A Snow White gingerbread house is a woodland cottage, not a candy palace. A shaggy thatched roof, dark timber beams across the walls, a round-topped plank door and a heart cut into the gable are what make anyone think of the little house in the forest from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Our house dough and royal icing recipes set every bake temperature and wait, and the free template was checked so the roof sits square. If you are building with kids, every step has a photo. If you want it to glow, a tea light slips in through a back doorway and lights the windows. And the red heart over the door glows like a little lantern, with a candy apple waiting on the doorstep below it.
You will end up with a cottage about 6 1/2 inches tall, made in three short sessions plus a finishing morning, with two easier versions. Start with the template, then the shopping list, the day-by-day plan and 16 photographed steps.
Snow White Gingerbread House: At a Glance
- Difficulty: Medium. There are only 11 pieces, but the steep roof has to be held while it sets, and the thatch takes an hour of patient piping.
- Total time: about 2 days, in three sessions plus a finishing morning. Most of it is icing setting.
- Active time: about 3 1/2 hours.
- Makes: one cottage 4 1/2 inches wide, 5 inches deep and about 6 1/2 inches tall, on a 12 inch round board, with two stand-up fir trees.
- Template: free 2-page PDF, US Letter, true size with a 1 inch test bar.
Tools: printer, ruler, scissors, rolling pin with 1/4 inch guides, parchment, 3 half sheet pans, paring knife, 3 piping bags, a small round tip, a grass tip such as a Wilton 233, offset spatula, sieve, small cups or cans for propping, 12 inch round cake board, 1 battery LED tea light.
Materials
- 1 batch of sturdy gingerbread house dough
- 2 batches of stiff royal icing
- About 10 yellow and 3 red hard candies
- About 30 thin pretzel sticks, a handful of chocolate rocks, 8 chocolate candy melts, 1 large red gumball, yellow, brown and green gel food coloring, powdered sugar
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 walls.
- Cut the roof panels, the trees and the door.
- Bake at 300 degrees F, then melt candy into the windows.
- Trim every piece against the template while it is warm.
- Glue the pretzel beams on while the walls lie flat and wait 2 hours.
- Stand the four walls on the board and wait 2 hours.
- Set the roof panels and wait 4 hours.
- Pipe the golden thatch from the eaves up to the ridge.
- Pipe diamond panes over the yellow windows.
- Hang the door and wait overnight.
- Pile a chocolate rock chimney on the roof.
- Stand the two fir trees.
- Lay the stepping stones, moss and the apple.
- Snow the board and light the cottage with an LED 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.
Free Printable Snow White Gingerbread House Template
The template is two US Letter pages with 11 pieces, drawn at true size. Download the PDF, print it at Actual Size or 100 percent, and put a ruler on the red 1 inch bar before you cut anything. If the bar measures an inch, every piece is right.
| Piece | Cut | Size | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front and back wall | 2 | 4 1/2 in wide, 6 in to the peak | Both get the round-top doorway, 1 3/4 inches wide. Only the front gets the heart window. |
| Door | 1, plus a spare | the doorway cutouts | The dough you cut out of the doorways bakes as the door. Bake both and keep the better one. |
| Side wall | 2 | 4 1/2 x 3 1/2 in | Each has two square windows for yellow candy glass, and they tuck between the front and back walls. |
| Roof | 2 | 6 x 4 in | Rests on all four walls and meets at the ridge. Grey guide lines show where each row of thatch goes. |
| Tree A and Tree B | 2 of each | 1 5/8 x 2 5/8 in | A is slotted from the top and B from the bottom. Slide one onto the other and the tree stands on its own. |
The sizes are worked out so the build goes together without trimming. The side walls are 3 1/2 inches tall, the same as the eaves of the front and back walls, so the roof rests evenly on all four. The roof rises 2 1/2 inches over a half width of 2 1/4 inches, a pitch of about 48 degrees: steep enough to look like a thatched cottage, but not so steep that the panels slide off while they set. Each 4 inch roof panel covers its slope with a little under 1/2 inch to spare at the eave, and the 6 inch length overhangs each end by 1/2 inch. The doorway is 1 3/4 inches wide because a standard tea light is about 1 1/2 inches across, so the back doorway is wide enough to pass it in.
Solid black lines are cuts, red dashes are openings you cut out, and the grey dotted lines are guides that you never cut. If you want a different shape next time, our other templates for other houses print and fit the same way.
What You Need for the Cottage
You need one batch of dough, two batches of royal icing, a few hard candies, a bag of pretzel sticks and some chocolate for the chimney and path. Everything else is kitchen gear you probably own, plus one grass tip.
For baking
- 1 batch of dough that bakes flat and hard. The 11 pieces come to about 130 square inches, which one batch covers with scraps left for a test strip.
- About 10 yellow hard candies for the four side windows and 3 red ones for the heart, unwrapped and crushed in separate zip bags.
For the icing
- 2 batches of thick royal icing for gluing, made one at a time. The first stays mostly white, for gluing, beams and panes. Most of the second becomes the thatch.
- Yellow gel food coloring with a touch of brown, for golden straw.
- Green gel food coloring, for the trees and the moss.
- A grass tip. Wilton makes its 233 tip for grass, hair and fur, and it pipes many fine strands at once, which is exactly what thatch is.
For the beams, chimney and garden
- About 30 thin pretzel sticks, plus a few spares for breakage.
- A handful of chocolate rocks for the chimney.
- About 8 chocolate candy melts for stepping stones.
- 1 large red gumball and a short piece of pretzel stick for the apple.
- Powdered sugar for snow.
Tools
- Rolling pin with 1/4 inch guide strips, parchment and 3 half sheet pans
- Paring knife, scissors and a ruler
- 3 piping bags, a small round tip, the grass tip and an offset spatula
- A few small cups or cans for propping
- A 12 inch round cake board
- 1 battery LED tea light, 1.5 inches across
How Long It Takes, Day by Day
Plan on three short sessions over two days, plus a morning to finish, for about 3 1/2 hours of hands-on work. The rest is waiting, because royal icing needs time to harden completely before it can carry weight, and the roof and thatch are the heaviest parts of this house.
| When | What you do | Hands-on | Then wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1, afternoon | Print, make and chill the dough, cut, bake and trim, melt the candy windows, and glue on the pretzel beams once the walls are cool. | About 1 3/4 hours, inside 4 hours with chilling and baking | Overnight, pieces flat |
| Day 2, morning | Stand the four walls, and slot the two trees together. | 25 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, late morning | Set the roof panels. | 15 minutes | 4 hours |
| Day 2, afternoon | Pipe the thatch, the window panes and hang the door. Ice the trees green. | About 1 1/4 hours | Overnight |
| Day 3, morning | Pile the chimney, stand the trees, lay the path and the apple, snow the board and light it. | About 30 minutes | Overnight before you move it |
The waits are the ones our icing guide gives for any house: 2 hours before anything sits on or leans against new walls, 4 hours before decoration, and overnight, 8 to 12 hours, for a full cure. In a damp kitchen, add time. In a dry one with the heat on, it goes a little faster.
Say you want it on the table for a family dinner at 5 PM on Sunday, so you bake on Friday afternoon. On Saturday you stand the walls at 9, set the roof at 11 and pipe the thatch after lunch at 3, which leaves only the chimney, the trees and the snow for Sunday morning, with the whole afternoon to spare. The planner below does that arithmetic for any date you choose.
Snow White Cottage Build Day Planner
Pick when you want the cottage 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 Snow White Gingerbread House Step by Step
Each step does one job and has one photo, and the “why this matters” lines explain the reasoning behind the steps that keep a steep roof in place.
1. Print the template and measure the test bar
Print both pages at Actual Size or 100 percent, never Fit to Page, and put a ruler on the red bar, which should read exactly 1 inch. Then cut out the paper pieces, including the doorway, the heart and the side windows. You only need one paper copy of each shape; you cut the dough twice wherever the template says cut 2.
Why this matters: the bar is the only way to know the page printed true before you spend an afternoon on dough.
2. Make the dough and chill it
Make one batch of the house dough, split it in two, and flatten each half into a disc about an inch thick, then wrap the discs and chill them for at least an hour. It is ready when a poked disc dents and stays dented.
Why this matters: cold dough cuts with clean edges and spreads less in the oven, so the walls stay the size of the template.
3. Roll the dough and cut the four walls
Roll a quarter of the dough at a time on parchment, to an even 1/4 inch between guide strips. Cut the front and back walls and the doorway in each, then the heart in the front wall only. Cut the two side walls and their windows. Pull away the scraps and slide the parchment straight onto a pan. Keep the two doorway cutouts.
Why this matters: cutting on the parchment means you never lift a soft wall, and a lifted wall stretches out of square before it ever reaches the oven.
4. Cut the roof panels, the trees and the door
Roll the rest of the dough and cut the two roof panels and the four tree pieces, with their slots: two from the top and two from the bottom, each halfway. Lay both doorway cutouts on this pan too, and press three straight lines into each with the back of a knife for planks. Keep the trees and doors on one pan and the roof panels on another.
Why this matters: the small trees and doors bake much faster than the big roof panels, so on a shared pan either they burn or the roof comes out underbaked.
5. Bake the pieces, then melt candy into the windows
Check as you go: every oven runs a little hot or cool, so use these times as a guide, not a timer. Look through the oven door often, and trust the matte surface and firm edge over the clock.
Bake at 300 degrees F. The walls and roof take 22 to 30 minutes, until the surface looks matte and the edge feels firm under a fingertip. The trees and doors are much smaller, so start checking them at about 12 minutes. Pull the pan with the walls out about 5 minutes early, fill each side window two candies deep with crushed yellow candy and the heart with crushed red, and bake again until the candy has melted flat and glassy, checking after 5 minutes.
This works like any hard candy windows: the candy flows once it reaches the hard crack stage, which Colorado State University Extension puts at 300 to 308 degrees F at sea level. That is right at this oven’s temperature, so it melts slowly. If the candy is still lumpy after about 10 minutes, raise the oven to 325 degrees F and watch it closely. At high altitude, the target drops about 2 degrees for every 1,000 feet, so check sooner, because candy that melts early can brown.
Why this matters: melted candy is far hotter than the cookie around it, and it burns fast once it pools.
6. Trim every piece while it is warm
Within two minutes of each pan coming out, lay the paper piece back on top and trim any edge that spread past it. Then leave everything on the pan until it is completely cool and flat. Do not lift a window wall until the candy has hardened. When a cooled scrap bends a little and then snaps cleanly, the pieces are ready to build with.
Why this matters: warm gingerbread trims cleanly with a knife, while cooled gingerbread tends to snap exactly where you did not want it to.
7. Glue the pretzel beams on while the walls lie flat
With white icing and the small round tip, pipe a thin line where each beam goes and press a pretzel stick into it, snapping sticks to length as you go. On the front wall, lay one across the eave line, one up each side edge and two leaning together in the triangle as rafters. On each side wall, lay one along the top, one along the bottom, one at each end and one upright between the windows. The back wall can stay plain. Leave them flat for 2 hours.
Why this matters: a beam glued to a flat wall stays where you put it, while one pressed onto a standing wall slides down before the icing grabs.
8. Stand the four walls on the board
Pipe icing along the bottom and side edges of a side wall and stand it on the board, then press the front wall against its end, so the side wall tucks behind the front wall’s edge. Add the second side wall and close the box with the back wall. Check the corners are square, prop the side walls with cups and leave it for 2 hours.
Why this matters: the box has to be square and set before the roof goes on, because a roof panel will push a soft wall outward under its weight.
9. Set the roof panels
Pipe a thick line of icing along the sloped edges of the front and back walls and the top edges of the side walls. Lay the first roof panel on, with its long edge overhanging the side wall a little and its ends overhanging the front and back equally, and hold it for two minutes. Set the second panel the same way, butting its top edge against the first along the ridge, and pipe a line of icing into the ridge seam. Prop both eaves with cans if they creep, and leave it for 4 hours.
Why this matters: a 48 degree roof wants to slide, so the first minutes of holding and the full 4 hours of waiting are what keep it on before the heavy thatch goes on top.
10. Pipe the golden thatch from the eaves up to the ridge
Tint most of the second batch of icing golden yellow with a touch of brown, and fill a bag fitted with the grass tip. Start at the bottom edge of one roof panel: touch the tip to the roof, squeeze and pull down about 1/2 inch, then stop squeezing and lift away, so a fringe of strands hangs over the eave. Work across the panel, then start the next row 1/2 inch higher, on the grey guide line, so its strands cover the tops of the row below. Carry on to the ridge, then do the other side, and finish with a thick rope of strands along the ridge to round it off.
Picture a seven year old taking a turn on the second row. The strands go every which way, and it does not matter at all, because real thatch is shaggy, and no one can find their row once the roof is done.
Why this matters: the thatch is what makes this cottage read as Snow White’s and not just any gingerbread house, and piping from the bottom up is what makes each row overlap like real straw instead of looking like shingles.
11. Pipe diamond panes over the yellow windows
With white icing and the small round tip, pipe a frame around each yellow window, then two or three thin diagonal lines one way and the same number the other way, so they cross in a diamond lattice. Leave the red heart plain.
Why this matters: diamond panes are the detail that makes a window look old and storybook, and they hide any bubbles in the candy.
12. Hang the door
Choose the better of the two baked doors. Pipe icing around its edge and press it into the front doorway, flush with the wall, then glue a red candy or a dot of red icing on for a knob. Leave the back doorway open. Let everything cure overnight.
Why this matters: the door is the piece you cut out of this very doorway, so it fits the opening almost exactly, with only the small spread you trimmed away while it was warm.
13. Pile a chocolate rock chimney on the roof
Pipe a thick blob of white icing on the back of one roof slope, close to the ridge. Press three or four chocolate rocks into it as a base, pipe a little more icing on top and stack more rocks, about four layers high, so the chimney stands above the thatch.
Why this matters: a chimney sitting high on the roof needs no baked pieces and no angled cuts, and the thatch around its base hides the icing.
14. Stand the two fir trees
For each tree, slide a top-slotted piece down onto a bottom-slotted piece at right angles, so the slots lock and the tree stands on four edges. Spread or pipe green icing over the branches and let it set for an hour, or overnight with the thatch. Pipe a little icing under each tree and stand one by the front corner on each side.
Why this matters: a cross-slotted tree stands on its own without any prop, which flat cutout trees cannot do.
15. Lay the stepping stones, moss and the apple
Dab icing under each chocolate candy melt and lay a short path of them from the front of the board up to the door. With green icing and the grass tip, pipe little tufts of moss along the bottom of the walls. Push a short piece of pretzel stick into the top of the red gumball with a dot of icing for a stem, and set the apple on the doorstep.
Why this matters: a shiny red apple by the door is the one detail everyone recognizes from the story, and it ties the red heart window to the doorstep below it.
16. Snow the board and light the cottage
Sift powdered sugar over the board, the trees and the top of the thatch. Switch on the LED tea light and slide it in through the open back doorway, and the heart and the side windows glow. Use only a battery light. A real candle inside sugar and butter walls can scorch them, which is why our guide to LED lighting for gingerbread sticks to battery lights. Let the finished cottage stand overnight before you move it.
Keep track as you go with the checklist below, which remembers your ticks on this device and tells you exactly when each wait is over.
Snow White Cottage Build Checklist
Tick each step as you finish it. When a step needs icing to set, the checklist tells you the time it is safe to carry on. Your ticks are saved on this device.
0 of 16 steps done
No waits running yet.
For planning only: set times change with the weather, so press a joint gently before you load it. Not professional baking advice. Your progress is saved in this browser only and never sent anywhere.
Why the Cottage Has a Steep Roof and a Doorway at Both Ends
Thatch only looks like thatch on a steep roof. On a gentle slope, piped strands lie flat and read as shingles or fur, but at about 48 degrees they hang, and the fringe at the eaves looks heavy and soft, like straw. That is as steep as the roof can go before the panels slide while the icing is wet, which is why step 9 asks you to hold each panel and wait the full 4 hours.
The doorway at both ends solves two problems with one template piece. The front doorway’s own cutout becomes the door, so it fits, and you bake the back one as a spare. The back doorway stays open as the way in for the light. Picture a family that seals a tea light inside a closed cottage for a party. It glows for an evening, but nobody can reach the switch, and by the next weekend the windows are dark. Here, the light slides in when guests arrive and comes out at bedtime.
The look comes from cheap details instead of hard baking: pretzels for beams, chocolate rocks for a chimney and icing for straw. A pitched roof on four straight walls is the same frame as our Hansel and Gretel house, a cottage from another forest story, so if you have built one, this will feel familiar.
Troubleshooting
If it goes wrong, most problems come from loading icing before it has set, or from heat and humidity, so here is what to look for and what to do about it.
| What you see | Why it happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A roof panel slides down while setting | The icing was too soft, or the panel was let go too soon | Lift it back up, add stiffer icing and hold it for two full minutes. Prop the eave with a can for the first hour. |
| The roof panels leave a gap at the ridge | The walls leaned out a little before they set | Fill the gap with icing. The thatch rope along the ridge covers it completely. |
| The thatch strands flop flat | The icing is too soft | Stir in a spoonful of powdered sugar until a piped strand holds its shape. |
| The thatch looks like fur, not straw | The strands are too short, or piped from the top down | Pull each strand about 1/2 inch, and always start at the eave so each row covers the last. |
| A pretzel beam snapped | Pretzels are brittle | Pipe a dot of icing over the break, or replace it with a fresh stick. Breaks hide easily. |
| A window candy browned or bubbled | It stayed in too long, or you are at high altitude | Check from 5 minutes. The diamond panes hide small bubbles. |
| The candy did not melt | A 300 degree oven sits right at the candy’s melting point | Give it a few more minutes at 325 degrees F and watch it. |
| A tree will not stand straight | The slots are too tight, or spread in the oven | Shave the slot a little wider with a knife and slide the pieces together again. |
| The door is too big for the doorway | It spread in the oven and was not trimmed | Shave its edge with a knife until it fits, or use the spare door. |
Easier Versions: No-Bake and Kit Shortcuts
If baking from scratch is too much this year, the same cottage works two simpler ways.
A No-Bake Graham Cracker Cottage for Small Kids
Graham crackers make a smaller cottage with no oven at all. Stand four half sheets on end in a box, glued with royal icing, and lean two more half sheets together on top as a roof. Fill the triangles at the front and back with icing, or leave them open. Then pipe the thatch, lay pretzel beams and set a red gumball apple by the door. A graham cracker cottage of any shape lives or dies on the glue, so use royal icing, not tub frosting, for the walls.
Picture a five year old who wants to help but cannot wait two days. Build the graham cottage with them in the morning, let it set over lunch, and they pipe the thatch and place the apple that afternoon. The gingerbread cottage can be the grown-up project for the weekend.
The Kit Shortcut
Almost any plain kit with a pitched roof becomes this cottage. Build it as usual, then glue pretzel beams to the walls and pipe the golden thatch over the kit’s roof panels instead of the candy it suggests. A heart window will not be cut in a kit’s wall, so pipe a red icing heart on the gable instead, and add the chimney, trees, path and apple from the steps above.
Storage Instructions
Humidity is what softens gingerbread and makes sugar and candy sticky, so keep the cottage in a cool, dry room, away from the stove, the dishwasher and sunny windows. Cover it loosely with a clean cloth if dust is a worry. Switch the tea light off when no one is looking, and slide it out before you put the cottage away.
Treat it as a decoration once it has stood out for a few days. Royal icing made with raw egg whites is not cooked at any stage. If you plan to eat some, make the icing with meringue powder instead.
FAQ
Is this the cottage from the Snow White film?
It is our own woodland cottage in that storybook style, with no characters, logos or film artwork. The thatch, beams, heart window and red apple are what make people think of the story. Best Gingerbread Houses is an independent site and is not affiliated with Disney.
How tall is the finished cottage?
About 6 1/2 inches to the top of the thatch, a little more at the chimney. The walls are 3 1/2 inches tall at the eaves and the peak is 6 inches, on a footprint 4 1/2 inches wide and 5 inches deep, so it fits a 12 inch round board with room for the trees and the path.
Can I use a real candle inside?
No. Use a battery LED tea light, because the cottage is sugar and butter walls under a roof of icing, and a flame inside it can scorch them.
Can you eat a gingerbread cottage?
The gingerbread is edible when fresh, but this is built as a display piece, and the pretzel sticks and gumball are choking risks for very small children. Royal icing made with raw egg whites is never cooked, so if you want to nibble it, use meringue powder icing and eat it soon after it is finished.
Can I make it bigger?
Yes. Print at 125 percent for a cottage about 8 inches tall. Every piece still fits, because the side walls tuck between the front and back walls at any length, and the larger roof still covers its slope with room to spare. The pieces come to about 200 square inches, so plan on a second batch of dough.
What can I use instead of a grass tip?
Spread golden icing thickly and drag a fork down through it in short rows from the eave up, or press shredded wheat cereal into wet icing for a coarser straw look. Both still read as thatch from across the room.
More Gingerbread House Builds and Recipes
If the cottage made you want another, set it at the edge of the woods in a gingerbread village scene, or dress the door with our ideas for gingerbread doors. And when a roof slides or a wall leans, our help for a sliding roof works on any house.
Build Your Next House With Best Gingerbread Houses
The cottage proves the point we come back to on every build: a few strong details tell the whole story. When you want a head start next time, our guide to the gingerbread house kits we trust sorts the ones that stay standing from the ones that do not, so you can spend your time on the thatch, the heart and the apple.