A Tangled gingerbread house is not a cottage, it is a tower. In Disney’s 2010 film, the way in is the window at the top, so this build is a tall stone tower with no door, a top room with one glowing window, a pointed purple roof and a braid hanging down.
Our house dough and royal icing recipes set every bake temperature and wait, and the free template was checked so every piece closes square. If you are building with kids, every step has a photo. And if piping stones up a 13 inch tower sounds hard, it is not: you ice every stone, wall and shingle while the pieces still lie flat on the counter.
Start with the template, then the shopping list, the day-by-day plan and 16 photographed steps.
Tangled Gingerbread House, Rapunzel’s Tower: At a Glance
- Difficulty: Medium. Straight walls and no curves, but the tower stacks in four stages with a wait between each.
- Total time: about 2 days, in short sessions plus a finishing morning. Most of it is icing setting.
- Active time: about 5 1/2 hours.
- Makes: one tower about 13 1/2 inches tall on a 10 inch round board. 17 baked pieces.
- Template: free 3-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, toothpick, 3 piping bags with a small round tip and a small leaf tip, offset spatula, 4 cans for propping, a heavy 10 inch round cake board, 1 battery LED tea light.
Materials
- 1 batch of sturdy gingerbread house dough
- 2 batches of stiff royal icing, one for gluing and one for flooding and frosting
- About 8 yellow or orange hard candies
- Gel food coloring in black, purple, green and yellow
- About 4 ounces of yellow fondant, 1 yellow gumdrop, sugar flower sprinkles, chocolate rock candy or crushed chocolate cookies
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.
- Cut the floor, the brackets, the top room walls and the roof panels.
- Bake at 300 degrees F, then melt yellow candy into the windows.
- Trim every piece against the template while it is warm.
- Flood the tower walls gray and press in stone shapes.
- Frost the top room walls cream and shingle the roof panels purple.
- Stand the tower on the board and wait 2 hours.
- Glue on the floor and the four brackets and wait 2 hours.
- Stand the top room on the floor and wait 2 hours.
- Set the roof, two panels at a time, and wait 4 hours.
- Pipe the roof seams and set a gumdrop finial on the point.
- Pipe the ivy and flowers up the tower.
- Hang a fondant braid from the window.
- Build the rocks around the base and light the window 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 Tangled Gingerbread House Template
The template is three US Letter pages with 17 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tower front and back | 2 | 3 1/2 x 6 1/2 in | Same outline. Cut the slit window out of the front only. No door. |
| Tower side | 2 | 3 x 6 1/2 in | Tucks between the front and back so the tower is a true 3 1/2 inch square. |
| Floor | 1 | 5 in square | Sits on top of the tower and overhangs it 3/4 inch all round, so the top room is wider than the tower. |
| Bracket | 4 | 3/4 x 1 1/4 in triangle | One under each side of the overhang, short edge up against the floor. |
| Top room front | 1 | 4 1/2 x 3 in | Cut the big round-top window out of it. |
| Top room back | 1 | 4 1/2 x 3 in | Cut the 2 inch light arch out of the bottom edge. |
| Top room side | 2 | 4 x 3 in | Tucks between the front and back, like the tower. |
| Roof panel | 4 | 5 in base, 4.1 in tall triangle | Four triangles lean together into a pointed roof. |
| Gumdrop | 1 | store-bought | The finial on the point. Not baked and not on the template. |
The sizes are worked out so the build goes together without trimming. Each side wall is 1/2 inch narrower than its front because it sits between two walls of 1/4 inch dough. The floor is 1/2 inch wider than the top room, so the room walls stand 1/4 inch in from its edge, on a small ledge, and each bracket is exactly as deep as the 3/4 inch overhang. The roof panels are cut so they are 4 1/2 inches wide at the point where they rest on the room walls, a dotted line on the template, and the 1/2 inch below that line hangs down as a small eave. The light arch is 2 inches wide, enough for a standard 1.5 inch LED tea light.
Solid black lines are cuts, red dashes are openings you cut out, and gray dots are guides you never cut. If you want a house with a classic roof instead, our other printable house templates with true-size pieces work the same way.
What You Need for Rapunzel’s Tower
You need one batch of dough, two batches of royal icing, a few candies, a little fondant and four gel colors. Everything else is kitchen gear you probably own.
For baking
- 1 batch of building-strength gingerbread dough. The 17 pieces come to nearly 200 square inches of dough, which is about the whole batch, so reroll the scraps once and cut carefully. If your dough runs short, make a batch and a half.
- About 8 yellow or orange hard candies, unwrapped and crushed in a zip bag, for a warm glow in the two windows.
For the icing
- 2 batches of royal icing that holds a tall build, made one at a time. The first is for gluing and piping. The second is for flooding and frosting: thin it with a teaspoon of water at a time until a ribbon of it sinks back into the bowl in about 10 to 15 seconds.
- Gel coloring: a tiny drop of black for gray stone, purple for the roof, green for the ivy, and a touch of yellow for the cream top room.
For the finish
- About 4 ounces of yellow fondant for the braid. Yellow candy laces work too.
- 1 yellow gumdrop for the finial.
- Sugar flower sprinkles, or small pink and purple candies, for the flowers in the ivy.
- Chocolate rock candy or crushed chocolate sandwich cookies for the rocky hill, plus a spoonful of green icing for grass.
Tools
- Rolling pin with 1/4 inch guide strips, parchment and 3 half sheet pans
- Paring knife, scissors, a ruler and a toothpick
- 3 piping bags, a small round tip and a small leaf tip such as a number 352, and an offset spatula
- 4 cans for propping walls
- A heavy 10 inch round cake board, because a tall tower needs a firm base
- 1 battery LED tea light, 1.5 inches across, warm white if you can find one
How Long It Takes, Day by Day
Plan on short sessions over two days, plus a morning to finish, for about 5 1/2 hours of hands-on work. The rest is waiting, because royal icing needs time to harden before it can carry weight, and this tower stacks a floor, a room and a roof on top of each other.
| When | What you do | Hands-on | Then wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1, afternoon | Print, make and chill the dough, cut, bake and trim, and melt the candy windows. | About 2 hours, inside 4 hours with chilling and baking | Until cool |
| Day 1, evening | Flood the tower walls gray and press in the stones, frost the top room cream, frost and shingle the roof panels. | 45 minutes | Overnight, pieces flat |
| Day 2, morning | Stand the tower. | 20 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, late morning | Glue on the floor and the brackets. | 15 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, early afternoon | Stand the top room on the floor. | 20 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, afternoon | Set the roof. | 20 minutes | 4 hours |
| Day 2, evening | Pipe the roof seams, set the finial, and pipe the ivy and flowers. | 40 minutes | Overnight |
| Day 3, morning | Hang the braid, build the rocks and grass, and light the window. | 45 minutes | A few hours 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 party at 2 PM on Saturday, so you bake on Thursday afternoon and decorate the flat pieces after dinner. On Friday you stand the tower at 9, add the floor at 11, the top room at 1 and the roof at 3, then pipe the ivy after dinner. That leaves only the braid, the rocks and the light for Saturday morning. The planner below does that arithmetic for any date you choose.
Tower Build Day Planner
Pick when you want Rapunzel's tower 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 Tangled 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 tall tower standing.
1. Print the template and measure the test bar
Print all three 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 slit window, the big window and the light arch.
Why this matters: the bar is the only way to know the pages 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 tower walls
Roll a quarter of the dough at a time on parchment, to an even 1/4 inch between guide strips. Lay the tower front and back template on it and cut around it twice with a sharp knife, then cut the slit window out of one of them, which becomes the front. Cut the two tower side walls, pull away the scraps, and slide the parchment straight onto a pan.
Why this matters: cutting on the parchment means you never lift a soft wall, and a lifted 6 1/2 inch wall stretches out of square.
4. Cut the floor, brackets, top room and roof
Roll the rest of the dough and cut the floor, the four small brackets, the top room front with its big window, the top room back with its arch, the two room sides and the four roof triangles. Keep the brackets on a pan of their own.
Why this matters: the brackets are tiny and bake far faster than a wall, so on a shared pan they burn before the walls are done.
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 big walls take 22 to 30 minutes, until the surface looks matte and the edge feels firm under a fingertip. The floor, room walls and roof panels are smaller, so start checking them at about 15 minutes, and the brackets sooner. Pull the two window pieces out about 5 minutes early, fill each window two candies deep with the crushed yellow candy, and bake again until it has melted flat and glassy, checking after 5 minutes.
This is the standard method for windows made of melted hard candy: 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 piece until the candy has hardened. When a cooled scrap bends a little and then snaps cleanly, the pieces are ready.
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. Flood the tower walls gray and press in the stones
Tint about a third of the thinned icing pale gray with the smallest drop of black. Lay the four tower walls flat, outside up, and spread the gray over each one with an offset spatula, stopping 1/4 inch short of every edge and going right up to the slit window. Wait until the surface has crusted but is still soft underneath, usually 15 to 30 minutes depending on the room, then press uneven stone shapes into it with the side of a toothpick, rows of rough rectangles with staggered joints.
Why this matters: the bare 1/4 inch border is where the glue goes, and icing on a joint stops two walls from meeting. Stones pressed into a flat wall are neat. Stones piped up a standing tower drip.
8. Frost the top room cream and shingle the roof purple
Tint a few spoonfuls of the thinned icing cream with a touch of yellow and spread it over the four top room walls, again leaving the edges bare and keeping clear of the window and the arch. Tint the rest purple. Frost each roof triangle, then pipe rows of small purple scallops across it from the base up, each row overlapping the one below like shingles. Let everything dry flat overnight.
Why this matters: once the roof is up, its panels lean at more than 50 degrees, and shingles piped on a slope slide. On a flat triangle they stay exactly where you put them.
9. Stand the tower on the board
Pipe a thick line of white icing along the bottom edge and both side edges of the tower front, and stand it in the middle of the board. Set the two side walls behind its edges so they tuck in between, then add the back wall. Prop each wall with a can and leave it for 2 hours.
Why this matters: the front and back run the full width and the sides sit inside them, which makes a true 3 1/2 inch square. Two hours is how long new walls need before anything can sit on top.
10. Glue on the floor and the brackets
Pipe a thick line along the top edge of all four tower walls and lower the floor onto them, centered, so it overhangs 3/4 inch on every side. Then pipe icing along the long edge and short edge of each bracket and press one under the middle of each side of the overhang, long edge against the tower and short edge tight under the floor. Leave it for 2 hours.
Why this matters: the top room walls stand out past the tower walls, on the overhang, and the brackets carry that weight down into the tower.
11. Stand the top room on the floor
Build the top room the same way as the tower, front and back full width and the sides tucked between, standing 1/4 inch in from the edge of the floor, on the gray guide square from the template, with the big window facing front and the arch at the back. Slide your tea light in and out through the arch to be sure it fits. Leave it for 2 hours.
Why this matters: the room sits on a floor that only has 2 hours of set behind it, so this step adds no weight beyond its own four walls.
12. Set the roof
Pipe a thick line along the top edges of the room walls and along both sloped edges of every roof panel. Set two opposite panels first, leaning them in until their points touch, with the dotted rest line sitting on the wall top. Then slide the other two in between them and press the four points together. Hold the roof for a minute, then leave it for 4 hours.
Why this matters: two opposite panels hold each other up, so the last two have something firm to lean on, and four leaning triangles lock into a pyramid once the icing sets.
13. Pipe the roof seams and set the finial
With purple icing and a small round tip, pipe a line of dots up each of the four roof seams to hide the joints. Put a blob of icing on the point and press the yellow gumdrop onto it.
Why this matters: four triangles never meet in a perfect point, and the gumdrop covers whatever small gap is left at the top.
14. Pipe the ivy and flowers up the tower
Tint some white icing green and fit a bag with the leaf tip. Start at the board and pipe a wandering vine up one corner of the tower and partway up the front, thick at the bottom and thinning as it climbs, then pipe leaves along it: touch the tip down, squeeze, and pull away. Press sugar flowers into the wet leaves here and there.
Why this matters: ivy that climbs from the ground and thins out on the way up is what makes the tower read as old and tall.
15. Hang the braid from the window
Roll the yellow fondant into three ropes about 1/4 inch thick and 14 inches long, pinch them together at one end and braid them loosely, then pinch the other end. Pipe a dot of icing inside the bottom of the big window, press the top of the braid onto it, and let the braid fall down the front of the tower to pool on the board.
Why this matters: the tower has no door, so the braid is the way in. Fondant bends without cracking and weighs very little, so it hangs from a dot of icing.
16. Build the rocks and light the window
Spread a thick layer of icing on the board around the base and press in chocolate rocks or crushed cookies, piled higher against the tower so it seems to grow out of a rocky hill. Pipe green grass between the rocks. Switch on the LED tea light and slide it in through the arch at the back of the top room, and the big window glows gold. Use only a battery light. A real candle inside a closed room of sugar and butter can scorch the walls or catch, which is why our advice on lighting a tall gingerbread build safely sticks to LEDs.
Why this matters: a pile of rocks around the base gives a tall, narrow tower a wide foot, which helps it stand up to a bump.
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.
Tower 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 Tower Is Square, Not Round
Rapunzel’s tower is round in the film, and some bakers wrap dough around a tall cylinder to get that curve. It can look wonderful, but soft dough can slump on a curved form in the oven, the seam is hard to close cleanly, and a curved wall gives a floor very little edge to sit on. Baked gingerbread cannot bend afterward, so the other choices are a ring of tapered flat panels, which is how our six-panel lighthouse template works, or a square. We chose a square because it is the strongest box there is: every wall is braced by two others, and the flat floor locks the top of it before anything heavy goes on.
What makes it read as Rapunzel’s tower is not the curve. It is the shape: a narrow stone tower that suddenly widens into a room at the top, on brackets, under a steep pointed roof, with ivy climbing up and a braid coming down. The floor overhang and the brackets do that widening, and the stones you pressed into the flat walls make the corners look like old masonry.
The decorating order is the other half of the design. Picture a family that builds the bare tower on Friday and plans to ice it on Saturday. By the time anyone is piping stones 6 inches up a standing wall, the icing is sagging, the roof shingles are sliding, and the tower has been bumped twice. Iced flat on Thursday night, every stone and shingle is dry before the first wall stands, and Saturday is only the braid and the rocks.
Troubleshooting
If it goes wrong, most problems come from loading icing before it has set, from icing on a joint, 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 tower wall leans or slides while setting | The icing was too soft, or the cans came off early | Push it back, prop it again, and wait the full 2 hours. Stiffer icing holds its peak when you pull a spoon out. |
| Two walls will not meet at a corner | Gray flood ran onto the edge, or a piece spread in the oven and was not trimmed | Scrape the edge bare with a knife and glue again. Next time, stop the flood 1/4 inch short and trim within two minutes of baking. |
| The stones look smeared | The toothpick went in before the flood crusted | Smooth that wall with a damp spatula, wait for the crust and press again. |
| The floor tips toward one side | It went on before the tower set, or the brackets are missing on that side | Lift it off, scrape, wait out the 2 hours and set it again with all four brackets. |
| The top room walls splay outward | The floor edge is too narrow or the icing line too thin | Pipe a thicker line, push the walls in and prop them with cups for an hour. |
| A roof panel slides off | The two opposite panels were not set first, or the icing was wet | Hold the panels together for a minute longer and prop the low edge with a cup. Wait the full 4 hours before the finial. |
| The roof points do not meet | A panel spread in the oven | Fill the gap with purple icing. The gumdrop covers the rest. |
| A window candy browned or bubbled | It stayed in too long, or you are at high altitude | Check from 5 minutes. A browned window still glows, just a deeper amber. |
| The braid pulls away from the window | It is too heavy for its dot of icing, or the dot was dry | Pipe a fresh dot and hold the braid for a minute. A thinner braid, or candy laces, weighs less. |
| The tower wobbles when the table is bumped | It is tall for its base | Build the rock hill higher against the base, and keep the board on a sturdy surface away from the edge. |
Easier Versions: No-Bake, Lighthouse and Kit Shortcuts
If baking from scratch is too much this year, the same tower works three simpler ways.
A No-Bake Graham Cracker Tower for Small Kids
Graham crackers make a shorter tower with no oven at all. Stand four full sheets on their short ends in a box, glued with royal icing, for the tower, and top it with a full sheet for the floor. Build a small room of four half sheets on top and lean four more half sheets, snapped into rough triangles, into a roof. Like all no-bake graham cracker houses, it 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 tower with them in the morning, let it set while they have lunch, and they pipe the ivy, press on the flowers and hang a candy lace braid that afternoon. The gingerbread version can be the grown-up project for the weekend.
The Lighthouse Route
If you want the tower round rather than square, start from our lighthouse template instead: its six tapered panels lean into a ring. Flood them gray and press in stones as in step 7, use the lantern room as the top room, cut one big window into it, and finish with the ivy and the braid. Our nine Disney houses to build walk through that version in short form.
The Kit Shortcut
Any plain kit can become the top of the tower. Build the kit house as the top room, then stand it on a tower made from four tall rectangles cut from a second kit’s walls, or from graham crackers, glued into a box. Flood the tower gray, press in the stones, and finish with the ivy, braid and rocks from the steps above.
Storage Instructions
Humidity is what softens gingerbread and makes candy sticky, so keep the tower in a cool, dry room, away from the stove, the dishwasher and sunny windows. A tall tower is easy to knock, so set it well back from the table edge. Cover it loosely with a clean cloth if dust is a worry. Switch the tea light off when no one is looking, and take it out before you put the tower 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 an official Disney Tangled design?
No. It is our own tower, inspired by the tower in the film, and it uses no character figures, logos or film artwork. The stone, the top room, the purple roof, the ivy and the braid are what tell the story.
How tall is the finished tower?
About 13 1/2 inches to the top of the gumdrop. The stone tower is 3 1/2 inches square and 6 1/2 inches tall, the top room is 4 1/2 inches square and 3 inches tall, and the roof adds about 3 inches. It stands on a 10 inch round board.
Will a tower that tall fall over?
Not if each stage sets before the next goes on. The tower is glued to the board along all four walls, the floor and room are light, and the rock hill around the base widens its foot. Keep it on a firm surface and away from the table edge.
Can I use a real candle inside?
No. Use a battery LED tea light, because the top room is a closed space made of sugar and butter, and a flame inside it can scorch the walls or catch fire.
What can I use instead of fondant for the braid?
Three yellow candy laces braided together work well and weigh even less. You can also pipe a braid straight down the tower in stiff yellow icing with a small round tip, as three wavy lines crossing each other.
Can I make it bigger?
Yes. Print at 125 percent for a tower about 17 inches tall, but cut each side wall 1/2 inch narrower than its printed front wall instead of using the printed side piece, because the dough is still 1/4 inch thick at any size. Plan on a second batch of dough and a heavier board.
More Gingerbread House Builds and Recipes
If the tower made you want another storybook build, try a dwarfs’ cottage with a thatched roof or a three-tower ice palace. And when the icing or the windows give you trouble, our fixes that keep a tall build standing cover the fixes that work on every build.
Build Your Next House With Best Gingerbread Houses
Rapunzel’s tower 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 boxed kits with the sturdiest walls sorts the ones that hold together from the ones that do not, so you can spend your time on the stones, the ivy and the braid.