Search for a gingerbread AT-AT and you find two very different things. One is a LEGO Star Wars set: a brown brick walker trimmed like a gingerbread house, with a Gingerbread Darth Vader sitting by a fireplace inside it. The other is what a lot of people want to try the moment they see the set, a walker made of real gingerbread, standing on four legs in the middle of the table.
This page covers both. The set facts come from LEGO’s own product page, Brickset and the stores that sell it, all checked on 20 October 2026. The baking half draws on the two people who published full edible builds, Make it BIG on Instructables in 2015 and The Stylish Geek in 2013, and on the rules in our own dough and royal icing guides for what gingerbread can and cannot hold up.
If you are buying the set for a Star Wars fan, you want the set number, the price and whether it will arrive before Christmas. If you promised the children a gingerbread AT-AT, you want a version that works on the first try. And if you are the baker who wants it standing on its own legs, you want to know why legs fail and how to stop them.
One thing up front: we have not baked a gingerbread AT-AT, and we have not built the LEGO set. The baking half is a plan built from published builds and from how gingerbread behaves under load, and we say where it is untested. By the end you will know which set to buy and where, have a printable template sized to your walker, and have a gluing schedule that keeps weight off every joint until it is ready.
We start with the LEGO set: what is in it, whether it is worth $60 and where to buy it in 2026. Then we turn to baking: which version to make, the template, the build and why legs are the hard part. First, the short answer.
The Short Answer
The LEGO Star Wars Gingerbread AT-AT Walker is set 40806. It has 697 pieces, is rated for ages 10 and up and costs $59.99. It came out on 1 October 2025. On 20 October 2026, LEGO’s own store had it on backorder with a 60 day shipping estimate, and Target listed it at the same $59.99. The fan site Brick Fanatics reported that LEGO pushed its retirement back a year, to the end of 2027.
You can also bake a real one. For a walker about the size of the LEGO set, plan on two batches of construction dough, stiff royal icing and about two days, because every joint that holds up a leg needs an overnight cure. The legs are the hard part, and the easiest fix is a version where they never have to carry the body at all.
The LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT Walker 40806 at a Glance
| Detail | LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT Walker |
|---|---|
| Set number | 40806 |
| Theme | LEGO Star Wars, seasonal |
| Pieces | 697 |
| Ages on the box | 10+ |
| Price | $59.99 at LEGO and at Target |
| Released | 1 October 2025 |
| Built size | Over 7.5 inches high, 9 inches long and 4 inches wide |
| Minifigure | Gingerbread Darth Vader, with a candy cane and a lightsaber |
| Designer | Henrik Andersen, per Brickset |
| Ratings seen 20 October 2026 | 4.6 from 168 reviews at LEGO, 4.8 from 141 at Target, 4.4 from 144 on Brickset |
| Expected retirement | End of 2027, as reported by Brick Fanatics. LEGO’s store shows no date |
Every figure above is on LEGO’s product page for set 40806 unless the row names another source. LEGO files the set under Exclusives on its own store, and Brickset lists it as a LEGO exclusive, but in the US Target sells it too, at the same price.
What Is Inside the Walker
From the outside it is an AT-AT dressed as a gingerbread house, and one of several LEGO gingerbread sets compared in our separate guide. In LEGO’s photos it has brown bricks, white icing trim along the edges, round candy dots in pink, green and red, a candy cane on the head and a string of colored lights along the back. Each foot stands on a round, frosted base with a bow on it.
The best part is inside. According to LEGO, the legs pose, the cockpit opens and the sides of the main compartment flip up to show a cozy room: a seat by the fireplace for Darth Vader, a table with a drinking cup, cookie and candy cane pieces, stockings on the wall and a pile of gifts. On r/LegoStarWarsLeaks, the top reply under the first official images was a fan asking why the interior looks so cute.
Gingerbread Darth Vader comes only in this set, per Brickset. He is gingerbread brown from helmet to boots, wears a cape, and carries a candy cane and a lightsaber. LEGO’s building instructions are a free PDF on its building instructions site, and its Builder app shows a 3D model you can turn while you build.
Is the LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT Worth $60?
At list price, most buyers think so. $59.99 for 697 pieces works out to about 8.6 cents a piece, and LEGO fans on Reddit called it one of the better price per piece sets in a while. When the official images came out, one of the most upvoted replies on r/LegoStarWarsLeaks was simply “$60 is a great price for this”, with more than 200 upvotes.
The pushback is about size, not value. It is a display piece about 9 inches long, not a big play vehicle, and some fans in the same threads called it small for $60. If the person you are buying for wants something to swoosh around the living room, this is not that set.
Where it stops being worth it is above list price. On 20 October 2026, Google’s shopping results showed third party sellers on Walmart’s marketplace asking $72.88 to $299.99, and an eBay listing at $128. The set is still in production and reportedly will be through 2027, so there is no reason to pay a reseller’s markup. Listings for “697 pcs” gingerbread walker building sets at about $22 to $30 on shops you may not know are not sold by LEGO, whatever the photos look like.
Our view: at $59.99 it is a good buy for a Star Wars fan aged 10 or older who likes to build and then display what they built. For a younger child, the 10+ rating is there for a reason, and a gingerbread one you bake together is the better December project.
Where to Buy the Gingerbread AT-AT in 2026, and When It Retires
Prices and stock below were checked on 20 October 2026. Holiday stock moves fast from November on.
- LEGO’s own store: $59.99, on backorder, “will ship in 60 days”, limit 2 per order. Sixty days from that date is 19 December, cutting it fine for Christmas.
- Target: $59.99 with shipping available, 4.8 stars from 141 reviews.
- The LEGOLAND California online shop: $59.99, but sold out when we checked. Google’s shopping results also showed Kohl’s at $59.99, which we could not confirm on Kohl’s own site.
- Amazon: listed in Amazon’s search results. Check that the seller is Amazon or LEGO before paying more than list.
On retirement, Brick Fanatics reported on 29 October 2025 that LEGO had moved the set’s planned retirement from 31 December 2026 to 31 December 2027, less than a month after launch, and that it went on backorder the day it came out. LEGO does not publish retirement dates on its store, and that very change shows the dates can move. Still, the best reading in October 2026 is that you have this Christmas and next to buy it new.
Say you start shopping on 10 December for a 12 year old who loves Star Wars. LEGO’s 60 day backorder will not get there in time, so Target is the first stop, then any other store you can confirm is selling it at $59.99. If none has it, a sealed set from a reseller close to $60 beats paying double in a panic, and so does a gift card with a printed photo of the set inside.
Can You Bake a Real Gingerbread AT-AT?
Yes. People have been baking them for more than a decade, and two complete builds are still online. In 2013, The Stylish Geek built one on Instructables from IKEA’s ready made gingerbread, three to four packs cut to shape, and set a two hour limit on the job. In 2015, Make it BIG published printable plans, a honey and rye dough recipe and a step by step assembly, and needed about 2 kilograms of dough for it. The baker behind the CakesByChoppA channel also shared an AT-AT template on Facebook, which Core77 wrote up in 2016.
What makes an AT-AT harder than a gingerbread house is where the weight goes. A house is a box sitting flat on the table, with short, wide walls. An AT-AT is a box held up in the air on four tall, thin legs, with a head hanging off the front. Every ounce of body has to travel down those legs, through icing joints at the hips and knees, to four small feet.
That is why the two published builders made opposite calls. The Stylish Geek did not make it stand, and wrote that a standing one would need a wooden support or something behind the legs. Make it BIG stood it up, but propped every part with cups, skewers and toothpicks while the icing dried, and warned that the neck is probably not strong enough to hold the head. If you have never built a plain gingerbread house, that is the place to start, because every joint in a walker is a house joint asked to carry more.
Gingerbread AT-AT: Which Version for Which Builder
A gingerbread AT-AT suits anyone who wants Star Wars on the holiday table, but the right version depends on who is building it and how much time they have. Before you pick, decide whether it has to stand, and whether it has to be edible all the way through.
For a Star Wars Fan Who Wants the LEGO Set
For a Star Wars fan aged 10 or older who would rather build with bricks than bake, buy the LEGO set and skip the oven. Stock is the thing to plan for. On r/legoinvesting, one fan posted that they had asked for the Gingerbread AT-AT and could not find it in any of the three LEGO stores near them, until their dad tracked one down. Order from Target or LEGO in October or early November, not the week before Christmas.
For a Family Baking One With Kids
For a family baking with children, make the lying down version. The Stylish Geek’s build is the model: ready made gingerbread cut to shape, legs from two skinny pieces with a Life Saver at each joint, three round pieces stacked for each foot, and the whole job kept under two hours because it never had to stand. Pick “Lying down” in the planner below and the legs become decoration iced flat to the board. The children do the candy, nobody spends the evening holding a leg, and the youngest can decorate a simple boxed house kit beside it while the walker sets.
For a Showpiece Builder Who Wants It Standing
For the baker who wants it standing in the middle of the table, follow Make it BIG’s order and give every joint more time than feels necessary. Make it BIG built the body first, then the head, joined them with neck pieces, and only then laid the body on its back to fit the legs, upper legs first, each stage propped and left to dry. Start with the hidden prop version, bake a spare set of leg strips, and go fully free standing only after you have had one walker stand.
How to Bake a Gingerbread AT-AT: Our Build Plan
This is our plan, not a record of a bake. It follows the order of the published builds and the rules from our sturdy construction dough, which is made to bend a little before it breaks. Size your walker in the planner first.
You will need: about two batches of construction dough for an 8 inch walker, mortar-stiff royal icing, the printed template, a sturdy board, piping bags with a small round tip, and a supply of cans and mugs to prop pieces while they set.
Gingerbread AT-AT Template Planner
Pick a size and how you want it to stand. You get a cut list, a dough estimate and a printable full size template.
| Piece | Size, inches | Cut |
|---|
For planning only. This is our own untested design: Best Gingerbread Houses has not baked this walker, and real panels spread and shrink a little in the oven. The dough estimate uses our recipe page’s figure of about 225 square inches of quarter inch panel per batch. Print at 100 percent, or Actual size, and check the 1 inch square. Wooden skewers or dowels are not food: if you use them, tell everyone and pull them out before anyone eats. Your choices stay in your browser and nothing is saved or sent.
1. Bake every panel at a quarter inch, and test a strip
Roll every panel to an even quarter inch, legs included. It is tempting to roll the legs thinner so they look slim, but as our mini houses guide explains, a panel loses strength far faster than it loses thickness. Bake low, at 300 degrees, until the panels look matte, and bake a test strip about one inch by four on the same pan.
Press the cooled strip in the middle. If it bows a little and then snaps cleanly, build. If it bends and stays bent, the panels are still holding water and will sag under load, so give them more time in a low oven before anything gets glued.
2. Build the body as a closed box
Pipe a thick line of stiff royal icing along the belly panel, stand the two sides and two ends on it, and prop them with cans. Leave them two hours before the top goes on. A closed box is far stiffer than an open one, and that stiffness is what lets four legs carry it. Make it BIG’s tip applies here: pull out every toothpick and skewer before the top goes on, or you will seal them inside.
3. Build the head on its top panel, and keep it light
Make it BIG built the head starting from the top panel and added the sides and ends to it. Do the same, and keep candy off the head until the very end, because the head hangs off the front and every gram there pulls on the neck. Stack the three neck blocks with icing, ice the neck between head and body, and set a mug under the chin. If the head starts to droop later, leave a permanent prop under it rather than hoping.
4. Laminate the legs before they go anywhere near the body
A single quarter inch strip makes a weak leg. Two or three strips iced face to face make a beam that is far stiffer, for the same reason a stack of thin boards glued together is stronger than the boards loose. Lay each leg flat on parchment, pipe icing across one strip, press the next on top, and leave them flat overnight. Ice each foot stack onto its lower leg at the same time. Wide, flat feet iced to the board are what stop a walker from rocking.
5. Attach the legs with the body on its back
This is Make it BIG’s method: lay the dried body on its back, support the head with a cup, and ice the upper legs on first. Let those set before the lower legs go on. Ann Reardon of How To Cook That used the same idea on her gingerbread AT-AT, pushing wooden skewers into the icing under the upper legs for support. Skewers work, but they are not food. If you use one, tell everyone, and pull it out before anyone eats.
6. Stand it up on fresh icing, or on a prop
After the leg joints have had an overnight cure, turn the walker over. For the free standing version, set the feet on fresh lines of icing on the board and keep a can under the belly as a safety net until the feet set. For the prop version, ice a square gingerbread column to the board first and lower the belly onto it. The prop takes the weight, the legs only have to stay upright, and the walker stays edible all the way through.
Picture a parent who promised a walker for a Sunday party and starts gluing on Friday evening. With the prop version, the legs go on Saturday morning, it stands on Saturday night, and the candy goes on Sunday morning. Try the free standing version on the same timetable and the party is the first time the legs carry weight for long, which is the wrong time to find out.
7. Decorate last, and keep it light
Pipe white icing along the edges for the gingerbread house trim the LEGO set copies, and keep the candy small and flat on the sides. Heavy, round sweets belong on the board. Make it BIG used chocolate sticks for the cannons and powdered sugar on the board so the walker looked like it was crossing the ice planet Hoth. You can also pipe the trim onto the panels while they are still flat, one of our standard gingerbread house tips, and save only the candy for the end.
Gingerbread AT-AT Build Clock
Panels baked and cooled? Tell it when you start gluing. It schedules every joint so nothing carries weight before its icing is ready.
General guidance for planning a build, not a guarantee. The waits come from our royal icing Load-Bearing Clock for houses, stretched to full cure wherever a joint carries a leg. Thick joints, cold kitchens and humid weather all slow icing down, so when in doubt, wait longer. Best Gingerbread Houses has not baked this walker. Your times stay in your browser and nothing is saved or sent.
For an 8 inch walker in a normal kitchen, the clock puts the standing versions at about 45 hours from first joint to safe to move, and the lying down version at about 25. Almost all of that is waiting, and none of it can be skipped.
Why Gingerbread AT-AT Legs Fail, and How to Stop Them
Almost every collapsed walker comes down to one of four things, and each has a fix you can make before you start.
- The leg joint was not cured. Icing that feels dry on the outside can still be soft in the middle, and a leg joint carries the whole body. Our royal icing guide calls this the difference between surface dry and load bearing. It is why the clock gives every leg joint a full overnight cure.
- The panels were still wet. A panel that fails the strip test will bow slowly under weight, often overnight, when nobody is watching.
- The icing was too soft. Mortar for a walker should hold a stiff peak on the whisk. Canned frosting and buttercream never set hard at all, so they cannot hold a leg.
- The feet were too small. A narrow foot rocks. Wide disc stacks iced to the board fix it.
If something goes wrong mid build, the right move depends on what it is. If the walker leans after you stand it, put the belly can back and wait an hour; do not push it upright while the icing is soft. If a leg cracks, do not repair it standing: lay the walker back on its side, ice a spare strip along the crack as a splint, and give it the night. If the head droops, prop the chin and leave the prop in for good.
Bake One or Buy One
| LEGO set 40806 | Baked gingerbread walker | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $59.99 at list price | Two batches of dough, icing and candy for an 8 inch walker |
| Time | LEGO does not give a build time; it is one 697 piece build | About a day lying down, about two days standing, mostly waiting |
| Who builds it | Rated 10 and up | An adult on the structure, children on the candy |
| How long it lasts | Years, it is plastic | One season, see how long a display piece keeps |
| Can you eat it | No | Yes, if no skewers or dowels went in |
The two do not really compete. The LEGO walker sits on a shelf every December for years, and a baked one is a weekend project that gets eaten or thrown out in January. For a Star Wars family, doing both is a perfectly reasonable answer.
Questions People Ask About the Gingerbread AT-AT
Is the LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT retiring?
Not this year, by the best report available. Brick Fanatics reported that LEGO moved its planned retirement from the end of 2026 to the end of 2027. LEGO's own store showed no retirement date on 20 October 2026.
How many pieces is the Gingerbread AT-AT?
697, including the Gingerbread Darth Vader minifigure's parts.
How big is the LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT?
LEGO gives it as over 7.5 inches high, 9 inches long and 4 inches wide, which is 19 by 23 by 10 centimeters.
Is there a template for a gingerbread AT-AT?
There is no official one from LEGO or Lucasfilm. The planner on this page prints a full size template for three sizes, Make it BIG's Instructables build includes printable plans, and CakesByChoppA shared a template through Facebook.
Can you eat a gingerbread AT-AT?
Yes, if it is all gingerbread and icing and nothing inedible went inside it. Royal icing is never cooked, and the FDA's guidance on egg safety is to use pasteurized eggs or egg products in recipes where eggs stay raw. Meringue powder or carton egg whites solve that. After a week or two on display, though, it is a decoration rather than a snack.
Where are the LEGO instructions for set 40806?
LEGO publishes them as a free PDF on its building instructions site. Search for the set number, 40806.
Find a Gingerbread House Kit With Best Gingerbread Houses
A walker is a big first project, and it is a lot easier with a small win on the table beside it. If you want a gingerbread build the children can finish in one afternoon while the AT-AT sets, start with an easy gingerbread house kit from our guide, where every kit is rated on how well it actually holds together.