One of my first inspirations which led me into the world of sweet making was Teresa Layman, author of Gingerbread for All Seasons and Gingerbread: Things to Make and Bake. Stumbling across one of her books in a store, I fell in love with the charm of her creations, and have had this gingerbread chalet on my “to make” list ever since.
If you’d like to make it as well, the template is from Teresa’s book Gingerbread: Things to Make and Bake. I used my own recipes and have some smaller gingerbread projects if you’d like another option for a gingerbread house this holiday season.
Get the Recipes:
My Basic Gingerbread Recipe – click here. Video tutorial on making the dough can be found here as well.
Royal Icing Recipe – click here.
Gingerbread House Making Tips
Basic Template for Simple Gingerbread House – click here. Again, not this chalet, sorry I can’t share due to copyright. You can find the template in Teresa Layman’s book, Gingerbread: Things to Make and Bake. (Any Amazon links in this post are affiliate links).
You can find a video tutorial on how to put together a gingerbread house here, and I’ll share a few tools etc. I used with this house below.
I used lots of icing to fortify the inside of these walls and was more generous than usual with the icing used to put the roof on, as it’s quite a large size.
The loops were piped with 15 second icing, using a tip #1.5.
Instead of using gum as roof shingles, I colored fondant pink, rolled it fairly thin and hand cut the pieces using a pizza cutter.
For the balcony etc. I piped 3 sets of each as I knew they would be fragile and might need more than one. I ended up breaking one balcony, but everything else stayed in tact. The pieces actually ended up being less breakable than I thought they would be.
The trees are made by piping stiff green icing, star tip #21 onto upside down ice cream cones.
Teresa mentioned to use Black Jack gum for the shovel, which I couldn’t find, so I just dusted a piece of Wrigley’s Winterfresh gum with gray luster dust.
Hope you have fun making a gingerbread house this holiday season too. It smells soooo good by the way and was a lot of fun to create!
Happy baking and decorating!
xo,
Marian
Everything you make is just beautifully done! This gingerbread house is perfectly dreamy!!! Gorgeous photos too! ❤️
Thanks so much Sue! xo
Your gingerbread house is amazing. I love how you did the roof, it is so beautiful with the pink fondant tiles. And your piping of the balcony and accents is gorgeous. That is a gingerbread house to truly treasure!
Thanks for your comment and for visiting me here Karenann!
Ohhhh this is sooo dreamy, Marian!!
Imagine, coming home to a cosy place like this?? <3
I appreciate you for making this beautiful chalet in a winter wonderland 🙂
Can I please order one haha..
Much love,
niner
Hi Niner, yes I think about that sometimes, while making gingerbread houses, how neat it would be to be miniature and be able to walk in them. Cosy! Wishing you a sweet day! xo
This is so beautiful as are all of your creations. I love your gorgeous photos as well. I can always spot your work: crisp, clean and beautiful! Thank you for sharing and it’s so nice to see you posting more often. I know you are busy but I have a quick question. I love decorating cookies but I can’t sell cookies out of my home, in my state. I love creating through sugar cookies and I have to practice to better my skills but my family is pretty tired of sugar cookies to be honest. I think I remember you posting that you don’t sell your creations. What do you do with them? Thank you for your time and talent.
Aww thanks for the compliments Barb! I dry some of my cookies out to be used as demo pieces (I teach high school culinary arts). Other than that, I give them away. They’re great thank you (or just because) gifts for all sorts of opportunities. For example, the deer cookies a few posts ago, I made for an event at our church affiliated with the school I teach at, this gingerbread house is for my mom’s church bazaar, the Santa cookies I gave away to some students who meet in my class every Wednesday for Christian fellowship. I have a list of people I’d like to share cookies with for the holidays, including friends and family (I know you mentioned your family is kind of tired of them), the family who how snow plows my driveway, the lady who does my taxes etc., fellow staff thank you or Christmas gifts. Other than that I’ve been thinking of giving them to random strangers with a message of encouragement and bible verses attached to them. Haven’t done that yet but it might be a lot of fun and might lift a stranger’s spirits.
Wow Marian. These are so elegant.
Hi Marian, thank youuuu! xo
The gingerbread house is just beautiful! I’ve been really thinking of make a few this holiday. How do you price out a house, and how would you package it?
Your work is so beautiful. I love when you post new cookies!
Thanks for your inspiration.
Lilly
Thanks Lilly! I would wrap it in cellophane paper and tie with a ribbon at the top. These photos aren’t great, but I do have an example here; https://sweetopia.net/2009/11/bombay-sapphire-gin-gingerbread-houses/
Pricing… I wouldn’t have a clue right now to be honest! Maybe look around at a local bakery (specialty bakery, not chain grocery store bakery), and see how they are pricing theirs and go from there. Sorry I’m not more helpful!
Beautiful! What did you use for the glass in the windows?
Hi Jennifer, I used gelatin sheets. Here is a link; https://amzn.to/2qMdymD
It’s beautiful and dreamy
Thanks Roshini, nice to “see” you here!
Beautiful house! I love Gingerbread for all seasons <3
Thanks, me too, Agos, it’s a beautiful book!
Marian, this a gingerbread work of art! What a magical scene! Absolutely beautiful.
Thanks so much Marilyn!! xo
Wow That looks like a blast!
Thanks Mary!
Incredible! what an architect of sweetness you are!
🙂 Thanks for your sweet comment!
So charming and sweet! You are so inspiring! This year I am hosting a gingerbread house decorating event with a few of my friends and their kids. Hopefully everyone will have a fun time. Is the royal icing used for gingerbread house the same as the one used for sugar cookies? And where the best place to get all the variety of candies? Thank you and please continue to post your creations.
And how do you make the snow man?
Thanks Tracy for your encouragement, it is much appreciated! Yes, the royal icing is the same, but not thinned out. I make it and leave it thick. Here is my recipe:
https://sweetopia.net/2012/01/royal-icing-recipe-free-illustrated-recipe/
I get unique candies online (i.e. Necco wafers on Amazon), and locally I go to Bulk Barn (in Canada).
The snowman is made by taking white royal icing, adding icing sugar (and mixing of course) until a rollable paste forms. I then: roll the balls out into 3 different sizes. You could use white fondant instead.
-dip toothpicks into orange food paste (let them dry)
-color some of the icing sugar rollable “paste” black, shape the hat. Roll some of the black out, cut out the circles with a cookie cutter or the base of a piping tip, for the base of the hat.
-Fasten the 3 white snowman balls together by inserting a toothpick through the center of all 3 of them.
-Place the hat base and then body of the hat into the top of the toothpick sticking out (if you’ve made yours larger you may need to adhere hat with royal icing)
-Snip the toothpick dipped in orange with good scissors and insert into snowman’s face
-Pipe the eyes, mouth and buttons of the snowman with black royal icing and a number 1 or 2 piping tip.
awesome. All are looking cool. Also, I have a question, how do you make the snow. I want to make.
Hi Sage,
I just spread royal icing on the base with a palette knife. The recipe is in the blog post.
Love this. its looks yummy. I’ve enjoyed it very much. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much, Bab!
This is so lovely and elegant, Marianne.
Your work is always inspiring and a pleasure to browse.
May I ask where I can find the decorative balcony template?
Is that from a particular book?
Thanks and happy holidays to you.
Hi Lisa,
Thank you so much for your kind comments, I really appreciate it!
Yes, I did get it from the book Gingerbread: Things to Make and Bake, by Teresa Layman. The link to the book is in the first few paragraphs of this blog post.
Fantastic gingerbread house! I’ve had the book for several years but haven’t tried to make it yet. You’ve done a fabulous job, everything is so neatly done–no smudges, smears, etc. I have made other gingerbread houses and have used fondant for the roof but I use the round center from a doughnut cutter which is about the size of a quarter to make mine. Fondant is lighter than Necco wafers, I think it works better. Love the trees and snowman. You are an inspiration. Lucky students who have you as their teacher.