Build a gingerbread house

A gingerbread house is part baking, part building site, and the building is where most of them go wrong. The candy is the fun part, but what decides whether it stands is how stiff your icing is and how long you’re willing to wait. Here’s how to make a gingerbread house that stays up, whether you start from a kit or bake your own walls.

Plan the evening

Give yourself an evening, and clear a table you can leave alone overnight. A finished house shouldn’t be moved while it sets. If you’re building with friends, decide before you start whether it’s one house each or one big house between you.

If you’re baking the walls yourself, bake them the day before. Once cooled, they’re firmer and much easier to build with. A kit skips all of that, and there’s no shame in it.

What to set out

Beyond the basics, it helps to have:

• A sturdy board, tray or cake board to build on
• A few small bowls for sorted candy
• A damp cloth for sticky fingers
• A spare bowl of icing, covered so it doesn’t crust over
• Tall cans or jars to prop the walls while they set

Bake your own walls

Gingerbread for building is a stiff, dry dough, not the soft kind you’d eat warm. A typical mix is 1/2 cup soft butter, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup molasses and 1 egg, stirred into 3 1/2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add a splash of water only if it won’t come together.

1. Chill the dough for at least an hour.
2. Cut your walls and roof panels out of paper first. Lay the paper on dough rolled to about 1/4 inch thick and cut around it.
3. Bake at 350°F for about 10 to 15 minutes, until the edges are firm and a little darker. Thicker pieces take longer.
4. Cool completely on a rack. Warm gingerbread bends, and it will bend your house too.

Make the icing that holds it together

Royal icing is the glue. Beat about 4 cups of powdered sugar with 3 tablespoons of meringue powder and 5 to 6 tablespoons of warm water for several minutes, until it’s thick and glossy and holds a stiff peak. If a peak flops over, beat in more sugar.

Keep the bowl covered with a damp cloth, because icing hardens fast in the air. Spoon it into a piping bag and snip a small tip.

Some people glue with melted sugar instead. Skip it unless you’ve done it before: hot sugar is far hotter than boiling water and sticks to skin, so it can burn badly.

Build it

1. Pipe a thick line of icing on the board where the front wall goes, and stand the wall in it.
2. Add the back wall, then the two side walls, piping icing down every shared edge and along the base.
3. Hold each wall for a minute until it grips, then prop it with cans.
4. Leave the box for an hour or two before the roof goes on. This is the step that matters most.
5. Pipe icing along the top edges, set the roof panels on, and hold each one until it stays.
6. Let the roof set before you decorate heavily.

Decorate

• Icing snow along the roof edges, and icicles hanging from them
• Round candies as roof tiles, pressed into dots of icing from the bottom row up
• Pretzel sticks for a fence or a woodpile
• Candy canes for posts and details
• Powdered sugar, sifted over the top last for a snowfall

Put the heavy candy on the walls, not the roof, and let each section set before adding more.

What goes wrong

• A wall slides or leans. The icing was too thin or the wall was still warm. Scrape it off, pipe fresh icing, and prop it with cans until it sets.
• The roof caves in. It went on before the walls set. Lift it off, wait, and try again with thicker icing.
• The icing won’t pipe. It’s too stiff, or it has dried at the tip. Stir in a few drops of water, and wipe the tip with a damp cloth.
• The icing runs. Beat in powdered sugar a spoonful at a time.
• A wall breaks. Glue it back with icing and cover the crack with candy.

Keeping it

Leave the house somewhere dry and out of direct sun, and away from pets, who find it irresistible. Dry air keeps it crisp, and humid air makes it soften. Take a photo while it’s still perfect. After a few days it’s a decoration rather than a snack, and when you’re done with it, it’s fine to throw it away.

Make it a winter evening

Put on a holiday film, set out the candy, and build with people who won’t mind if it leans. Bake a batch of sugar cookies alongside it, and you’ll have something to eat while you wait for the icing to set.