There is something wonderful to be said about decorating a gingerbread house for Halloween!
While I love, love, LOVE the splendor of a white Christmas, and all that goes with it… Santa, reindeer, red and green everything, and WHITE snow that just warms my heart… there is something wonderful to be said about decorating a gingerbread house for Halloween.
Instead of light, joyous, festive and PERFECTION for Christmas, the look for a Halloween house is dark, haunted, ghostly… and FALLING APART. If you have never created a Halloween gingerbread house, certainly give it a try this next Halloween to add to your seasonal decorations!
Heidi’s Haunted House came to be when a friend of mine (Heidi) tagged me on this picture on Social Media… claiming this house would make a fantastic haunted gingerbread house. I couldn’t agree more! So off I went to create the template for this awesome dilapidated, probably haunted, soon to be covered in candy….house!
The finished size for this house is 14” wide x 15” deep x 16” tall (not including room for yard, landscaping, etc). This house presents well on a large base.
For the first time ever, Graham Crackers were used for siding, instead of painting the house with frosting. Since I live in the humid/damp Pacific Northwest, I usually frost all sides of my wall and roof pieces to prevent moisture soaking into the gingerbread and softening the piece.
Three different brands of Graham Crackers were used in order to achieve the different coloring, simulating the color variation common in bricks. For the cute corner bricks, Honey Maid Lil Squares were used. Wasa Crispbread was used for the roofing which provided nice texture to the house.
I decided to highlight the tower by using Harvest Blend M&M candy with light brown colored frosting as mortar. Caramel Candy Corn was used to trim out the top of the windows, and fun Peep ghosts throughout the display!
I wanted to make an assortment of trees, so I frosted several ice cream cones and rolled in a variety of sprinkles or attached candy.
Most of the pictures include black wrought iron… one of my favorite special design elements that I now use almost anywhere I can! I learned this method several years ago, and while not perfect I am able to produce a nice consistent rounded effect to mimic metal. Below are the step-by-step directions.
Finished pictures of Heidi’s Haunted House. For whatever reason I decided to not use poured sugar in the windows and instead frosted with yellow or black frosting, giving the house a different look than my typical house. I kind of like the look.
Special Design Elements
How-To instructions for special design elements can be found on the blog at www.gingerbreadbydesign.com (a website dedicated to the sharing of how-to instructions, templates, pictures, ideas, recipes, contests, etc.). I used the following special design element for this specific gingerbread house:
- Fence & Railing – Wrought-Iron with edible re-bar
- Bushes – Flake cereal, Marshmallow, green food coloring
- Fence Posts – Chocolate Rice cereal, orange marshmallows, yellow gum drops
- Trees – Ice-Cream Cone Trees
Decoration Candy
Doesn’t everybody have a box of left-over candy stored in their closet, at all times? I’m always scoping-out the perfect candy for my next gingerbread creation!
Candy used for this gingerbread house:
- Tower: Harvest Blend M&M candy
- Walls: Graham Crackers (multiple brands to obtain different colors and textures)
- Wall corners: Honey Maid Lil Squares
- Front Door: Chocolate candy bar
- Above Windows: Caramel Candy Corn
- Roof shingles: Wasa Crispbread
- Ground cover dirt: Chocolate Fudge frosting
- Front Walkway: Rye Crackers
- Fence Posts: Rice cereal, Marshmallows, Yellow Gum Drops, Black Dragees
- Bushes: Flake cereal and Marshmallows
- Pumpkins: Candy Corn Pumpkins
- Door Mat: Chocolate cookie
- Trees: Ice-Cream Cones; Assorted small candy (assorted candy corn, pixies, Halloween sprinkles, gum drops, sanding sugar / course sugar crystals)
- Peep ghosts
- Brown, orange, black, and green food coloring
Templates
Templates are available for this gingerbread house via electronic download of a .pdf file, or pre-printed and shipped.
Download – Template downloads are available in the Gingerbread-By-Design Online Store. Download the .pdf e-Template to your electronic device, print on your printer, cut-out the template pieces and assemble per the instructions provided. All templates are full-size and ready to use. No enlarging required.
Pre-Printed – Pre-printed templates are available in the Gingerbread-By-Design Online Store. These templates are pre-printed for you to then cut-out the template pieces, cut your pieces from gingerbread dough, bake, and assemble per the instructions provided. The pre-printed template packet includes:
- Template printed on 67lb card stock
- Supply and Candy List
- Recipes, including number of batches needed
- Rolling, Cutting, and Baking instructions
- Assembly instructions with step-by-step pictures
- Decorating suggestions, including design elements utilized
- Handy ziplock storage bag to store your templates
All templates are full-size and ready to use. No enlarging required.
Hello I am having trouble with the tower…can you send me how to construct??
Hi Jim! Thanks for the question. For the tower you will first build a four wall box with the shorter tower wall pieces (H pieces). Then there will be a flat square piece (J piece) that covers this four wall structure, and provides extended decking on two sides. Then use the longer four tower pieces (I pieces) to build the taller tower, and then another flat square piece is the final roof tower piece (K piece).
Does this help?