Most PAW Patrol gingerbread houses are a plain kit cottage with paper pups stuck to the front. The house kids picture is the Lookout: a tall tower with a round lookout room on top, a slide down the side and a ring of pup houses at the base.
Our house dough and royal icing recipes set every bake temperature and wait, and a script checked the free template so the tower, the six-sided room and the slide all fit. One home baker who built the Lookout in 2016 found the curved slide the hardest part, so ours runs straight.
You will end up with a tower about 9 1/4 inches tall on a 14 inch board, from one batch of dough over two days. Start with the template, then the icing work, the plan and 16 steps.
PAW Patrol Gingerbread Lookout Tower: At a Glance
- Difficulty: Medium. The tower is four straight walls with a gentle taper. The lookout room and the slide add the challenge.
- Total time: about 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 tower 4 inches square at the base and about 9 1/4 inches tall, with a slide and six pup houses on a 14 inch board. 22 baked pieces.
- Template: free 4-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, 8 piping bags, a small round tip, a toothpick, cans for propping, a loaf pan, offset spatula, 14 inch cake board, 1 battery LED tea light.
Materials
- 1 batch of our construction dough that bakes flat
- 2 batches of stiff royal icing for the joints and every color
- Gel food coloring: black, red, yellow, royal blue, pink, leaf green and orange
- About 15 blue hard candies for the glass
- Half a batch of crisp rice cereal treats: 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, 5 ounces of marshmallows or about 2 3/4 cups of minis, and 3 cups of cereal
- 6 squares from a dark chocolate bar, 1 pretzel rod and 1 cup of shredded coconut
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 four tower walls and their openings.
- Cut the deck, the roof, the cap, the room panels, the small pieces and the slide.
- Bake at 300 degrees F, then melt blue candy into the door, the slot and the room windows.
- Trim every piece against the template while it is warm.
- Flood the walls, the roof, the deck, the slide and the pup house fronts.
- Pipe the stripes, the paw and the slide rails, glue on the badge and leave it overnight.
- Make the cereal treat pup house blocks.
- Stand the four tower walls on the board, then wait 2 hours.
- Set the deck and build the lookout room, then wait 2 hours.
- Set the roof, the cap and the periscope, then wait 4 hours.
- Ice the pup house blocks and glue on their fronts.
- Lean the slide on the tower with a pretzel rod under it.
- Spread the yard and set the pup houses on chocolate squares.
- Light the tower with a battery tea light.
Notes: times are worked out from the set times on our icing page, not timed on a build. Ovens and doughs vary, so treat every bake time here as a starting point: check early, go by the matte surface and firm edge, and bake a test strip before you build. Not an official PAW Patrol product. Not approved by or associated with Spin Master or Nickelodeon. This is our own fan build, with no characters on it.
Free Printable PAW Patrol Gingerbread House Template
The template is four US Letter pages with eleven 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Front wall | 1 | 4 in at the base, 2 3/4 in at the top, 6 1/2 in tall, with a door and a window slot |
| Back wall | 1 | Same outline, with a light doorway |
| Side walls | 2 | 3 1/2 in at the base, 2 1/4 in at the top |
| Deck disc | 1 | 4.4 in across |
| Room panels | 6 | 1.44 x 1 in, each with a window |
| Roof disc and cap | 1 + 1 | 4.8 in and 2.4 in across |
| Periscope and badge | 1 + 1 | 1 in tall L shape, 1.1 in round badge |
| Slide | 1 | 0.9 x 6.7 in |
| Pup house fronts | 6 | 1 1/2 in wide arches |
Each wall leans in about 5 1/2 degrees, so the tower narrows from 4 inches to 2 3/4 like the cartoon one. That is shallow enough for plain joints and a line of icing. The six room panels sit almost entirely over the walls, so the tower carries their weight. The pieces come to about 138 square inches, so one batch covers them.
Why the Lookout Tower
PAW Patrol is a cartoon about a boy named Ryder and a team of rescue pups. Keith Chapman created it, Spin Master Entertainment produces it, and it premiered on Nickelodeon in the United States on August 12, 2013, per Wikipedia’s PAW Patrol article. The fan-run PAW Patrol Wiki describes the team’s Lookout as a tower with a glass elevator, a round observatory on the top floor with a periscope, and a slide that winds down to a ground base holding every pup’s house.
Here is what we copied from the show. A pale grey tower that is wider at the base, with red and yellow stripes at the bottom. A blue glass door and a tall blue window strip up the front. A navy band under a round room ringed with blue windows, a yellow deck, a red saucer roof and a yellow periscope. And bright pup houses around the base.
We changed three things on purpose. The badge is a plain round cookie with a paw print, not the show’s emblem. The round room has six flat sides, because flat panels stand and a curved wall would not. And the slide runs straight.
Why the Slide Runs Straight
In the show the slide wraps around the tower. In 2016, a home baker shared her own gingerbread Lookout on her blog, Start with an onion. She built the tower around a 1 litre pop bottle, and she said the slide took the most thought. She made it from layered strips of fruit leather, eased into curves and propped with chopsticks while it dried. The curves kept folding instead of flowing, and she wrote that the slide could be left off.
Baked gingerbread cannot bend, and soft candy sags. So our slide is one straight baked strip that leans from 5 inches up the right wall down to the board at about 48 degrees, with a pretzel rod hidden under it as a leg. It still reads as a slide, and it stays put.
Is There a PAW Patrol Gingerbread House Kit?
Yes, but none of them is the Lookout. A Mashed roundup of customer reviews from December 2023 covered the PAW Patrol Gingerbread Pup House kit, a house kit with plastic character cut-outs. Buyers reported walls that arrived in pieces and missing cut-outs. In Canada, a 173 gram PAW Patrol mini gingerbread house kit comes with pre-baked gingerbread, icing, candy and scene setters. Either works for the kit shortcut near the end.
The Candy Glass, the Stripes and the Pup Houses: The Icing Work
The candy glass. Crush the blue candies in a zip bag with a rolling pin until no piece is bigger than a pea. The door, the slot and the six room windows all get glass. Our guide to which candy melts into clear window glass has more colors if you want yellow windows instead.
The stripes. Pipe the red stripe first, about 1/4 inch tall and 1/3 inch above the board, then the yellow one right on top of it. Do it while the walls lie flat. On a standing, tapered wall, stripes wander uphill.
The lookout room. Flood the frames of all six panels navy around the candy windows. The outside corners of the room leave a small groove where two panels meet. Pipe a thick navy line into each one, and the grooves become the window posts.
The pup houses. Flood each arch front in its own color and pipe a dark doorway on it. The six colors in the studio below follow the show’s team colors, or you can try pastels or one color for all six before you tint a bowl.
Lookout Color Studio
Start from the cartoon colors, or paint the tower your own way. 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. All the piping happens while the pieces lie flat on day 1. Pick your finish time and the planner counts back for you.
| When | What you do | Hands-on | Then wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1, morning | Print, make and chill the dough, cut, bake, melt the candy glass and trim. | About 3 hours | Until cool |
| Day 1, early afternoon | Flood the walls, the roof and cap, the deck, the periscope, the slide, the room frames and the pup house fronts. | 45 minutes | About 1 hour |
| Day 1, afternoon | Pipe the stripes, the paw, the slide rails and the doorways, glue on the badge and make the cereal treats. | About 70 minutes | Overnight, pieces flat |
| Day 2, early morning | Stand the four tower walls. | 25 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, mid morning | Set the deck, stand the six room panels and pipe the posts. | 35 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, midday | Set the roof, the cap and the periscope, then ice the pup houses. | 45 minutes | 4 hours |
| Day 2, late afternoon | Lean the slide, spread the yard, set the pup houses and light it. | 50 minutes | Overnight before you move it |
PAW Patrol 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 PAW Patrol Gingerbread House Step by Step
1. Print the template and measure the test bar
Print all four 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 tower printed small leaves the deck too big to sit on it and the room panels too short to meet.
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.
Why this matters: cold dough holds the narrow window slot and the corners of the room windows.
3. Roll the dough and cut the four tower walls
Roll a disc on parchment to an even 1/4 inch between guide strips. Cut the front wall, the back wall and the two narrower side walls. Cut out the arched door and the long window slot in the front wall and the square light doorway in the back wall.
Why this matters: the walls are the longest pieces. Cut them from fresh dough so they bake straight, not from re-rolled scraps.
4. Cut the deck, the roof, the room panels, the small pieces and the slide
From the second disc, cut the deck disc, the roof disc and the slide. From the scraps, cut the cap, the six room panels with their windows, the periscope, the badge and the six pup house fronts. Press the paw print into the badge and the doorways into the pup house fronts with a toothpick, and trace the six-sided room outline onto the deck.
Why this matters: the traced outline tells you exactly where each room panel stands once the deck is up on the tower.
5. Bake the pieces, then melt candy into the glass
Bake at 300 degrees F. The walls, the deck, the roof and the slide take 22 to 30 minutes, until matte with a firm edge. Bake the small pieces on their own pan and start checking them at about 12 minutes. Pull the front wall and the room panels about 5 minutes early, fill the door, the slot and every window with crushed candy two pieces deep, and bake again until the candy melts flat.
Check as you go: hard crack, where candy flows, is 300 to 308 degrees F at sea level per Colorado State University Extension, so it melts slowly at 300. If it is still lumpy after about 10 minutes, raise the oven to 325 degrees F and watch closely.
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, most carefully the long sloped edges of the four walls. Leave everything on the pan until cool.
Why this matters: a wall that spread even a little opens a gap up the whole height of a tapered tower.
7. Flood the walls, the roof, the deck, the slide and the pup house fronts
Thin most of the first batch of icing until a knife line closes in about 10 seconds. Flood the outside of every wall pale grey, the roof disc and cap red, the deck and the periscope yellow, the badge red and the slide grey. Flood the room panel frames navy around the candy and each pup house front in its own color.
Why this matters: stripes, rails and doorways only stay crisp on a flood that has crusted.
8. Pipe the stripes, the paw and the slide rails, then leave it overnight
Pipe the red and yellow stripes across the bottom of every wall and a navy band across the top. Pipe a white paw on the badge and glue it over the middle of the window slot. Pipe a raised grey rail down both long edges of the slide and four short yellow stripes across it. Pipe a dark doorway on each pup house front. Leave everything flat overnight.
Why this matters: the badge sits across the candy slot. Glued flat, it sets without sliding down the wall.
9. Make the cereal treat pup house blocks
Melt the butter and marshmallows, stir in the cereal and press the mixture firmly into a greased loaf pan, about 1 1/2 inches deep. Let it cool, turn it out and cut six blocks, each 1 1/2 inches wide and 1 3/4 inches deep. Round the top edges with kitchen scissors.
Why this matters: six baked doghouses would mean 24 tiny pieces. A block gives each pup house its rounded shape, and small hands can ice it.
10. Stand the four tower walls on the board
Spread thick icing in a 4 inch square at the middle of the board. Stand the back wall, then the two side walls against it, then the front wall, so the side walls tuck between the front and back. The walls lean in toward each other, so set them in pairs and check that the top opening is square. Prop with cans and wait 2 hours.
Why this matters: leaning walls hold each other up once set, but only if they set as a square.
11. Set the deck and build the lookout room
Pipe thick icing along the top edges of the tower and lower the deck on, yellow side up, with the traced outline centered. Stand the six room panels on the outline, windows facing out, so their inner corners touch. Pipe a thick navy post into each outside groove. Wait 2 hours.
Why this matters: six panels in a ring brace each other. One leaning panel pushes the whole ring out of line, so check each one as it goes on.
12. Set the roof, the cap and the periscope
Pipe icing along the top edges of the room panels and center the red roof disc on them. Glue the cap in the middle of the roof and smooth a little red icing round its edge so it looks like one sloped roof. Pipe a thick blob on the cap, stand the periscope in it with its arm facing forward, and hold it for a minute. Wait 4 hours.
Why this matters: the roof is the heaviest piece on the room. Four hours lets the joints harden before anything leans on the tower.
13. Ice the pup house blocks and glue on their fronts
Tint six small bowls of icing to match the pup house fronts. Spread each block in its color with an offset spatula, press its front onto one short end, and let them set for an hour on parchment.
Why this matters: the icing seals the cereal treat so it stays fresh longer and gives the front something to grip.
14. Lean the slide on the tower
Pipe thick icing on the top end of the slide and on the board 4 inches out from the right wall. Press the top against the right wall at the slide mark, 5 inches up, and set the foot on the board. Push a pretzel rod under the middle as a leg, glue it at both ends and prop the slide for 2 hours.
Why this matters: a long strip glued only at its ends bends in the middle. The pretzel leg takes that load and hides in the shadow under the slide.
15. Spread the yard and set the pup houses
Spread grey icing in a 7 inch circle around the tower. Tint the coconut green in a zip bag with a drop of leaf green, spread thin icing over the rest of the board and scatter the coconut. Glue six chocolate squares in a ring just outside the grey circle, leaving the front path and the slide lane open, and set a pup house on each one, facing out.
Why this matters: the chocolate squares lift the pup houses off the wet icing and look like the dark pads they park on in the show.
16. Light the tower
Slide an LED tea light in through the back doorway, and the blue door and the window slot glow. Use only battery lights, because a candle can scorch sugar walls, which is why our guide to making a gingerbread house glow from inside sticks to them. Let it stand overnight before you move it.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | Why it happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The candy glass is cloudy or lumpy | The candy did not fully melt | Bake a few minutes more at 325 degrees F, watching closely. |
| The window slot cracked | The front wall flexed while it was lifted | Slide it on a flat sheet, not your hands. A crack hides under the badge. |
| The top of the tower is not square | The walls set out of line | Trim the high corner with a serrated knife, or let the deck icing fill the gap. |
| The room panels lean out | Too little icing at the inner corners | Push them in, pipe the posts thicker and hold each for a minute. |
| The roof slides off the room | Thin icing or the room was not set | Lift it off, wait the full 2 hours and pipe thicker icing. |
| The slide slips down the wall | No leg under it, or the roof joints were still soft | Add the pretzel rod and prop the slide for 2 hours. |
| A pup house will not hold its front | The cereal treat was still warm | Let the blocks cool fully and spread the icing thicker. |
| The stripes look wavy | They were piped on a standing wall | Pipe them flat next time. For now, pipe a second line to straighten them. |
Make It Your Own
For fewer pup houses, make two or three and spread them wider. For a birthday, pipe a name on the deck edge. For another tall tower, our tapered lighthouse template uses the same leaning walls. For another famous cartoon dog’s home, our red Snoopy doghouse with Christmas lights is a one-day build.
Easier Versions: No-Bake and Kit Shortcuts
No-Bake Graham Cracker Pup Houses for Small Kids
The 2016 baker’s own tip was to make just the pup houses with kids and skip the tower. Glue four graham cracker quarters into a box, lean two on top for a roof, ice each house a bright color and pipe a dark doorway. A graham cracker house with no oven needs royal icing, not tub frosting, to stand. Our mini gingerbread house ideas have more small builds.
The Kit Shortcut
Build any plain kit house, ice it pale grey, pipe red and yellow stripes at the base and add a round red cookie with a white paw. Set candy-colored pup houses around it. Our picks of the sturdiest store kits point to the boxes that stay standing.
Storage Instructions
Keep the tower in a cool, dry room, away from the stove and sunny windows, which fade red and blue icing. Damp air makes candy glass sticky, and the cereal treat pup houses go stale first. Kept dry, the tower holds its shape through the season.
FAQ
Can I add the pups?
Yes, with your own toy figures or cookies. We left characters off so the tower is the star. Small figures in front of the pup houses come off again before anyone eats it.
Can I make it bigger?
Yes. Print at 125 percent for a tower about 11 1/2 inches tall. The pieces come to about 215 square inches, so plan on a second batch of dough for the slide and the small pieces, and use an 18 inch board.
More Gingerbread House Builds and Recipes
Browse more gingerbread house ideas for other themes, or our free gingerbread house templates for something smaller. When something leans, our fixes for walls that will not stand straight work on any house.
Build Your Next House With Best Gingerbread Houses
A few strong details tell the whole story on every build. Here it is a tall tower, a red roof with a periscope and a ring of bright pup houses. When you want a head start, our ranked list of gingerbread house kits sorts the good boxes from the wobbly ones.