Christmas shouldn’t get all of the fun with gingerbread houses! It’s time to share the love, so I introduce you to myHaunted Halloween Gingerbread House.They are such a great activity during Halloween. Let your creative spooky juices flow on this one.

front view of a Halloween gingerbread house

Halloween is a great time to create haunted houses.Schedules aren’t nearly as hectic as during the Christmas season and it is a holiday based around candy – how fitting! Your family or friends will have such a fabulous time making this Halloween rendition of gingerbread houses.

Seasonal activities are my favorite. It is such a treat to break the mold and do something out of the ordinary like Halloween gingerbread houses. Kids of all ages will enjoy creating this masterpiece. I think it would also be afun activity for your family, classroom, group date or even an adult party.

close up side view of a Halloween gingerbread house

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Encourages Creativity: Halloween gingerbread houses allow you to explore your artistic side.
Holiday Tradition: These Halloween houses can become a beloved annual tradition.
Fun: Building a Haunted Halloween Gingerbread House is a perfect activity to get into the Halloween spirit.

Ingredients

Butter
Brown Sugar
Egg
Molasses
Flour
Ground Ginger
Baking Soda
Ground Cinnamon
Ground Nutmeg
Ground Allspice
Salt
Royal Icing: leave white or color with gel food coloring
Candy: candy corn, tootsie rolls, ghosts, licorice, sprinkles, etc.

See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities

Back view of a Halloween gingerbread house with a spider web piped in icing across it

How to Make Haunted Halloween Gingerbread Houses

Step #1.Create and print a paper pattern for your gingerbread house. Preheat the oven and prep a jelly roll pan with parchment paper and non-stick spray.

Step #3.Bake 20-25 minutes til golden. While still warm, place the pattern pieces on top and cut out with a paring knife. (Do not remove pieces from pan.) Let cool completely.

Step #2.In a large bowl, cream the brown sugar and butter. Stir in the egg and molasses. Add the flour and spices and mix to form a thick dough. Press into prepared pan.

Step #4.Assemble pieces with royal icing and decorate as desired with icing and candy.

Recipe FAQs

What base do you use for gingerbread houses?

Before you start building you want to find a sturdy base to build your gingerbread house on. A couple suggestions are building on a cookie sheet, a piece of cardboard, and my personal favorite is to use a cardboard cake board, they are so sturdy, meant for food, and you aren’t tying up one for your cookie sheets.

What is the best way to stick a gingerbread house together?

The best way to construct your house is to use royal icing. This icing acts as a glue because it will harden once it dries. You can find royal icing recipes that use raw egg whites (very traditional), and you can find royal icing recipe that use powdered meringue which also works great. Use what you prefer.

Do you eat Halloween gingerbread houses?

YES! You can use your haunted gingerbread as a decoration or you can munch on it. It’s up to you, but keep in mind the candy will get hard after a couple of days. That being said, my kids favorite part of making a gingerbread house is eating it! What they don’t eat we set outside and let the birds and squirrels take. This recipe is 100% edible and the gingerbread used in construction is delicious!

Halloween Gingerbread House Details

Here’s the back view (above)

The roof is lined with black licorice on the cut edges of the gingerbread, this really cleans up those cut line. The “boards” for the house on the gingerbread are made withedible marker, those marks were made before we assembled the house. The spiderweb is made with royal icing that we died purple (we used that purple royal icing on everything you see). Food Crafting brand sells a purple powdered sugar at Joann’s and we used it for our purple royal icing (in place of traditional white powdered sugar). It was a short cut to getting what we wanted and we didn’t have to add any additional food coloring.

close up side view of Halloween gingerbread house

Side View (above)

We made the Peep marshmallow ghosts a pumpkin patch with candy corn pumpkins and green royal icing. Isn’t that a fun way to fill in the space around the house? After we assembled the house we spread a thin layer of purple royal icing on the cake board and then covered it with a layer of finely crushed Oreo cookies for a “dirt layer”. Putting the Oreos in the food processor gets them to a very fine texture that is all the same color. The path to the front door is made out ofWilton Cookies and Cream Crunch sprinkles, and we used broken pieces of purple and orange rock candy as well as chocolate rock candy to make a boarder around the house.

close up view of the roof and second story of Halloween gingerbread house

Front view of the second story of the haunted house (above)

We wanted the haunted house to have a crooked second story and it was pretty hard to engineer. We made a prototype out of foam board a few different times to get the size, angles, and a pattern for our gingerbread. We lined the roof with candy corn and candy corn pumpkins, we added royal icing lines for roof tiles, and we usedWilton sprinkles from Joann’sin orange and black on the roof and around the windows.

close up view of the tootsie roll headstones next to the Halloween gingerbread house

Side graveyard view (above)

We made a little graveyard out of tootsie rolls that we shaped into headstones. We dusted them with powdered sugar to give them an aged look and wrote on them with edible marker to make “RIP” and some cracks. We loved using the Peep marshmallow ghosts to add some tenants to our haunted gingerbread house. Seriously though, how cute did this turn out!