Not everyone spends Christmas in the snow. If your holidays come with flip flops, sand in the car and a palm tree in lights, a snowy cottage on the counter can feel like someone else’s December.
This is the beach version. It stands up on pilings like a real coastal house, with a deck that wraps the front and one side, stairs down to brown sugar sand, and a sea of melted blue candy you can see through. Our house dough and royal icing recipes set every bake temperature and wait, and the free template was checked by a script so the pilings, the deck, the walls and the roof fit.
You will end up with a house about 7 inches tall on a 12 inch board, from one batch of dough over two days. Start with the template, then the icing work, the plan and 16 steps.
Beach House Gingerbread House: At a Glance
- Difficulty: Medium. Every cut is straight and the roof is two plain rectangles, but the house sits on a skirt and a floor plate, so it goes up in layers.
- Total time: about 1 1/2 days, in seven sessions. Most of it is icing drying.
- Active time: about 7 3/4 hours, counting the dough chill and the bake.
- Makes: a house 4 by 3 inches on a 6 by 5 inch deck, about 7 inches tall, with stairs, sand, a sea, a palm and a surfboard on a 12 inch board.
- Template: free 5-page PDF, US Letter, true size with a 1 inch test bar on every page.
Tools: printer, ruler, scissors, rolling pin with 1/4 inch guides, parchment, 2 half sheet pans, paring knife, 6 piping bags, two small round tips, toothpicks, cups for propping, offset spatula, 12 inch cake board, 1 battery LED tea light.
Materials
- 1 batch of dough that bakes flat and stays square
- 2 batches of our royal icing for flooding and piping
- Gel food coloring: sky blue, leaf green, royal blue, black, lemon yellow and brown
- About 6 yellow hard candies for the windows and about 20 blue hard candies for the sea
- 1 pretzel rod for the palm trunk
- About 1 cup of light brown sugar or crushed graham crackers for the sand, colored nonpareils for palm lights, and a few white sugar pearls for sea foam
Steps
- Print the template at Actual Size and measure the test bar.
- Make the dough and chill it for at least an hour.
- Roll the dough 1/4 inch thick and cut the floor plate, the two gables and the side walls.
- Cut the roof panels, the skirt, the bearers, the rails, the stairs and the surfboard.
- Bake at 300 degrees F, melt yellow candy into the windows, and melt the blue candy sea on its own sheet.
- Trim every piece against the template while it is warm.
- Flood the walls aqua, the roof pale grey, the door yellow and the surfboard white.
- Pipe the pilings and lattice, the siding lines and the roof seams.
- Pipe the shutters, the trim, the wreath and the balusters, glue the stairs, and leave everything overnight.
- Stand the skirt and the bearers, set the floor plate on top, then wait 2 hours.
- Stand the four walls on the plate, then wait 2 hours.
- Set the two roof panels and pipe the ridge.
- Stand the deck railings, then wait 4 hours.
- Stand the stairs.
- Spread the sand, lay the sea, plant the palm and lean the surfboard.
- Light the house with a battery tea light.
Notes: times are worked out from the set times on our icing page, not timed on a build. Ovens vary, so check every bake early and go by the matte surface and firm edge. Humid air softens gingerbread and slows icing, so read the note on coastal kitchens before you start.
Free Printable Beach Gingerbread House Template
The template is five US Letter pages with sixteen shapes at true size over a faint 1/2 inch grid. Download the PDF, print it at Actual Size, and check that the red bar measures 1 inch before you cut anything.
| Piece | Cut | Size | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor plate | 1 | 6 x 5 in | Carries the house and the wraparound deck. |
| Front and back gables | 1 + 1 | 4 in wide, 4 3/4 in to the peak | Front: two windows, a marked door and a round attic window. Back: a light doorway. |
| Side walls | 2 | 2 1/2 x 2 3/4 in | One window each. They tuck between the gables. |
| Roof panels | 2 | 3 1/2 x about 3 1/4 in | The metal roof, at 45 degrees with a 1/4 inch overhang all round. |
| Skirt | 2 + 2 | 6 and 4 1/4 x 1 3/4 in | Pilings and white lattice, the base the house stands on. |
| Bearers | 2 | 5 1/2 and 2 1/2 x 1 3/4 in | Hidden supports under the house walls. |
| Railings | 5 | 4 3/4, 3.45, 1.45 and two 1 3/4 x 7/10 in | The deck rail around the front and the left side. |
| Stairs and surfboard | 2 + 3, 1 | see the piece list | Four even steps to the sand and a board to lean on the rail. |
The skirt is 1 3/4 inches tall, so with the 1/4 inch plate the deck sits 2 inches up: exactly four stair steps of 1/2 inch. The house takes the back right corner of the plate, which leaves a 2 inch deck across the front and down the left side. The pieces come to about 155 square inches, so one batch covers them if you re-roll the scraps once.
For a different coastal shape, our six-sided lighthouse pattern stands nicely beside this house, and the dozen more printable house patterns on our templates page fit together the same way.
Why Build a Beach House for Christmas
Snow is the default on almost every gingerbread house, but a lot of people spend December somewhere warm. In Florida, along the Gulf, in Southern California and in Hawaii, the holiday looks like palm trees in lights and a sandy walk to the water. A beach house on the counter matches the view outside.
We put this one on pilings because that is how many real beach houses stand. According to FEMA’s fact sheet on coastal foundations, homes in the most exposed coastal flood zones, called Zone V, must stand on open foundations of piers, columns or piles, because solid walls would block the water. The lattice between the pilings is the finish you see on a lot of those houses, and it makes the gingerbread version look right straight away.
The rest says beach at a glance: aqua siding, dark shutters, a metal roof, a white deck rail, a palm, a surfboard and blue water. A wreath on the door and lights on the palm make it Christmas.
Is There a Beach House Gingerbread House Kit?
Target’s Favorite Day line has sold a Christmas beach house kit made of sugar cookie rather than gingerbread, listed at about $12, and it appears in our rundown of this year’s Target kits. It makes a small shack with a palm, not a raised house with a deck. To get one on pilings with a sea you can see through, bake it from the template on this page, or dress up any kit with the shortcut near the end.
The Lattice, the Siding and the Metal Roof: The Icing Work
The pilings and lattice. Leave the four skirt pieces bare gingerbread, because the brown reads as the shadow under the house. Pipe a thick white line at each piling guide, then a diagonal white lattice between them along the dotted guides, first one way, then the other.
The siding. Flood both gables and the side walls sea glass aqua: white with a drop of sky blue and a smaller drop of leaf green. Once it crusts, pipe fine horizontal lines in a slightly deeper aqua for clapboard siding, and a thick white line up both gable edges.
The metal roof. Flood the two roof panels pale grey, white with the smallest drop of black. Once it crusts, pipe thin white seams along the guides from the ridge to the eave. Standing seams are what turn a grey roof into a beach house roof. Try other paint jobs in the studio below before you tint a bowl.
Beach Cottage Color Studio
Try a few coastal paint jobs before you tint a bowl. The preview updates, and you get the icing mix for the walls, the shutters and the roof.
Colors on screen are approximate, and gel colors vary by brand, so tint a spoonful and let a dot dry before you mix the whole bowl. Nothing you choose leaves your browser.
How Long It Takes, Day by Day
Plan on seven sessions over two days, about 7 3/4 hours of hands-on work. The floor plate sets on the skirt before any walls go on.
| When | What you do | Hands-on | Then wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1, morning | Print, make and chill the dough, cut, bake, melt the candy windows and the candy sea, and trim. | About 3 hours | Until cool |
| Day 1, early afternoon | Flood the walls, the roof, the door and the surfboard. | 45 minutes | About 1 hour |
| Day 1, afternoon | Pipe the lattice, siding, seams, shutters, trim, wreath and balusters. Glue the stairs, pipe the palm fronds. | About 70 minutes | Overnight, pieces flat |
| Day 2, early morning | Stand the skirt and bearers and set the floor plate on top. | 35 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, mid morning | Stand the four walls. | 35 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, midday | Set the roof, pipe the ridge and stand the deck railings. | 45 minutes | 4 hours |
| Day 2, late afternoon | Stand the stairs, make the beach and light it. | About 50 minutes | Overnight before you move it |
A note on coastal kitchens. Sugar pulls water out of the air, so in a humid kitchen royal icing sets more slowly and gingerbread softens over the days it stands. Run the air conditioning while you build, add half again to every wait, and keep the finished house out of a steamy kitchen. Choose the humid setting in the planner and it stretches the waits for you.
Beach House Gingerbread Build Day Planner
Pick when you want the beach house finished. The planner counts back through every drying time and tells you when to start baking.
For planning only: icing sets faster or slower with the weather, so treat each wait as a minimum and check that joints feel firm before moving on. Not professional baking advice. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
How to Make a Beach House Gingerbread House Step by Step
1. Print the template and measure the test bar
Print all five pages at Actual Size or 100 percent, never Fit to Page, and check that the red bar reads exactly 1 inch.
Why this matters: a skirt printed a little short leaves the stairs one step out.
2. Make the dough and chill it
Make one batch of house dough, split it in two, flatten each half into an inch-thick disc, wrap and chill for at least an hour, until a poked disc dents and stays dented.
Why this matters: cold dough spreads less, so the skirt pieces stay the same height and the deck sits level.
3. Roll the dough and cut the floor plate, the gables and the side walls
Roll a disc on parchment to an even 1/4 inch between guide strips. Cut the floor plate, the front and back gables and the two side walls, then cut out the windows, the round attic window and the light doorway. Trace the door with a toothpick instead of cutting it, and press the dashed house outline lightly into the floor plate.
Why this matters: the outline on the plate tells you exactly where the walls stand, so the deck comes out the same width all the way round.
4. Cut the roof panels, the skirt, the bearers, the rails, the stairs and the surfboard
From the second disc, cut the two roof panels, the skirt front and back, the two skirt sides and the two bearers. From the scraps, cut the five railings, two stringers, flipping the paper for the second, three treads and the surfboard.
Why this matters: the stringers are mirror images. Cut both the same way up and the steps will lean.
5. Bake, melt the candy windows, and melt the candy sea
Bake at 300 degrees F. Large pieces take 22 to 30 minutes, until matte with a firm edge. Start checking the rails, treads and surfboard at about 12 minutes. Pull the walls about 5 minutes early, fill each window two crushed yellow candies deep, and bake again until the candy melts flat.
For the sea, crush the blue candies, spread them on a parchment-lined pan in a strip about 8 by 3 inches with one wavy edge, and bake until the candy melts flat. This is the same trick we use to melt hard candy into clear windows. Hard crack, where the candy flows, is 300 to 308 degrees F at sea level per Colorado State University Extension, so it melts slowly at this oven setting. If it is still lumpy after about 10 minutes, raise the oven to 325 degrees F and watch closely.
Why this matters: a sea poured as one sheet stays clear and glassy. Crushed candy scattered on the board just looks like gravel.
6. Trim every piece while it is warm
Within two minutes of each pan coming out, trim any edge that spread past the paper piece. Check the four skirt pieces and the two roof panels most carefully. Leave everything on the pan until cool.
Why this matters: uneven skirt pieces tilt the deck, and a roof panel that spread hangs crooked at the ridge.
7. Flood the walls, the roof, the door and the surfboard
Thin most of the first batch of icing until a knife line closes in about 10 seconds. Flood both gables and the side walls sea glass aqua, the roof panels pale grey, the door yellow and the surfboard white. Leave the plate, the skirt, the bearers, the rails and the stair pieces bare.
Why this matters: the siding lines, seams and lattice only stay crisp on a flood that has crusted.
8. Pipe the pilings and lattice, the siding and the roof seams
Once the floods look matte, about an hour, pipe the white piling lines and the lattice between them on the skirt pieces, the deeper aqua siding lines on the walls and the white seams on both roof panels.
9. Pipe the shutters, the trim, the wreath and the balusters, then glue the stairs
Pipe navy shutters beside each front window, white frames around every window and a ring of white around the attic window. Pipe a small green wreath on the door with a red dot for the bow. Pipe a top rail and white balusters on the five railings, and a stripe down the surfboard. Glue a tread across the two stringers at each notch and flood the stairs white. Pipe palm fronds in green on parchment. Leave everything flat overnight.
Why this matters: the stairs and the fronds need the night to set hard.
10. Stand the skirt and the bearers, then set the floor plate on top
Spread thick white icing where the house will go, toward the back of the board. Stand the skirt back, the two sides and the front, so the sides tuck between. Stand bearer A across the inside with its front face 1 3/4 inches behind the front of the skirt, and bearer B from it to the back skirt with its left face 2 inches in from the outside of the left skirt. Pipe icing on every top edge, lower the floor plate on flush at the back and sides, check it is level and wait 2 hours.
Why this matters: the bearers sit right under the house walls. Without them, 1/4 inch of cookie carries the whole house.
11. Stand the four walls on the plate
Stand the back gable flush with the back of the plate, then the right side wall flush with the right edge, then the left side wall on its guide line, and finally the front gable. Prop with cups and wait 2 hours.
Why this matters: the front gable and the left wall stand right above the two hidden bearers.
12. Set the two roof panels and pipe the ridge
Pipe icing along both sloped edges of each gable and the tops of the side walls. Set the right panel first with its red ridge edge at the peak, hold it a minute, then set the left panel so it overlaps the right at the ridge. Pipe a thick white seam along the ridge.
Why this matters: with a front gable, the ridge runs from front to back, so both panels rest on both gables at once and stay put.
13. Stand the deck railings
Pipe a line of icing along the edge of the plate. Stand the long left rail first, then the front left rail against its end, the front right rail on the other side of the stair gap, and the two short rails at the ends of the deck. Pipe each corner joint and wait 4 hours.
Why this matters: the corners brace each other. A rail standing on its own on a 1/4 inch edge will tip.
14. Stand the stairs
Pipe icing along the bottom and back edges of the stringers and push the stairs into the gap in the front rail, centered on the door.
Why this matters: four even steps read as stairs. Uneven ones read as a ramp of cookies.
15. Spread the sand, lay the sea, plant the palm and lean the surfboard
Spread a thin layer of white icing over the board in front of and around the house, then shower it with light brown sugar and press it in lightly. Lay the candy sea along the front edge of the board on a few dots of icing, and pipe white foam along its wavy edge with a few sugar pearls. For the palm, push the pretzel rod into a blob of icing beside the left deck and stick the dried fronds to the top with thick green icing, then dot them with colored nonpareils for Christmas lights. Lean the surfboard against the right side of the deck.
Why this matters: on a white board it is just a house on stilts. The sand and the sea make it a beach house.
16. Light the house
Slide an LED tea light in through the back doorway onto the floor plate, and the windows and the round attic window glow. Use only battery lights, because a candle can scorch sugar walls, which is why our guide to lighting a house safely from inside sticks to them. Let it stand overnight before you move it.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | Why it happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The deck tilts | One skirt piece came out taller | Shave it with a fine grater before you build. Trim all four warm next time. |
| The floor plate cracked | A bearer was left out or misplaced | Pipe icing into the crack from below and add the bearer under the wall line. |
| A roof panel slides | Thin icing, or the walls were still soft | Prop it with a can for 20 minutes. Wait the full 2 hours on the walls first. |
| A gap at the ridge | The panels spread in the oven | Fill it with the thick ridge seam. Trim the roof warm next time. |
| A railing tips over | It went on before its corner partner | Stand the long left rail first and build the corners off it. |
| The candy sea is cloudy or bubbly | It was pulled before it melted flat, or overheated | Melt a fresh sheet and pull it the moment it goes glassy. |
| The sand clumps | Brown sugar takes on water in humid air | Switch to crushed graham crackers, which stay loose. |
| The stairs do not reach the deck | The skirt or stair pieces spread | Add a thin wafer tread on the top step. |
| The walls soften after a few days | A humid room | Move the house somewhere dry and cool, away from the sink and the stove. |
Want a Different Paint Job or a Bigger Beach?
The studio above starts from sea glass aqua and swaps in coral, butter yellow, flamingo pink or white walls with other roofs. Our themed house ideas include more houses that skip the snow, and a lighthouse turns the board into a stretch of coast.
Easier Versions: No-Bake and Kit Shortcuts
A No-Bake Graham Cracker Beach House for Small Kids
Glue four graham cracker halves into a low box for the pilings and lay a whole cracker on top for the deck, then build a graham cottage on it with a grey iced roof. A no-bake graham cracker house needs royal icing, not tub frosting, to stand. Crushed graham crackers make the sand, and blue tinted icing makes the sea.
The Kit Shortcut
Stand any plain kit on the same graham box with piped white lattice, flood the walls aqua and the roof grey with white seams, and add brown sugar sand, a pretzel palm and a blue candy sea. Our notes on which store kits are worth buying point to the boxes that stay standing.
Storage Instructions
Keep the house in a cool, dry room, away from the stove, the dishwasher and sunny windows. In a humid climate, an air conditioned room is the difference between a few days and a few weeks. Make the icing with meringue powder if you plan to eat any.
FAQ
What can I use for sand on a gingerbread house?
Light brown sugar looks the most like real sand. Crushed graham crackers or vanilla wafers stay looser in humid weather, and a mix of both gives you a darker wet sand line by the water.
Can I make it bigger?
Yes. Print at 125 percent for a house about 9 inches tall. The pieces come to about 240 square inches, so you need a second batch of dough and a 15 inch board.
More Gingerbread House Builds and Recipes
Our Bluey house build stands up on piers too, and our Hundred Acre Wood tree house comes with a template as well. When something sags, our fixes for a sagging roof work on any house.
Build Your Next House With Best Gingerbread Houses
The beach house proves the point we come back to on every build: a few strong details tell the whole story. Here it is the pilings and lattice, a metal roof, a white deck rail and a strip of blue candy sea. When you want a head start, our ranked list of gingerbread house kits sorts the good boxes from the wobbly ones.