Use these gingerbread patterns to make your templates. Enlarge them on graph paper or by using the zoom feature of a copy machine. (You may have to enlarge several times to get the size you want.) An 8- to 12-inch square gingerbread house is a good size, but you’re the boss. Feel free to experiment!
A lovely little house for the first-time home builder. This is the basic gingerbread house from which your imagination can take you to whatever lengths you are willing to go. Attach a candy bar door and a hard candy chimney. Frost the roof thickly and press in decorations. Add a front porch by extending the front roof line and supporting it with candy cane pillars.
If you feel adventuresome, add dormers and/or a chimney using the blueprints on page 30.
Finished Country Chapel is shown on page 2.
From a simple country church to a grand cathedral, this basic pattern can be embellished as you wish. Stained glass windows will set a magical mood.
Piece the main part of the church together as per general instructions. Place the smaller stair piece on top of the larger one to create a short stairway, and position the entryway at the top of the stairs. Use licorice, icing, or candy canes cut to size to make the cross. Don’t forget an ice-cream-cone steeple!
Finished Victorian House is shown on page 15.
A little more challenging, this Victorian has a bay window and delicate fretwork that give it the feel of old San Francisco.
Choose bold colors of icing for the walls of this Painted Lady. Pipe fretwork onto wax paper then glue in place with a thin line of fresh icing. Cut out windows or paint them in with icing as you wish. How about a fancy yogurt-covered pretzel for a front gate?
Note: the blueprints for the fretwork on page 25 are twice the scale of the other pieces. See instructions for making fretwork on page 16.
Finished Old-Time Store blueprints on page 25
This old-time store front looks delightful all gussied up for the holidays. Score sides before baking to look like panelling. Construct one as part of a gingerbread town or make it a centerpiece in its own right.
Experiment with a more elaborate top to the false front, perhaps a stair-step effect. Create an Old West look by adding a porch (breadstick or large candy cane posts and a gingerbread or graham cracker overhang), a boardwalk (of gingerbread slats), or a hitchin’ rail (made from pretzel sticks or candy canes) with a couple of cookie cutter horses parked out front. Pipe on the name of the establishment, such as “Mercantile” or “Saloon,” and you’re in business.
Finished Log Cabin shown on page 2.
Recreate a simple early American log home just like Honest Abe was reared in. This frontier palace comes complete with a porch and fireplace, and you can add a rainbarrel (gingerbread slats lashed together with black licorice rope) or a slant-roofed outhouse (of gingerbread or graham crackers). Finish the chimney by covering with icing and pressing stones into the mortar.
There are three ways to construct a rustic log house:
1. Score the dough before baking to create the look of logs. When assembled and dry, ice in chinking.
2. Make regular gingerbread walls, assemble, then apply a coat of icing with a metal spatula or butter knife, a little at a time to prevent the icing from drying too quickly, and pressing pretzel-stick logs into the mortar until the gingerbread form is no longer visible.
3. Cut out cardboard templates as a guide, roll out gingerbread snakes, bake, and fit together Lincoln Log style.
Finished Castle is shown on page 12.
Much easier to make than it looks, this castle will impress even a dubious audience. Towers and turrets give it a medieval touch, and making the drawbridge is a snap.
Score stones into the walls before baking or ice walls and pipe on details of stone after baking. Use tin cans covered with dough for the tower pieces. For taller towers use two cans stacked together. (See cylinder instructions on page 7.) Use waffle ice cream cones for the turrets.
Cut a large opening from the front piece for the drawbridge. Score the drawbridge dough to look like rough planks. After baking, suspend the drawbridge with two ropes of thin black licorice. Add other structures inside the courtyard, if desired.
Add melted hard candy or a ribbon of aluminum foil for a moat (with alligators?) and a foil-covered knight or two.
Build a blissful barnyard using this pattern and your imagination. Don’t be surprised if your cookie critters escape!
Assemble the barn per general directions. Score the pieces before baking to look like planks on the barn sides and bolted-down metal pieces on the silo. A little red food coloring in the dough will give the gingerbread a barn-red look. Or, ice the barn with red icing and (when the red is dry) pipe on a neat white trim. Fence in the barnyard with pretzel-stick posts and rails secured in place with dollops of icing, and fill with cookie cutter, gingerbread, or animal cracker critters.
Make the top of the silo into a curved shape by placing loosely wadded pieces of aluminum foil underneath the raw dough until the desired shape is formed. Bake as per recipe directions and trim while still warm. Smooth a piece of foil over the curved top for the look of a metal roof. Be sure to place a dab or two of icing underneath to glue the foil down.
blueprints on page 27
Either for a decorative landscape addition to a gingerbread house or to stand alone, this Christmas tree is a delicious project. Make several to give as gifts!
Cover with green icing and decorate with silver dragee ornaments (inedible), brightly colored candy baubles, piped icing streamers, or whatever suits your fancy. Let dry, turn over, and decorate reverse side. When dry, slip the two halves together for a free-standing tree. String lights around the tree by attaching small colored candies, silver dragees or colored fondant bulbs to black string licorice. Make chains by threading string licorice through colored cereal loops. Form gifts for under the tree from fondant, gingerbread, or candies, wrap with icing, and pipe on ribbons and bows.
Dormer and Chimney
Dress up your gingerbread house with dormers or a chimney using the pattern pieces on page 30. Match the angles where the dormer or chimney meets the house to the slope of the roof. When you cut out the template pieces, check to see that the dormer or chimney will meet flush with the roof.
Use thinner dough for these decorative, nonsupportive pieces. Roll out the gingerbread to about ⅛ inch thick for dormer and chimney pieces.
Windows can be cut out of dormer pieces before baking or painted on with frosting after the pieces are baked. Before assembling dormer, attach window glass, if desired (see page 16), or frost in windows (see page 7), and decorate and attach shutters.
Before assembling chimney, apply bricks or stones (see page 8).
Piece decorated dormers and chimneys together and allow to dry thoroughly before attaching to house. Apply a line of icing along the bottom edges of dormers and chimneys where they will meet the roofline of the house. Press gently into place and support until secure. Allow to dry thoroughly.
Decorate house roof and dormer roofs after dormers and chimneys are in place.
