You can make a cute, festive, tasty gingerbread house that’s gluten free and vegan! This is a fun and delicious project to make with your family. Enjoy decorating a cozy little cookie house with your favorite icing and allergy friendly candy this holiday season.
What holiday traditions do you enjoy with your family?
Our family loves baking allergy friendly cookies, watching Christmas movies, making handmade gifts, and driving around to look at Christmas lights.
We also love making gingerbread houses. We have done this over the years with varying levels of success…it’s not easy to make homemade gingerbread houses with little ones helping out! No matter how the end product looked though, it always tasted great and was a fun time making memories with my boys.
I wanted to share a recipe for a simple allergy friendly gingerbread house with you today. This is a recipe that’s free of the top 8 allergens, and it’s pretty easy to put together.
This house isn’t going to win any prizes on the Great British Bake-Off – it’s not perfect. There’s still a little crooked edge here, a little blob of icing there. But it does look pretty cute and colorful, and it tastes delicious. Plus, we had fun making it together, and that’s what counts.
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Top Tip
Here’s my number one tip for making a gluten free vegan gingerbread house successfully: Make an A-frame house.
It’s more stable, it’s easier to assemble, and it’s easier for it to stay assembled with just icing.
Gingerbread House Pattern
I used the A-frame pattern from Taste of Home, found here. It was easy to work with – I printed the pattern out, then traced the pattern onto waxed paper.
Once I rolled out the chilled dough, I placed the waxed paper patterns on the dough and traced around them with a sharp knife.
This recipe makes enough dough for the parts to an A-frame house plus about a dozen cookies. We wanted to make some trees and horses for a gingerbread scene, but most of those cookies got eaten before they made it onto the scene. :)
Gluten Free Flour
I have always used Namaste Perfect Flour Blend for gingerbread men and gingerbread houses. It works very well! This flour blend results in a dough that is easy to roll out, and it doesn’t spread out as you bake it.
The cookie walls and roof are also very sturdy when made with this flour. They are not crumbly or too soft – they are strong enough to hold frosting and candy.
Adhering the Walls and Roof
One way to get the house to stick together is to use sugar glue. However, sugar glue is easy to burn, and it also gets really hot – you have to be very careful not to burn yourself. Don’t attempt to use sugar glue with young children around – it’s a job for grown ups.
I prefer to use a thick frosting to glue the house together – see the section below.
Assembly Tips
To adhere the walls and roof, make a very thick frosting with just powdered sugar and a little water – you want it to be really thick. This is a good way to stick the pieces together.
The frosting should be almost as thick as modelling clay or poster putty. If it is runny at all, the house will not stick together.
Another tip for getting the structure to be really sturdy is to let the walls and roof sit out for at least 8 hours or overnight. This will dry the cookies out a bit, making them harder and more sturdy.
Allergy Friendly Candy
We kept our candy decorations pretty simple this year. We used Yum Earth candy canes, Yum Earth Giggles (which are an allergy friendly version of Skittles), and Chocolate No-No’s (which are a top 8 free version of M&Ms). All three of these candies are also free of artificial dyes as well.
Use any candy that works for your dietary needs! You could try Smarties, Spangler candy canes, Enjoy Life chocolate chips or chocolate bars, Surf Sweets jelly beans, Yum Earth lollipops, or any other candy that works for your particular diet.
I have a complete guide to allergy friendly candy that you can read to get other ideas to make your creation extra special.
Storage
Store this gingerbread house at room temperature. You can cover it with plastic wrap if you want to avoid it drying out too quickly, but it will kind of harden up as time goes on.
It should look cute for at least a week, if not longer. It will definitely be too hard to eat after a while.
More Holiday Cookie Recipes
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Recipe
Gluten Free Vegan Gingerbread House Recipe.
Ingredients
For the gingerbread dough:
- ¾ cup vegan buttery spread I used Earth Balance Soy Free
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 7 ½ Tablespoons unsulfured molasses
- 4 ½ Tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
- 3 ½ cups gluten free flour blend I used Namaste Perfect Flour Blend
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 ¾ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
For the icing:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup water Read instructions carefully – you will be making 2 types of frosting
- 2 Tablespoons vegan buttery spread
For the candy decorations:
- 2 candy canes
- ½ cup Chocolate No-No's
- ½ cup Giggles
Instructions
- Place the brown sugar and vegan buttery spread in a mixing bowl and mix on medium speed until smooth and combined.
- Add the applesauce and molasses and continue to mix. Reduce the speed to low and add half the gluten free flour blend. Mix until combined.Â
- Add the other half of the gluten free flour blend, salt, baking soda, and the spices. Mix on low speed until smooth and combined.Â
- Divide the dough into two portions and pat into discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and chill in the freezer for one hour, or the refrigerator for two hours.
- Print out the pattern, and trace the shapes onto waxed paper. Cut out the waxed paper pattern pieces carefully.
- After the chilling time, get two cookie sheets out and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Place a piece of parchment paper on your rolling surface, and dust lightly with gluten free flour. Place a chilled disc of dough on the waxed paper, and sprinkle flour on top. Dust a rolling pin with gluten free flour and roll the dough out until it reaches a thickness of about a quarter-inch (¼").
- Place the pattern pieces on the dough and cut around them with a sharp knife. You can probably get two walls or two roof pieces out of each disc of dough.
- Remove the scraps of dough surrounding the pieces, and carefully lift the parchment, with the walls or roof on it, and place on one of the cookie sheets. This is the best way to get the walls or roof to maintain their shape.
- Repeat steps 7-9 until you get all the house pieces cut out.
- Place the cookie walls and roof in the oven. Bake at 350 degrees for about 16-18 minutes. If you are doing two cookie sheets at the same time, rotate once during baking. Set aside to cool.
- If you have extra dough, you can go ahead and cut out other cookie shapes to add to your scene, or just to eat separately. Try Christmas trees, deer, horses, cars, etc.
- If you can, allow the walls and roof to sit out uncovered for 8 hours or overnight. This will allow them to harden a bit, making them even sturdier.
Make the icing:
- Place the powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl, and add about 2 Tablespoons of water. Mix on medium speed, drizzling in just a little water at a time until the icing is very thick, like modelling clay or poster putty. (You are going to make two different consistencies of icing. This is what we are going to glue the house together with. If you are opting to make sugar glue on the stove top, skip this step).
Assemble the gingerbread house:
- Get out a tray, plate, or cookie sheet where you will set up your gingerbread house. Roll some of the icing glue into little balls or ropes and set aside. To assemble an A-frame house, take the back wall, and press some of the frosting balls or ropes along the edge. Take one roof piece and press against the edge of the wall, holding firmly for a minute so that it adheres.
- Take the front wall, and do the same thing with the icing. Press against the roof firmly.
- Place icing glue on the other edges of the walls, and press the roof piece on. If your icing too runny, the house will not stick together. You can always add more powdered sugar to thicken it up.
- Once the house is stable, go back to the icing in the bowl (there will be a lot left), and add the 2 Tablespoons of vegan buttery spread. Turn on the mixer, and add a little more water at a time until the icing is the proper consistency for piping. You don't want it too thin or it will run all over the place.
- If you want to make the designs on the roof like I did, fit a piping bag with a #48 icing tip. Spoon the icing into the bag, and twist the top.
- Start at the top of the roof, and start piping in whatever way you choose. I piped a basic border, but went from top to bottom. You can see how to pipe a basic border with this tip in this video.
- Once you have the icing on the way you want, start adding candy! This is the fun part – add the candy in any amount or pattern that you choose. Be creative!
Darryl
This came out just right, it was half eaten the first night!
Thank you for sharing!