A Hello Kitty gingerbread house usually means a store kit with a face stuck on the side, or a wooden puzzle you can’t eat. This one is baked from scratch, and the face is the whole front of the house.
Our house dough and royal icing recipes set every bake temperature and wait, and the free template was checked by a script so the steep roof, the walls and the face plaque all fit. The roof is pitched at a steep 50 degrees for one reason: it leaves room on the gable for her ears and the red bow on her left ear.
You will end up with a cottage about 6 inches tall on a 12 inch board, from one batch of dough over two days. Start with the template, then the face, the plan and 16 steps.
Hello Kitty Gingerbread House: At a Glance
- Difficulty: Easy to medium. Every cut is straight except the face and the bows, and the house is a simple box with a steep two-panel roof.
- Total time: about 1 1/2 days, in seven sessions. Most of it is icing drying.
- Active time: about 7 1/2 hours, counting the dough chill and the bake.
- Makes: a cottage 4 1/2 by 4 inches and about 6 inches tall, with a path, a fence and an apple tree on a 12 inch board.
- Template: free 3-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, a toothpick, cans for propping, offset spatula, 12 inch cake board, 1 battery LED tea light.
Materials
- 1 batch of our construction-grade house dough
- 2 batches of royal icing that dries hard enough to hold a roof
- Gel food coloring: pink, red, black, lemon yellow and leaf green
- About 6 pink or red hard candies, such as strawberry drops
- Pastel candy pearls or sixlets in pink, mint, lilac and yellow, about 1/2 cup
- About 16 small pastel gumdrops, 1 pretzel rod, half a batch of crisp rice cereal treats, small red candies for apples, and shredded coconut or sanding sugar for snow
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 two gables and the two side walls.
- Cut the roof panels, the face plaque, the two bows, the chimney slabs and the fence.
- Bake at 300 degrees F, then melt pink candy into the windows.
- Trim every piece against the template while it is warm.
- Flood the walls and the face white, the roof and the chimney pink, and the bows and the door red.
- Pipe the face, then the scalloped shingles on both roof panels.
- Pipe the frames and shutters, glue the bow and the face onto the front gable, and leave everything overnight.
- Stand the four walls on the board, then wait 2 hours.
- Set both roof panels with props and pipe the ridge, then wait 4 hours.
- Glue on the chimney and pipe snow along the eaves.
- Add the candy trim and the small bow on the door.
- Lay the candy path and stand the pink fence.
- Plant the apple tree and scatter the snow.
- 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. Not an official Hello Kitty product. Not approved by or associated with Sanrio. This is our own fan build for home baking.
Free Printable Hello Kitty Gingerbread House Template
The template is three US Letter pages with ten 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front gable | 1 | 4 1/2 in wide, 5.7 in to the peak | Two candy windows, a marked arched door and the face on top. |
| Back gable | 1 | Same as the front | A light doorway for the tea light. |
| Side walls | 2 | 3 1/2 x 3 in | One window each. They tuck between the gables. |
| Roof panels | 2 | 4 1/2 x 3 3/4 in | The steep pink roof, both cut the same. |
| Face plaque | 1 | 1.9 in wide, about 1.65 in tall with the ears | Hello Kitty’s face, glued to the gable. |
| Bows | 1 + 1 | 0.95 x 0.6 in; 0.7 x 0.45 in | The bow on her left ear and a small one on the door. |
| Chimney slabs | 3 | 3/4 in wide, cut at an angle | Stacked into one solid pink chimney. |
| Fence strips | 3 | 3 x 0.7 in | Two across the front, either side of the path, and one down the side. |
The walls stand 3 inches to the eave and the 50 degree gable rises another 2.7 inches. The face plaque sits with its chin just under the eave line, and its ears and bow stay inside the roof line. The pieces come to about 99 square inches, so one batch covers them with dough left over for extra bows.
Want a different house shape for the same face? The printable house patterns on our templates page all take a plaque on the gable if the roof is steep enough.
Why a Cottage in the London Suburbs
Sanrio’s official profile says Kitty White was born in the suburbs of London, was designed in 1974 and wears a ribbon on her left ear as a symbol of friendship, according to Sanrio’s Hello Kitty brand page. The same page lists her hobbies as baking cookies and playing the piano, and her favorite food as her mother’s apple pie. That is the brief we built to: a white suburban cottage, her face up top with the bow on the correct ear, and an apple tree out front.
Here is what we copied from her official look. A wide oval head with two pointed ears. Oval black eyes set wide apart, a small yellow oval nose and three whiskers on each side. No mouth. And the red bow on her left ear, which sits on the right as you face her. Get that last one backward and fans will spot it from across the room.
Is There a Hello Kitty Gingerbread House Kit?
Not one you can eat, as far as we found this season. The best-known Hello Kitty gingerbread house is a wooden 3D puzzle from Hands Craft: 266 pieces, about 4 hours to build, roughly 7.9 by 6.5 by 7.5 inches assembled, rated for ages 14 and up, listed at $49.99. It lights up and looks lovely on a shelf, but it is a craft kit, not a cookie. To get a house you can snap a shingle off, bake it from the template on this page, or use the kit shortcut near the end.
The Face, the Bow and the Pink Roof: The Icing Work
The face. Flood the plaque bright white and let it crust for an hour. Pipe the outline in black with a small round tip, then two upright oval eyes, three whiskers on each side running out past the cheeks, and a yellow oval nose. Pipe the outline last if your hand shakes: a black line covers a wobbly flood edge.
The bow. Flood both bows red and let them crust, then pipe a black outline and a line where each loop meets the knot. Red goes pink as it dries thin, so flood the bow a little thicker than the walls and mix the red the night before; it deepens as it stands.
The roof. Flood both roof panels pale pink. Once they crust, pipe rows of scallops from the eave up, each row overlapping the one below like shingles, then tip every scallop with a white dot. Pastel pink comes from the smallest dot of gel: our pink house build explains why pink icing darkens overnight. Try other colors in the studio below before you tint a bowl.
Hello Kitty House Color Studio
Start from the classic pink and white, or try your own. The preview updates, and you get the icing mix for each part.
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 1/2 hours of hands-on work. The face and the bow go on while the front gable lies flat, the night before the walls stand.
| When | What you do | Hands-on | Then wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1, morning | Print, make and chill the dough, cut, bake, melt the candy windows and trim. | About 3 hours | Until cool |
| Day 1, early afternoon | Flood the walls, the face, the roof, the chimney, the bows and the door. | 45 minutes | About 1 hour |
| Day 1, afternoon | Pipe the face and the shingles, the frames and shutters. Glue the bow and the face on. | About 70 minutes | Overnight, pieces flat |
| Day 2, early morning | Stand the four walls. | 30 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, mid morning | Set the roof panels with props and pipe the ridge. | 40 minutes | 4 hours |
| Day 2, afternoon | Glue the chimney, pipe the snow and set the candy trim and the door bow. | 45 minutes | About 1 hour |
| Day 2, late afternoon | Lay the path, stand the fence, plant the apple tree and light it. | 45 minutes | Overnight before you move it |
Hello Kitty Gingerbread House Build Day Planner
Pick when you want the 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 Hello Kitty Gingerbread House Step by Step
1. Print the template and measure the test bar
Print all three 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 gable printed a little small leaves the face plaque hanging over the roof line.
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 ears on the face plaque keep their points.
3. Roll the dough and cut the gables and the side walls
Roll a disc on parchment to an even 1/4 inch between guide strips. Cut the front gable, the back gable and the two side walls, then cut out every window and the light doorway. Trace the arched door with a toothpick instead of cutting it, and press the face guide lightly into the front gable.
Why this matters: the pressed guide shows exactly where the plaque goes, so the face sits centered and level.
4. Cut the roof panels, the face plaque, the bows, the chimney slabs and the fence
From the second disc, cut two roof panels, the face plaque, the big bow and the small bow. From the scraps, cut three chimney slabs and two fence strips. Slide a thin spatula under the face and the bows to move them, rather than lifting them by an ear or a loop.
Why this matters: the ears and bow loops are the thinnest dough on the sheet. Lift by the edge and they stretch.
5. Bake the pieces, then melt pink candy into the windows
Bake at 300 degrees F. The walls and roof panels take 22 to 30 minutes, until matte with a firm edge. Bake the face, the bows and the chimney slabs on their own pan and start checking them at about 12 minutes. Pull the walls about 5 minutes early, fill each window two crushed candies deep, and bake again until the candy melts flat.
This is how you turn crushed hard candy into stained glass on any house. Hard crack, where the candy flows, is 300 to 308 degrees F at sea level per Colorado State University Extension, so it melts slowly here. If it is still lumpy after about 10 minutes, raise the oven to 325 degrees F and watch closely.
Why this matters: small pieces bake in half the time. Left in with the walls, the ears brown and snap.
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 two sloped edges of each gable and both roof panels most carefully. Leave everything on the pan until cool.
Why this matters: a gable that spread holds the roof panels apart at the ridge.
7. Flood the walls, the face, the roof and the bows
Thin most of the first batch of icing until a knife line closes in about 10 seconds. Flood every wall and the face plaque white, both roof panels and the chimney slabs pale pink, and the bows and the door red. Leave the fence bare for now.
Why this matters: the face lines and shingles only stay crisp on a flood that has crusted.
8. Pipe the face, then the scalloped shingles
Once the floods look matte, about an hour, pipe the face: the black outline, the eyes, the whiskers and the yellow nose. Then pipe rows of pink scallops on both roof panels from the eave up, and dot each one white.
Why this matters: piping the face before the house goes up means you work flat, with the plaque turned any way your hand likes.
9. Pipe the frames and shutters, glue on the bow and the face, then leave it overnight
Pipe pink frames and pink shutters at every window and a white outline on the door. Glue the big bow over the plaque’s right ear with a dab of icing. Lay the front gable flat, pipe a line of icing inside the face guide, and press the plaque on. Pipe pink pickets on the fence strips. Leave everything flat overnight.
Why this matters: the plaque sets flat in one night. Glued to a standing wall, it slides.
10. Stand the four walls on the board
Spread thick white icing where the house will go, a little behind the middle of the board. Stand the back gable, then the two side walls against it, then the front gable, so the side walls tuck between the gables. Check every corner is square, prop with cans and wait 2 hours.
Why this matters: the roof is steep and heavy. Walls that are not set will lean the moment it goes on.
11. Set both roof panels with props and pipe the ridge
Pipe thick icing along both sloped edges of each gable. Lay the first panel on, flush with the eave, and hold it for a minute, then prop its lower edge with a can. Set the second panel the same way. Pipe a thick line along the ridge to fill the seam. Wait 4 hours.
Why this matters: a 50 degree roof wants to slide. The props keep each panel tight to the gable until the icing grips.
12. Glue on the chimney and pipe the snow
Stack the three chimney slabs with icing between them, short side toward the ridge, and press the block onto the right roof panel. Pipe thick white icing along both eaves and pull it down in little drips.
Why this matters: the angled slabs sit flat on the slope, so the chimney stands upright instead of tipping downhill.
13. Add the candy trim and the small bow on the door
Press pastel candy pearls into the wet snow along each eave and down the ridge. Glue a row of pastel gumdrops along the base of the walls and the small bow on the upper part of the door.
Why this matters: the pearls hide the ridge seam and the gumdrops hide the board line, so the house looks finished from every side.
14. Lay the candy path and stand the pink fence
Press pink and white candy melts into a line of icing from the door to the front of the board. Stand two fence strips across the front on a line of icing, with a gap for the path, and the third down the right side.
Why this matters: the path pulls the eye to the door, right under the face.
15. Plant the apple tree and scatter the snow
Shape a round green cereal treat canopy on a short pretzel rod and press in small red candies for apples. Stand it front left on a blob of icing. Spread thin icing over the bare board and scatter coconut or sanding sugar.
Why this matters: the apple tree is the nod to her mother’s apple pie, and the white board makes the pink pop.
16. Light the house
Slide an LED tea light in through the back doorway, and the pink windows glow. Use only battery lights, because a candle can scorch sugar walls, which is why our guide to lighting a gingerbread house from inside sticks to them. Let it stand overnight before you move it.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | Why it happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| An ear snapped off | It was lifted by the point, or overbaked | Glue it back with thick white icing and cover the seam with the outline. Bake small pieces on their own pan next time. |
| The face looks surprised or sleepy | The eyes are too close or too round | Pipe upright ovals, set wide, level with the nose. Scrape and repipe before the line sets. |
| The bow dried pink | The red flood was too thin | Flood a second coat once the first crusts. |
| The bow is on the wrong side | It went on her right ear | Pop it off with a thin knife before it sets. It belongs on the right as you face her. |
| A roof panel slides | Thin icing, or no prop | Lift it off, pipe thicker icing and prop the eave with a can for the full 4 hours. |
| A gap at the ridge | The gables spread in the oven | Fill it with a thick piped line and cover it with candy pearls. Trim warm next time. |
| The chimney tips | The short side faced the eave | Turn the stack so the short side faces the ridge. |
| The face plaque slid down the gable | It was glued on with the wall standing | Lay the gable flat to glue it, or prop the plaque with a toothpick until it sets. |
| The pink windows are cloudy | The candy was not fully melted | Bake a few minutes more at 325 degrees F, watching closely. |
Want Different Colors or a Bigger Garden?
The studio above starts from the classic pink and white and swaps in mint, lilac, butter yellow or strawberry milk walls, and other roofs and bows. For a pink house with no character on it, our Barbie Dreamhouse in gingerbread uses the same pink tricks on a bigger build. For another cartoon home, see our Bluey house on stilts.
Easier Versions: No-Bake and Kit Shortcuts
A No-Bake Graham Cracker Version for Small Kids
Glue four graham cracker halves into a box and lean two whole crackers on top for the roof, then ice the roof pink. Cut the face from a large round sugar cookie, add two candy-corn-sized wedges of cookie for ears, and pipe the features. A no-bake graham cracker house needs royal icing, not tub frosting, to stand.
The Kit Shortcut
Ice any plain kit white, roof it pink with scallops, and glue on a face cut from a sugar cookie or a fondant circle with a red fondant bow. 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, dishwasher and sunny windows, which fade pink and red icing. Make the icing with meringue powder if you plan to eat any.
FAQ
Which ear does Hello Kitty’s bow go on?
Her left ear, per Sanrio’s profile. Facing the house, that is the right side of the face.
Why doesn’t the face have a mouth?
Hello Kitty is drawn without one, so we left it off. Adding a mouth is the quickest way to make her look like a different cat.
Can I make it bigger?
Yes. Print at 125 percent for a house about 7 1/2 inches tall. The pieces come to about 155 square inches, so one batch still covers them if you re-roll the scraps, and you need a 15 inch board.
More Gingerbread House Builds and Recipes
Our McCallister house build and Pooh’s tree house in gingerbread come with templates too. Browse our gingerbread house ideas sorted by difficulty, and when something sags, our fixes for a roof that slides work on any house.
Build Your Next House With Best Gingerbread Houses
This cottage proves the point we come back to on every build: a few strong details tell the whole story. Here it is a white face with no mouth, a red bow on the correct ear and a steep pink roof. When you want a head start, our ranked list of gingerbread house kits sorts the good boxes from the wobbly ones.