Gingerbread cannot be bent, so a gingerbread lighthouse is never round. The builds we could open from the first page of results are rings of flat panels, five, six or eight, and the one thing that makes it read as a lighthouse is that the panels are wider at the bottom than the top. That taper is also why a lighthouse is the most stable tall thing in gingerbread: every panel leans inward, so the tower tightens under its own weight.
This is the lighthouse spoke of our free printable gingerbread house templates, where the printing and re-cutting rules live. Everything here is about one shape: a six sided tower that tapers, a gallery deck, a lantern room and a pointed cap, nineteen pieces on one sheet, drawn so the six panels close and the cap meets at a point.
If you have built a house, the only new idea is a ring instead of a box. The base is open so a tea light goes in. Print the sheet, measure the bar, and start with the pieces.
Lighthouse Gingerbread House Template
Makes 1 lighthouse, 19 baked pieces · Intermediate · Finished 2.11 inches across the base and 5.07 inches to the cap tip
Total time about 10 hours, most of it curing. Calculated from the cure times on our icing page, not measured from a build.
Print this one: US Letter PDF or A4 PDF. 19 pieces, finished lighthouse 2.11 inches across the base and 5.07 inches tall. Every sheet carries a 1 inch bar so you can check the scale before you make dough.
Tools: printer, ruler, scissors or a craft knife, a rolling pin with quarter inch guides, half sheet pans, parchment, a piping bag with a small round tip, a board or plate at least 5 by 5 inches, and a can or jar about 1.5 inches across to prop the tower from inside.
Materials
Steps
Notes: the geometry is computed, not drawn by eye: the six panels taper at the same 3.6 degrees so they close into a ring, the lantern panels are cut to the tower’s top width so the two rings match, and the cap panels are cut to the true pyramid slant so they meet at a point. Nobody has baked from this sheet yet. If yours is the first, the comments are open.
Nineteen pieces on one page, at one shared scale so the Letter and A4 sheets make the same lighthouse. Six are the tower. One is the deck. Six are the lantern room and six are the cap. There are only four shapes to learn.
| Piece | Cut | Size on the sheet | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tower panel | 6 | 1.22 at the base, 0.8 at the top, 3.38 tall | Six of these lean together into a ring. Narrow end up. The taper is 3.6 degrees on every panel, which is what lets the ring close. |
| Gallery deck | 1 | 1.87 in across, six sided | Sits flat on the tower top and overhangs it by about a quarter inch all round. The lantern stands on it. |
| Lantern panel | 6 | 0.8 by 0.8 in | A small ring on the deck, cut to the same width as the tower top so the two rings line up. |
| Cap panel | 6 | 0.8 base, 0.95 to the point | Six triangles that lean together to a point on the lantern ring. |
Assembled, the tower is 2.11 inches across the flats at the base and 1.38 at the top, 3.38 inches tall, and the whole lighthouse stands 5.07 inches to the cap tip. Inside the base there is about 1.61 inches of clear space, which is more than a standard 1.5 inch LED tea light needs. The sheet says “scaled to fit” in the header, but only just: the design is drawn at 5.4 inches tall and the packer shrank it to 94 percent to fit one page. Print at 100 percent and you have a lighthouse a head and a half taller than the classic houses on the hub, which is the right proportion for a gingerbread village with a harbour.
Set the printer to Actual Size, never Fit to Page, then put a ruler on the 1 inch bar before you cut a single piece. If it measures an inch, every piece is the size it says. If it does not, reprint. The templates page covers the print dialogs and the Letter and A4 difference. One lighthouse-specific rule sits on top: scale the whole sheet or nothing. The lantern panels are cut to the exact width of the tower top, and the cap panels to the exact width of the lantern panels. Print the tower at one percentage and the top at another and one ring is too big for the other, and a deck cannot hide a quarter inch.
Size matters more here than on a house because of the light. At 100 percent a tea light fits the base with a tenth of an inch to spare, so measure yours. At 125 percent the fit is easy and the lighthouse stands 6.3 inches. The lantern room at the top is only about 0.9 inches clear inside at 100 percent, too small for a tea light at any size you would want to print, which is why the light on this design goes in the base and shines up through the windows.
Dough and icing are on their own pages: the sturdy gingerbread house recipe for the panels, and the royal icing mortar that holds them. This walkthrough is the lighthouse’s build order only. It has one rule a house does not: the tower is a ring built around a can, and the top is built as a unit that is placed, not assembled in the air.
Print at Actual Size and measure the 1 inch bar. If it reads 1 inch, print a second copy, because the six tower panels are the pieces you will re-cut against most and the paper gets greasy. If it reads anything else, fix the print scaling before you touch flour.
Cut all nineteen paper pieces out and lay them on dough rolled to an even quarter inch, with a finger’s width between them. Put all six tower panels on one tray, together, so they bake for the same time and spread by the same amount. A ring of six panels closes only if the six are the same; one panel from a hotter tray is the panel that leaves a gap. Do the same with the six lantern panels and the six cap panels: each set of six on one tray.
Bake low and slow, then lay each paper piece back on its panel and cut the edges true while the gingerbread is still hot enough to cut cleanly. King Arthur’s construction gingerbread instructions say to trim any rough edges while the pieces are still warm and to cool the pieces completely before building. The long slanted edges of the tower panels are the ones to get right: a panel that is a sixteenth of an inch wide at the top is a ring that will not close at the top, and the deck will not hide it.
Stand a can or a jar about 1.5 inches across in the middle of the board. Pipe a thick bead down one long edge of a tower panel, stand it against the can with the narrow end up and the beaded edge facing the next panel’s position, and add the second panel against the bead. Go round. The sixth panel closes the ring; pipe both of its edges. The can keeps the six panels from falling inward while the icing is wet, and the taper does the rest: each panel leans 3.6 degrees toward the centre, so the ring pulls tight on itself as it settles. Leave the can in for two hours, then slide it out through the open bottom. Do not glue a base plate under the tower. The open bottom is how the light goes in later.
Pipe a bead around the top rim of the tower, all six edges, and lay the deck on flat, centred, so it overhangs evenly all round. Press gently and wait two hours. The deck is the one joint on the lighthouse that is a flat plate resting on an edge, and it is the joint that fails if the lighthouse is ever lifted by the top.
While the deck cures, or before it goes on, build the lantern room as its own unit: pipe the six small panels into a ring, edge to edge, on a piece of parchment, and let it set. Then lift the cured ring onto the deck with a bead around its bottom edge, centred over the tower. Building the small ring on the bench instead of on top of a 3 inch tower is the difference between six easy joints and six impossible ones. A free lighthouse tutorial on the first page of results builds its top cupola first for the same reason.
Pipe a bead around the top rim of the lantern ring. Stand the first cap panel on one side, leaning in, and hold it; add the opposite one so the two meet at the point, then the other four. Pipe a thin line down each seam and hold the cap lightly for a minute until the icing grabs. The six triangles are cut so they meet exactly over the centre of a 0.8 inch hexagon, which is why the lantern ring has to be that size and no other.
Once every joint has cured, pipe the stripes, the window outlines and the gallery rail around the edge of the deck. The look section below covers the one trick that matters, which is how to get a spiral stripe across six flat panels, and the light section covers the windows.
The lighthouse builders of the eighteenth century worked this out in stone. When John Smeaton rebuilt the Eddystone lighthouse he curved the tower inwards on a gentle gradient, and the tapering profile became the shape people picture when they hear the word. A wider base and a narrower top puts more of the weight low down, where it steadies the tower instead of loading it.
Gingerbread gets the same benefit for free. On a straight sided box tower, every wall stands vertical and the icing joints at the corners are all that keeps four walls from folding outward. On this tower, each of the six panels leans inward by 3.6 degrees, so gravity pushes each panel against its two neighbours instead of away from them. The joints are in compression, which is the one direction royal icing is strong in. That is why a 3.4 inch tower on a 2.1 inch base is not the risky build it looks like.
The risk is at the top, and it is the deck. The gallery deck is a flat plate resting on the rim of the tower, carrying the lantern ring and the cap above it, and it overhangs the tower by a quarter inch all round. Every other joint on the lighthouse leans on something. The deck rests. Lift the finished lighthouse by the deck, or by the lantern, and the whole top comes off in your hand with the rim of the tower still glued to it.
The Taper Rule: build the ring on the board, the deck on the ring, the lantern on the deck, the cap last, and never lift a lighthouse by anything above the tower. Each stage gets its two hours. The can comes out only after the tower has set. And the lighthouse is moved by its board, or with a hand flat against the base, for the rest of its life.
One builder writing up a first attempt planned five walls with a tapered neck and, after breakage in handling, finished with four intact walls and no taper at all, and said so: without the taper it stopped being a lighthouse. Another free tutorial warns that the slight slant to the tower can be difficult to put together and that in humid weather the top may need propping from inside. Both are true, and both are the same lesson. The taper is the point of the shape, the panels are worth re-cutting to match, and the tower needs its can and its two hours.
A lighthouse is stripes, a rail and a light. The stripes are where a faceted tower makes people stop. Horizontal bands are easy: pipe them on the flat panels before assembly, with the paper template underneath as a guide, at the same height on every panel, and they meet at the seams. A spiral is the classic look and it is harder, because a spiral on six flat panels is six diagonal bands that have to line up at the seams. The trick is the offset. If your stripe climbs 1.2 inches in one turn around the tower, then each panel’s band must start 0.2 inches higher than the panel before it, one sixth of the climb per panel. Number the six panels on their backs, pipe panel one’s band from its bottom left corner, panel two’s from 0.2 inches up, and so on, and the bands meet at the seams when the ring closes. Decorate flat, then build, and pipe the seams last to hide the joins.
The rail is a ring of piped dots or a strand of licorice around the deck edge, added after the deck has cured. The windows are piped outlines in a line up one face of the tower, or, if you want the light to show through, small squares cut from the raw dough before baking, one above the other up a single panel; keep them on one panel and keep them small, because every cutout weakens a panel that is already tapering. Our candy for a gingerbread house by part page has the melted candy window method if you want them glazed.
The light is an LED tea light on the board inside the open base, put in place after the tower has cured and before the deck goes on, or slid in from underneath by lifting the board’s edge if the lighthouse is on a plate. Never a flame. The planner below tells you whether your light fits at your print size.
Lighthouse Taper and Light Planner
Pick your print size and what will light it. Get the tower sizes, whether the light fits inside, and the dough it takes.
Sizes are the sheet’s own geometry at your scale. Interior clearances subtract a quarter inch of dough on each side. A tea light is taken as 1.5 inches across; measure yours. Only LED lights belong inside gingerbread. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The six panels do not close into a ring | One or more panels spread and were not re-cut, so the tops are too wide | Re-cut all six against the paper; if the gap is under an eighth of an inch, fill it with icing on the inside and pipe a seam over it |
| A panel snapped at the narrow end | The top of a tapered panel is the thinnest part and it was picked up by that end | Handle panels by the wide end; a snapped top can be glued back with icing and hidden under the deck overhang |
| The deck rocks on the tower top | The six panel tops are not level | Sand the high ones with a fine grater before the deck goes on, or fill the low ones with a thicker bead |
| The lantern ring slides off the deck | It was built on the deck panel by panel instead of as a cured unit | Lift it off, build the ring on parchment, let it set, then place it |
| Cap panels do not meet at the point | The lantern ring is out of round, or the caps spread | Re-cut the caps; a small gap at the point takes a candy finial |
| The tea light does not fit | The print is too small for it | Measure the light; print at 125 percent, or use thin wire fairy lights |
| The whole sheet printed small | Fit to Page was on | Measure the bar, switch to Actual Size, reprint |
The lighthouse has four cure stages after baking, and two of them overlap. The panels can be baked up to a week ahead and kept in a tin. Tower in the morning with the can in, lantern ring built on the bench at the same time, deck at noon, lantern ring onto the deck mid afternoon, cap in the evening, and the lighthouse is decorated and safe to move the following evening. The icing page’s rule is two hours before a roof goes on, four before candy, and overnight before a house is moved, and the cap counts as a roof.
If you only have one afternoon, build the tower and the lantern ring at the same time, since they do not touch, decorate the flat panels while they cure, and put the deck, lantern and cap on in one run at the end with a prop inside. Then leave it alone until morning. Carrying a lighthouse to a party the night it was built is how it arrives as a tower and a bag.
Baked panels keep about two weeks airtight at room temperature, the same window as any gingerbread cookie, but they cut cleanly only in the first few days, and the narrow tops of the tower panels and the small cap triangles go leathery first. Re-cut hot on baking day. Store the built lighthouse uncovered in a dry room, because covered icing softens and the deck is the first joint to move. For how long the finished piece stays edible versus how long it stays standing, see how long a gingerbread house lasts.
Fewer joints and wider panels. Six panels at this size are each wide enough to cut, handle and pipe a stripe on; eight would be under an inch wide at the base. The trade is a tower that reads a little more faceted, which icing bands soften.
Not from a flat template. Round gingerbread towers are made by draping dough over a can or a foil covered tube and baking it curved, and the forum threads on that method are mostly about how to hold the curve while it bakes, with oatmeal tubes, foil wrapped cans and stacked discs all proposed. This sheet gives you the tapered silhouette with flat panels, which is how the free tutorials on the first page do it too.
A few appear and disappear each season, and one of the better known ones is now listed as discontinued. If you find one, our rated gingerbread house kits page explains the icing grades to check before you buy, because a tower stands or falls on its icing.
Yes, and it is a good rehearsal. The same sheet cut from cereal box makes a cardboard gingerbread house style lighthouse, and a card tower shows you how the six panels close before you commit dough.
At 100 percent the nineteen pieces cover about 30 square inches of quarter inch dough, so one batch of our construction recipe makes the lighthouse with plenty to spare. Scale the area by the square of the print percentage: 125 percent needs about 1.6 times as much.
The gingerbread is. The mortar is the question, because traditional royal icing is raw egg white; use the meringue powder version from our icing page if the lighthouse is going to be eaten rather than looked at. And take the tea light out first.
The other printable shapes, including the farmhouse gingerbread house template that makes a keeper’s cottage beside this lighthouse, are on the templates page. Read our gingerbread house tips before the first build, and for the haunted version of a tower, our haunted gingerbread house ideas page has the black icing that does not taste bitter.
This is the first template on this site with a tapered tower, drawn so the six panels close and the cap meets at a point, because a lighthouse built from a straight box is a chimney with a hat. Print the sheet, measure the bar, build the ring around a can, and give the deck its two hours. If you would rather start from a box, our guide to the best gingerbread house kits grades every kit on its icing, which is the part that decides whether anything tall stays up.