Awesome Gingerbread Houses

Posted by Stacy in Christmas, Food & Drinks, Neatorama Only on December 14, 2008 at 2:05 pm


One of our first years together, my husband and I decided to make a gingerbread house during the holidays, thinking it would become one of our new traditions. We didn’t buy a kit, because I thought it wouldn’t really be too difficult to cut some rectangles out of dough. Big mistake. It was terrible – really terrible. The walls wouldn’t stick together, so to compensate, I kept piling up the frosting (didn’t work). We’d get one side up and another would fall down, decorations were dripping off, some of the cookie pieces baked down to different sizes than others… it was truly awful and hilarious. We’re going to try again this year, I think, but we will definitely be using a kit. No matter what we do, I’m quite sure none of ours will look as cool as these, but at least it gives me something to aspire to.


CBGB’s might not be a brick-and-mortar building any more, but you can always revive it in cookie-and-icing. Photo by Flickr user Honey Bunches of Trouble.


Loving the Gingerbread prison yard from Gingerbread Ghetto. It has a lot of good ones – Gingerbread Serial Killer House, Gingerbread Peep Show, Gingerbread Check Cashing Place. It’s highly entertaining.


We’ve kind of started a tradition of doing to Disney every Halloween, but I really would like to go for Christmas sometime. Then I could see this amazing gingerbread house in person – the Grand Floridian resort makes one every year. Photo by Flickr user Emily Gracey.


Pirates + Gingerbread = Perfection. It’s called “Pirates of the Jelly Bean” and was part of the annual George Eastman gingerbread house display. Photo by Flickr user Zeus_the_Ferret.


Flickr user heath_bar posted this one and the one below. His office had a gingerbread competition and this is what one of the groups came up with. I’m insanely impressed. I work with a creative bunch of people, but I’m not seeing any of them coming up with gingerbread Mt. Rainier.


This one is a display in a Seattle hotel. From Flickr user Sweet Tortilla.


Of course there’s a gingerbread replica of the White House as well. Created by the executive pastry chef, the cookie Executive Mansion can be seen in the State Dining room during the holiday season. Check out close ups and shots of the whole process here.


I’ve always wanted to go to the Winchester Mystery House … I never thought of making my own while I wait until I get the chance to visit.
Photo by Flickr user ehoyer.

Have you seen any good ones? Have you created any good ones? Let us know in the comments.


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COMMENT

20 comments to "Awesome Gingerbread Houses"

  1. Dougie
    December 14th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    FIRST! I would'nt be able to bring myself to eat these, I'd feel guilty for months

  2. sw
    December 14th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    loved the gingerbread ghetto! i'm all about the cookie whores

  3. Alex
    December 14th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    I've seen the life-size gingerbread house at the Grand Floridian. It was incredibly detailed!

  4. mdreyer
    December 14th, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    Here are some hot, spicy tips for making g'bread houses:
    1. make a big sheet of gingerbread-- roll it out right on wax paper or parchment the size of the cookie sheet. then when it comes out of the oven, quickly cut out the pieces using the paper pattern pieces you have ready. (the g'bread is soft at this point-- gets hard as it cools)
    2. stick the pieces together with toothpicks.
    3. Use royal icing. it is basically uncooked meringue; has eggwhites. It is super sticky and dries hard as a rock, almost. It is more an engineering material than a food. It also holds the decorations on tight.
    4. new geeky idea-- make lego guy gingerbread men to go with. Heck, make a gingerbread laptop with only m's and s's for keys. (m&m's and sprints or whatever they are called)

  5. Frau
    December 14th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    Yes! I remember making a house" for Holiday Houses for Homecare. And the "competition" was fierce. I was up against people who had the previous year did a scene out of Dinotopia. And people who made quality like that White House. I was a beginner and thrown into it because of the baking course I was in.
    I ended up doing Angkor Wat. It took a little over a month, and in the end, I did not win any sort of ribbon, nor did anyone have a clue as to what Angkor Wat was. :/

  6. Galatae
    December 14th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

    The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC holds the National Gingerbread House Competition annually:

    http://www.romanticasheville.com/gingerbread.htm

    If you are anywhere in the area between November and January it is worth your time.

  7. Galatae
    December 14th, 2008 at 8:26 pm

    Here are the photos from the 2008 Competition:

    http://peakdefinition.smugmug.com/Events/652711

  8. liphttam1
    December 14th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

    I want to be the gaint to eat, I mean destroy those houses.

  9. Brandon
    December 14th, 2008 at 10:29 pm

    A serial killer house is "highly entertaining"? Ditto for prison rape and stabbing? Does anything become entertaining if done in gingerbread or does one of the victims have to be a prostitute and/or a convict?

  10. ted
    December 15th, 2008 at 12:04 am

    I was kinda turned off by the gingerbread serial killer house. The prison one was just sad.

  11. Gail Pink
    December 15th, 2008 at 9:53 am

    Ah, I feel the holiday spirit swell when I look at these cool pictures.

  12. Alan Cordova
    December 15th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

    The Seattle gingerbreads are an annual tradition - designed by local architects and hosted at the Sheraton Hotel, the displays raise money for the Northwest Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation . Photos from past displays:

  13. Alan Cordova
    December 15th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    Sorry - here are the links:
    http://www.jdrfnorthwest.org/gingerbread/
    http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=gingerbread&w=45206671%40N00

  14. Kevin
    December 15th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

    if you want a quick and easy way to make a house - use Poptarts. Nice ready made squares and glue together with frosting.

  15. masterwit
    December 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm

    Dugg.

  16. splatman
    December 29th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

    That looks like something I'll have to do sometime.
    Mount Rainier is definitely outside-the-box.
    Ha ha Poptarts. I used to eat those. Great idea. Some even are already frosted!
    Now, I wonder what happens in the end; when display time is up? Everyone gets to "eat house"? Demolition with a giant Gobstopper wrecking ball?
    Just give it a Splat!

  17. Sir Sean's baby girl
    December 30th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

    Shoot! I bought a kit last year. I have been told that I'm a pretty artistic person - I make new ornaments for everyone as stocking stuffers and homemade treats for presents for the special people in my life. But, I am here to tell you, both my husband AND I tried to put that booger together and it came out looking a lot like Mt. Rainier without meaning to!
    So, I took the chicken route and tossed the gingerbread 'glop', baked up some pumkin-rum cake, cut out cubes and thin(1" thick)squares for the roofs, trimmed off some of the cubes so the two sides of the roof would fit, frosted and decorated each "gingerbread" house with different candies.
    They were a hit! So, I made them agin, this year. Hmm...tradition starting to bloom?

  18. Dean Pomerleau
    January 3rd, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    Making a gingerbread house can be frustrating if it falls apart before the frosting dries. But it is easy to build a really strong gingerbread house using a cardboard box to reinforce the sides and roof. The cardboard is invisible once decorated, and best of all, the house is ready to decorate within 15 minutes!

    This link gives instructions (with pictures).

    --Dean

  19. Dean Pomerleau
    January 3rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    Sorry - here is the link to the foolproof gingerbread house construction technique:

    http://picasaweb.google.com/deanpomerleau/FoolproofGingerbreadHouse?fe at=directlink

  20. artukat
    January 5th, 2009 at 3:59 am

    look tasty,, can i eat it... hehehehe... make me hungry...


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