Almost every collapsed gingerbread house fails for one of four reasons: the wrong glue, the wrong order, not enough waiting, or a damp room. None of them has anything to do with skill, so all four are easy to fix.
Use royal icing, not frosting
Royal icing is powdered sugar beaten with egg white or meringue powder. As it dries it turns hard and brittle, which is exactly what you want holding up a wall. Buttercream and canned frosting stay soft forever, so a house glued with them will slowly slide apart no matter how carefully you build it.
The icing also has to be stiff. It should hold a peak that doesn't flop over when you lift the spoon. If it spreads on its own, beat in more powdered sugar before you go near a wall.
The icing pouch inside many kits is fine for decorating but often softer than homemade royal icing. If your kit's icing seems loose, make a batch of your own for the walls and save the pouch for details.
Build in the right order
- Base first. Pipe a line on the board where each wall will stand.
- Front and one side. Pipe a thick line along the touching edges, press them together and hold for a minute or two.
- Back and the other side. Now every wall leans on two others.
- Prop it. Cans or small jars against each wall keep things square while the icing hardens.
Decorate the walls before the roof goes on. Pressing candy onto a wall that is holding up a roof is how a lot of roofs end up on the table.
Wait longer than you want to
Give the walls at least 30 minutes before the roof, and longer if you can. Then set the roof panels gently rather than pressing them down. For a party, the easy fix is to build the houses the day before and have guests decorate. Everyone gets the fun part and nobody watches a roof slide off.
Keep the room dry
Gingerbread soaks up moisture from the air and softens, and royal icing dries slowly when it's damp. Build away from the stove, the dishwasher and simmering pots of cider. A humid kitchen in the middle of a holiday cooking day is the worst place in the house to build one.
Edible or display
Kit gingerbread is baked hard to hold a shape, and a house that has sat out for days is no snack. Treat the house as decoration and set out fresh cookies and extra candy for eating.
The whole party, ready to print
Our Gingerbread 101 kit has the full build guide, a comparison of 12 real store-bought kits from pre-built houses to from-scratch sets, a royal icing batch for a crowd and the Gingerbread Build-Off with ballots and awards. If you're hosting a holiday baking day, pair it with a cookie exchange.