Gingerbread House Template
Any size, printed at true size, every piece labelled with its measurements.
Your template, as it prints
Print at Actual size, not Fit to page, then check the bar at the bottom of each sheet with a ruler.
Your house
Width is the front, with the door. Depth runs front to back. Walls is the height to where the roof starts.
Assembly sheet
For the house above. The PDF prints this as its last page.
- Roll and cut. Roll the dough 0.6 cm thick on baking paper. Cut the paper pieces out, lay them on the dough and cut round them with a sharp knife. Chill the cut pieces on the tray for 15 minutes so they hold their shape in the oven.
- Trim while warm. Dough spreads as it bakes. Within a minute or two of taking the tray out, lay each paper piece back on its biscuit and trim the edges straight. Once it cools it is too brittle to cut. Let every piece cool and harden flat, overnight if you can.
- Make royal icing. Use royal icing, not buttercream: it is the glue and it sets hard. Beat egg white or meringue powder with icing (powdered) sugar until it holds a stiff peak. If a piped line slumps, beat in more sugar. Keep the bowl covered with a damp cloth: it crusts in minutes.
- First corner. Pipe a thick line along the bottom and one side edge of side wall 1. Stand it behind the front gable so the gable covers its end (the butt joint the side walls were shortened for). Hold it 1 to 2 minutes, then prop it with a mug or a can.
- Four walls. Add the back gable, then side wall 2, the same way. Leave the walls to set for at least 1 hour before the roof goes on.
- Roof. Pipe icing along the sloping edges of both gables. Lay roof panel 1 with its ridge edge at the peak and the same overhang at the front and the back; hold it for 3 to 5 minutes. Then roof panel 2. Pipe a line along the ridge to fill the gap where the panels meet.
- Chimney. Ice the front and back chimney pieces between the two sides, the sloping bottoms all running the same way, and let the box set for 30 minutes. Then ice it onto roof panel 2 on the dashed mark, tall side downhill.
- Door. Ice the door into the doorway, half open, or flat onto the gable.
- Decorate last. Leave the house to dry overnight before heavy decorating. Sweets stick best with small dots of the same royal icing.
Nothing you type leaves your device. The template is drawn in this page and the PDF is built in your browser. The page counts one anonymous “PDF downloaded” or “PNG downloaded” event, and no size goes with it.
How to use the template
- Pick a size, or type the width, depth and wall height of the house you want, in cm or inches. The roof pitch (45° is the classic look) and the dough thickness change the pieces too.
- Download the PDF and print it at 100%: “Actual size” in the print dialog, never “Fit to page”. Lay a ruler on the black bar at the bottom of the first sheet. It must measure exactly 5 cm (2 in on an inch template). If it measures 4.7 cm, the printer shrank the page by 6%, and every piece with it.
- Cut the paper pieces out along the solid lines. A piece too big for one sheet is printed in parts: cut the next part along its dotted line, lay it over the grey “tape here” strip so the outlines meet, and tape it.
- Roll, cut, bake, trim. Lay the paper on the rolled dough, cut round it, and bake. Trim the warm biscuits against the paper again, because dough spreads in the oven. Then follow the assembly sheet above.
Gingerbread house template with measurements
These are the four presets in centimetres with 6 mm dough, a 45° roof and the overhang on. Change any size above and every number is recalculated.
| Preset (W x D x walls) | Front and back gable | Side walls (cut 2) | Roof panels (cut 2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mini mug-topper, 6 x 5 x 4 cm | 6 x 7 cm | 3.8 x 4 cm | 6 x 4.7 cm |
| Small, 10 x 12 x 8 cm | 10 x 13 cm | 10.8 x 8 cm | 14 x 8.1 cm |
| Medium, 15 x 18 x 11 cm | 15 x 18.5 cm | 16.8 x 11 cm | 20.8 x 12 cm |
| Large, 20 x 25 x 14 cm | 20 x 24 cm | 23.8 x 14 cm | 29 x 16.1 cm |
The gable is given as width x height to the peak. In inches the medium house is 6 x 7 x 4 1/2 in: gables 6 in wide and 7 1/2 in to the peak, side walls 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in, roof panels 8 x 4 3/4 in.
Questions
Is there a gingerbread house template printable PDF for free?
Yes, this one: no sign-up, no watermark, no paid version. The PDF is drawn in your browser with sharp vector lines on A4 or US Letter (the page picks Letter for US and Canadian browser settings and A4 elsewhere; switch it under Paper). Its last page is the assembly sheet. The PNG download is the same sheets at 300 dpi, one file per sheet, for printing from a photo app.
Why are the side walls shorter than the depth of the house?
Because the gables are full width and the side walls stand between them. Each gable adds its own dough thickness to the depth of the house, so a side wall is the depth minus 2 x the dough thickness. On the medium house, 18 cm deep with 6 mm dough, that is 18 − 1.2 = 16.8 cm. A template that ignores this makes the house 1.2 cm too long, or leaves a gap at every corner. If you roll thicker or thinner, change the Dough field: the side walls change with it.
How does the chimney fit on a sloping roof?
Tick Chimney (it is on for every preset except the mini). You get four pieces. The two chimney sides have their bottom edge cut at the same angle as the roof, so the chimney stands upright on the slope; the front piece is the tall one on the downhill side and the back piece is the short one uphill, both narrower by 2 x the dough thickness because they sit between the sides. Roof panel 2 has a dashed mark showing where the chimney goes. Build the chimney box first, let it set for 30 minutes, then ice it on.
Can I make a large gingerbread house template?
Yes, up to 60 x 60 cm with walls up to 40 cm. A piece bigger than the paper is split into parts that share a 15 mm strip: the large preset (20 x 25 x 14 cm) splits its two 29 x 16.1 cm roof panels in two on A4 and on Letter, and its gables on A4. The big limit is your oven: use the tray helper to see how many trays the pieces need. The large house needs about 6 trays of 40 x 30 cm, the medium one 3.
And a small one, or a mini house for a mug?
The small preset is 10 x 12 x 8 cm and prints on 2 sheets. The mini is a mug-topper, 6 x 5 x 4 cm, all on one sheet, with a slot 9 mm wide and 12 mm deep in the bottom of both gables instead of a door, so it sits on the rim of a mug (most mug walls are 4 to 7 mm thick). At this size the chimney is off: its pieces would be too thin to bake with 6 mm dough. Roll the dough to 3 or 4 mm for a mini and the chimney becomes possible.
Can I get the measurements in cm, or in inches?
Both. Switch cm or inches at the top of the form: every label on the template changes to that unit, inches to the nearest 1/16 in, and the check bar becomes 2 in instead of 5 cm. The table above is the simple gingerbread house template with measurements for the four presets, if you would rather draw it on card yourself.
What roof pitch should I choose?
45° is the classic gingerbread house. A steeper roof (55 to 60°) makes taller gables and a more alpine look but sweets slide off it while the icing is wet; a flatter roof (25 to 35°) holds decorations easily but needs more icing at the ridge. The roof panels are always the gable's sloping edge plus the overhang, so they fit whatever angle you pick.
How thick should I roll the dough?
6 mm (1/4 in) is the usual thickness for a house: thinner walls bake crisp but snap when you build, thicker ones are sturdy but spread more. For a mini house, 3 to 4 mm. Whatever you choose, type it in the Dough field so the butt joints come out right.
My printed template is a little small. Why?
The print dialog scaled it. “Fit to page”, “Shrink oversized pages” and some phone print services reduce a page by 3 to 7% to fit their printable area. Every sheet keeps its lines at least 6 mm from the paper edge, inside what nearly every home printer can print, so choose “Actual size” or “100%” and check the bar.