls, and fix the roof pieces in position; the roof should overlap the walls to make the eaves. Pipe or spread a little icing along the crest of the roof to hold the two pieces firmly together. Leave 8 hours to overnight to set firmly.
- When ready to decorate, make the remaining icing: In a large bowl, lightly whisk 4 egg whites, and mix in remaining confectioners’ sugar. Use this to make snow on the roof, and to glue on various candies for decoration. Finish with a fine dusting of sifted confectioners’ sugar.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 736 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 160 g |
| Cholesterol | 49 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 172 mg |
| Sugars | 136 g |
| Fat | 10 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I recommend only using this recipe for building…not for eating. I thought the dough and the baked cookie was awful tasting. Therefore I left out the lemon entirely because what’s the point if it won’t be eaten. The baked pieces for construction turned out great. They made very sturdy pieces. So 5 stars for the recipe and 0 stars for the taste = 3 stars overall.
I was really afraid to try this but the recipe is great, easy to follow and tastes amazing.
Sure easy even without my mixer. Turned out great!
Using the extra flour and also using the recommendations for the icing , I made my first gingerbread house that didn’t turn into a gingerbread lean-to. My kids loved it and loved the taste as well.
I am not a fan of gingerbread but this recipe tasted great and the dough was great to work with.
Excellent recipe, just a little difficult at the beginning, then it gets easier, family love it and super fun.
This recipe did not work. The gingerbread never hardened, it stayed soft for days, probably because of the molasses. Also the icing was way too dry, not soft or easy to work with at all. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Awesome recipe, easy to make, house sections did not change shape during baking, had enough frosting with 2 egg whites and 4 cups icing sugar, easy to assemble, and tasty to eat! Will definitely make again next year.
As with many others, you will be very frustrated if you do not add quite a lot of extra flour.
Our family had so much fun making this gingerbread house. Making a homemade gingerbread house from scratch and decorating it, is so much more fun and exciting compared to the store bought houses. We made it last year for the first time, but we saved the cut outs and we’re ready to make the magic happen once again. Thank you for this recipe and our new family tradition.
I have made houses for friends and family with this recipe for several years as it is written, and it’s been great every time. I used a different Royal icing, but we love this cookie.
I didn’t use the icing part of the recipe, as I haven’t gotten that far yet and have a different recipe for royal icing. That being said, the cookie part came together easy enough. I had to use about 4c. of flour to make it a dough I could actually handle and I didn’t add any levening. The flavor is a bit bland, but we don’t usually eat our houses anyway. It’s a simple recipe that made a pretty decent gingerbread cookie for building houses. This will be my go to recipe now!
I’m sorry, I just didn’t like this recipe. I made this as written. I really didn’t like the flavour. Also, I don’t think construction gingerbread should have leavening agents and it should be low water content to limit the formation of steam, which means no eggs.
Made it exactly as the directions said, dough was so sticky and when they came out of the oven they didn’t smell like gingerbread, they smelled horrible!
Great receipe. The royal icing stiff and works fantastic !
THANK YOU for the reviewers who said to add 1 1/4 cup of flour. That saved me so much stress. I had a wet mix until adding the flour. This recipe works great otherwise. I did make a different royal icing recipe.
It was very helpful
I don’t know what I did but I followed and it didn’t work I had to add more flour it was like I had never added any.:(
Followed the recipe except the lemon zest and it didn’t harden up so it collapsed and found its way into the trash 🙁 I guess I’m just not a gingerbread maker
Not a good recipe for gingerbread houses. The dough is way too thin to roll out as walls; it’s better for cookies.
This was a great recipe for first timers like me. I doubled the recipe and added about 1 cup of flour to the gingerbread after reading the other reviews. I only used 4 cups of powdered sugar for the first batch of icing to put the houses together and approximately 5 cups for the decorating icing. My kids had so much fun we will definitely be making this a yearly tradition.