To make this gingerbread house, you will need to bake the gingerbread sections several hours in advance so they have time to cool completely. Use our recipe and printable gingerbread house templates. Parents may want to do the baking and basic construction first and then have kids help decorate the house.
You'll need a 10-inch cardboard circle, available at specialty baking stores, and plenty of candy. Print the recipe and take it shopping with you. You'll get best results if you use the Decorating Diagram as a guide.
Step 1
Place the cardboard circle on your work surface. Spoon the royal icing into a resealable plastic bag and snip a 1/4-inch piece from one corner. Pick up one of the large gingerbread-house sections (front or back) of the gingerbread and pipe a thick line of icing along the inside edge of its two short sides. Pipe a thick line along the outside edge of its bottom. Stand the piece upright on the cardboard circle and brace it with soup cans. For each of the house's sidepieces, pipe a thick line of icing along the outside edge of its bottom. Stand the pieces up on the cardboard circle so they meet the large gingerbread piece at 90-degree angles. Brace them with soup cans. Take the remaining large gingerbread section (either front or back) and pipe a thick line of icing along the inside edge of its two short sides and along the outside edge of its bottom. Stand this piece on the cardboard circle so the two sidepieces are sandwiched between the front and back sections of the house. Brace this piece with a soup can and let the house sit undisturbed for about an hour.
Step 2
Remove the soup cans. Pipe a thick line of icing along the house's roof edges and put on the two roof pieces. The roof will overhang the house by about 1 inch. Support the roof with cans placed directly under the eaves. Let the house sit undisturbed for at least two hours.
Step 3
Decorate the roof by shingling with Necco wafers. Starting at the bottom of one roof side, pipe horizontal lines of icing about 1/2 inch apart. Working with only a few rows at a time, apply the wafers side by side, alternating between rows of five and rows of six wafers. Each row should slightly overlap the one below it. Repeat the process for the other roof side.
Step 4
To decorate the front of the house, follow our decorating diagram or use your own decorating ideas. Pipe icing along the roof's peak and add some spice drops. In the house's front, pipe some icing and apply two wafer cookies vertically to make the front door. Use a mini M&M candy for the doorknob. Pipe windowpanes onto the backs of two shortbread cookies and attach four pieces of yellow Chiclets to the cookies with icing. Stick the windows to the house with a dollop of icing. Use icing to attach half of a pink wafer for window boxes and sticks of gum (cut in half) for the shutters. To make window bows, twist 4-inch cherry licorice pieces into loops and press each one in the center so they keep their shape. A dot of icing secures the bows to the window tops. The house can be outlined with Twizzlers.
Step 5
Add landscaping and people. Hand-mix a speck of food-coloring paste into 1 cup of royal icing. (Add more paste until you get the shade of green you want.) Put the icing in a resealable plastic bag. Snip a small hole (about 1/8 inch) in one corner. Starting at the open ends of the ice-cream cones, dab icing all over the cones and shower them with colored sprinkles. Attach Spearmint Leaves to the house for bushes, add a Necco Wafer path, and sprinkle coconut for snow. Decorate the gingerbread-men cookies to place around your house, too.
