Making gingerbread houses during the Christmas season is a great tradition for family and children. There are many gingerbread house kit brands to choose from which can be a little confusing. That’s why we reviewed the Wilton Gingerbread houses.
First, we will introduce you to the brand and next, we will discuss our experience with the Wilton gingerbread house kit.
What is Wilton
Wilton is a trusted baking company known for high-quality bakeware, baking tools & ingredients. During the holiday season, starting with Halloween and ending with Christmas; you can find Wilton gingerbread house kits online and in grocery stores.
Wilton has been a household name for gingerbread house kits for many years. And over the last few years that have continued to develop fun and unique gingerbread house kits.
Review of Wilton Gingerbread House
The Wilton Gingerbread house is one of the best gingerbread house kits one can purchase during the holiday season. Most Wilton Gingerbread houses are medium to small in size and come with everything you need to decorate.
What comes with the Wilton Gingerbread House Kit
Here is what comes with the Wilton Gingerbread House kit · Pre-baked gingerbread house pieces – 6 pieces of edible gingerbread which is 7.25 in. wide x 7.75 in. deep x 6.25 once built. · Gingerbread House Candy – gumdrops, dots, and smarties. · Fondant – the kits come with green and red fondant. · Royal Icing – one package of ready to use royal icing · Cardboard Base – a base to hold the gingerbread house kit up. · Decorating Tools –piping bags and a few decorating tips for the fondant and royal icing.
Quality of the Gingerbread House
The Wilton gingerbread house has good to gingerbread quality compared to other gingerbread house kits. If you are looking for better quality gingerbread, your best option would be to make your house from scratch.
Cost of the Wilton Gingerbread House Kit
Wilton gingerbread house kits can cost between $12 to $19.99 online or in stores. Compared to other gingerbread houses, Wilton houses can be on less expensive sizes.
Wilton Gingerbread House Frequently asked Questions
During the creation of a Wilton gingerbread house, you may have a few common questions.
How long does it take to make a gingerbread house?
Typically, the Wilton gingerbread house will last two weeks
What are the ingredients? Are they edible?
Here is a list of the ingredients of a Wilton Gingerbread House
Yes, they are edible for the first week. Gingerbread and candy can be a little hard or stale.
Our Conclusion
For its low cost, this is an excellent kit of kids and family members. It’s easy to create and very easy to clean up. Overall, we would recommend purchasing this kit for the holiday season.
Coming along way from the German folklore, Hansel and Gretel, making gingerbread treats for the household during the holiday is a popular tradition. In the U.S and many parts of Europe, families dedicate a day to creating unique and personalized gingerbread houses to get into the Christmas spirit. It’s a fun family activity which many kids enjoy. When thinking about making a gingerbread house, there are many options, such as either making it from a pre-made gingerbread house kit or from scratch. In this article, we will walk you throw the steps of making a gingerbread house from both. Before we get into the directions, here are some things to consider before creating your gingerbread house.
How long before Christmas should I make my gingerbread house?
You can make your gingerbread house about 2 to 3 weeks before Christmas. A gingerbread house kit tends to keep fresh and safe to eat for 2 to 3 weeks. Making the gingerbread house from scratch, the you can make a gingerbread house about 4 weeks before Christmas and it still will be fresh and safe to eat. If you want to extend the lifespan of your house, consider freezing it.
Should I make a gingerbread house from a kit or from scratch?
Deciding to build your gingerbread house from a kit vs scratch is a night and day process. Depending on how much time you have and the individual who are making the houses with you, one creation process may be better suited for you and your party. Below are the pros and cons of building a gingerbread house from a kit vs from scratch
The Difference Gingerbread House Kits vs Making from Scratch
Making a gingerbread house from a kit is simply faster and cleaner. You do not have to worry about buying all the ingredients, making the royal icing and baking the gingerbread from scratch. This saves significant assembly time, money for all the needed ingredients and clean up time. On average, making a gingerbread house from a kit usually takes about 1-2 hours with minimal cleanup efforts, which makes it a short and sweet activity compared to making it from scratch.
Making a gingerbread house from scratch however, can be a multi-day process. You will need to purchase many ingredients beforehand. The prepping, baking, decorating and clean up can make this activity last up to 3-4 hours depending on how many individuals are making houses.
One of the downsides of making a gingerbread house from a kit is that you lose potential quality bonding time with you and your kids, family or friends when compared to creating everything from scratch. Also, you lose the personalization aspect since most kits have the same look and decorations. We would recommend consider who is making the gingerbread house for the appropriate decision on building it from scratch or from a kit.
If you have children who are a bit younger and are just looking forward the decorating aspect of building a gingerbread house, we would recommend purchasing a kit. There are many kits that will suite the appropriate age levels and vary sizes such as small, medium and large gingerbread houses. If you are making It with older friends and family, creating the house from scratch while eating and drinking can make it a very fun and relaxing activity. Maybe include the children after all the baking has been included.
What you will need to create a gingerbread house from a kit
While kits have almost everything you need to create an easy to assemble and cute decoration. There is a good chance that you may need to purchase additional ingredients.
Additional Candy such as M&Ms, peppermints and candy canes
Additional Royal icing
A base for your gingerbread house
And additional decorations such as fake snow, Christmas trees and lights.
How to make a gingerbread house from a kit.
A gingerbread house kit will give you basic instructions on how to assemble your gingerbread house.
All depending if the kit is pre-assembled or not, these steps may vary. For some kits, they do not give enough icing or candy. We found the main issue with some kits is that there wasn’t enough icing. To make your own royal icing from scratch, please review our section here:
The steps below are for a gingerbread house that comes “un-assembled.”
Directions on how to make a gingerbread house:
Take out all the needed materials – you need the kit, candy, icing, a base for the house and additional decorations. Make sure you chose an area that has enough space for all of these
2.Read the kit directions that come with the kit – While its very straight forward on how to build a gingerbread house, some of the kits may have some minor details and tips such as knowing how long to hold the gingerbread pieces together while constructing the house.
3. Find some gingerbread house inspiration and ideas – Before making and decorating your gingerbread house, find some fun and easy gingerbread decorating ideas. This will give you an vision to work towards. Having an idea before you start decorating on the fly is a sure way to come out with beautiful looking gingerbread house.
4. Start decorating the pre-made gingerbread pieces. While it may seem natural to want to decorate after the house has been constructed, we have found that decorating all the pieces at a flat angle vs being constructed is way easier and leads to a more polished and clean design. If you are working with kids, either way is fine; as long as they have fun. Follow your design or begin to free hand your work.
5.Start building your house by icing the sides of the pre-made gingerbread. Start with the base of the house, frost the edges and place and hold the wall pieces for 45+ seconds to make sure the piece sticks. The pre-made royal icing will get hard and hold the piece together. Do this step for all four walls. Once the walls have solidified, add your icing to the roof portion of your house. Hold the pieces down for 45+ second (gently) and wait for them to hard.
6. Let the gingerbread house fully dry and harden. After you assemble and decorate your house, we highly recommend waiting about 30-45mins after to ensure the house is ready for transportation.
7. Add your additional décor and make it a centerpiece. After the gingerbread house has dried. Add fake snow, Christmas trees, lights and other Christmas décor to make it standout. Then place it on a dinner table or on the mantle as a Christmas centerpiece everyone can enjoy.
In the next week, we will add instructions to this blog post on how to make a gingerbread house from scratch.
During the month of October, many like to create spooky haunted gingerbread houses with candy ghosts, frosted tomb-stones and miniature pumpkin molds to get in the Halloween spirit.
Halloween gingerbread houses are not just a fun activity to do with children, but make an excellent decoration centerpiece for any home. When thinking about creating a Halloween gingerbread house, you can choose to make the house from a kit or from scratch. Below, we have compiled the Halloween gingerbread house kits and decoration ideas to help inspire you.
This kit is easy to build and friendly for those who have peanut allergies. The kit is certified and made in a Peanut free and Tree Nut Free Facility and certified kosher. Overall, this is the best haunted house gingerbread of 2021.
This is a new Halloween themed gingerbread house hit in 2021. We like the Oreo Spooky Graveyard Chocolate Cookie Kit because its not a standard haunted house, but has a spooky graveyard; which makes it unique.
This Halloween cookie house kit includes
Chocolate house pieces
Chocolate cookie tomb stones
Mini Oreo cookies
Chocolate and Vanilla Icing
Candy jewelry
Candy Bats
3. Wilton Halloween Gingerbread Cookie House Kit
While there are not many Halloween kits available online, Wilton offers a very simple Halloween gingerbread house kit perfect for all ages. Wilton is the standard, when it comes to all gingerbread house kits; and this one in particular does a great job of being very easy to build.
What comes with the Wilton Halloween kit?
The kit comes with chocolate cookie gingerbread walls, icing bags, purple and black icing, orange fondant and orange, black and purple mini candies and lastly, a bag of candy corns. While Wilton is known for high quality gingerbread houses, this kit has a tendency to arrive broken. Many of the individuals who ordered the kit complained about broken pieces, so be aware before purchasing. At the same time, this kit was ordered by hundreds of customers that have not left a negative review. Just know that there is a small chance that your kit can arrive broken.
4. Trader Joe’s Haunted Chocolate Cookie House for Halloween
For all the chocolate lovers out there, the Trader Joe’s haunted chocolate cookie house kit is a must have. It’s a pre-made kit that includes 7 chocolate pieces to construct your house. It also comes with black and orange icing, candy bones, bats, mini beads and jelly beans. This is a smaller kit, perfect for kids to make a decorate in about one hour. As with most gingerbread or in this case, cookie kits, the pieces may arrive broken. Some Amazon users stated that some pieces were cracked and crumbled, while others said the kit was the perfect Halloween activity. One last surprise was that many amazon reviews said that the cookies tasted good, which is rare for a pre-made kit. If you have little ones and you are looking for a fun Halloween project, this would be a great Halloween cookie house.
Wonka is known for its Christmas gingerbread house kits and it’s no surprise that their Halloween cookie house kit is great for getting the family into the Halloween spirit. This kit comes with “Link & Lock”, which connects the cookie pieces with ease. This is the feature that we love for little kids. No need to fuss with tons of icing. Just add a bit of icing and connect the pieces and they will hold in place.
This Kit includes your standard Wonka candies such as Nerds, Sweetarts, Runts and bottle caps. This is a medium size cookie kit but takes less than an hour to assemble and decorate due to the “Link & Lock” functionality.
If you are looking to make your haunted gingerbread house kit from scratch, this bake set is for you. The baking kit comes with a series of molds and shapes to create your spooky house. The kit has received many positive reviews for its simplicity and low cost.
Even though the kit is mainly used for Halloween gingerbread houses, Amazon reviewers have said that these molds can be used for any kind of gingerbread kit. This kit is great for anyone who wants to create personalized haunted house and that doesn’t mind spending a bit more time baking.
The Scooby Doo Halloween gingerbread house is another popular kit on Amazon. It features, the iconic Scooby Doo, mystery machine and the rest of the gang – Shaggy, Velma. Overall, this kit is easy to build and we would recommend it for all ages. The kit comes with pre-baked gingerbread pieces, pre-made icing, candy jewels, candy bats, candy corn, a gummy Scooby Doo and fun cardboard figures of the mystery machine and a some additional creepy characters: a vampire and a mummy.
Halloween Gingerbread Decoration Ideas
Need some spooky inspiration for your Halloween gingerbread house? Whether you want ghosts, goblins, skeletons, pumpkins or spider, these ideas are sure to put you in the Halloween spirit.
Chocolate Covered Haunted Gingerbread House
This haunted gingerbread house for Halloween is covered in chocolate frosting and accented with chocolate cookies. If you are looking for a sweet spooky treat this Halloween, this gingerbread house is perfect for you.
Small Halloween Gingerbread House with Spooky Tombstone
A small and crooked and gray gingerbread house with tombstone screams Halloween. With mini frosting based pumpkins, this house is perfect for any fall activity.
Orange and Black House with Spider Decoration
This small orange and black gingerbread house screams Halloween. Decorated with ghosts, spiders and a candy corn walkway, this mini gingerbread house is a perfect example of a festive decoration.
Tall Graham Cracker Haunted House with Pumpkin Design
Mini Halloween Gingerbread House with Candy Corn Roof
Mini Professional Haunted Gingerbread House Trio
Skull and Ghosts Halloween Gingerbread House
Small Ghost and Orange Frosting Haunted House
Tiny Halloween Gingerbread House with Frosted Mummy
Cute Halloween Gingerbread House with Pumpkin Decor
2.Read the kit directions that come with the kit – While its very straight forward on how to build a gingerbread house, some of the kits may have some minor details and tips such as knowing how long to hold the gingerbread pieces together while constructing the house.
5. Start building your house by icing the sides of the pre-made gingerbread. Start with the base of the house, frost the edges and place and hold the wall pieces for 45+ seconds to make sure the piece sticks. The pre-made royal icing will get hard and hold the piece together. Do this step for all four walls. Once the walls have solidified, add your icing to the roof portion of your house. Hold the pieces down for 45+ second (gently) and wait for them to hard.
