A Victorian gingerbread house is the build for the year you want people to stop and look closely. It has a tall tower, a porch on pretzel posts, fish-scale shingles and lace trim hanging from the roof, in three soft colors like a painted house on a San Francisco hill.
Our dough and icing recipes set every bake time and wait, and the free template was checked so the roof, tower and porch fit. The lace is the secret: you pipe it flat over a printed pattern, let it dry, then stand it up along the roof.
It is a project for a confident baker or a family with older kids. You will end up with a house almost 9 inches tall at the tower, built over two days from about one batch of dough.
Start with the template, then the trim, the colors, the plan and 16 steps.
Victorian Gingerbread House: At a Glance
- Difficulty: Advanced. Fifteen pieces, a tower and lace trim. Every cut is straight, so the hard part is patience, not skill.
- Total time: about 2 days, in six sessions. Most of it is icing drying.
- Active time: about 8 hours, counting the dough chill and the bake.
- Makes: a Queen Anne style house about 7 by 7 inches on the board, 6 inches tall at the ridge and almost 9 inches at the tower tip, on a 12 inch board.
- Template: free 5-page PDF, US Letter, true size with a 1 inch test bar on every page, plus a page of lace patterns to pipe over.
Tools: printer, ruler, scissors, rolling pin with 1/4 inch guides, parchment, tape, 3 half sheet pans, paring knife, 6 piping bags, two small round tips, offset spatula, toothpicks, a paper cup, small cans for propping, 12 inch square cake board, 2 battery LED tea lights.
Materials
- 1 batch of sturdy gingerbread house dough, or a batch and a half if your re-rolled scraps run short
- 3 batches of royal icing
- Gel food coloring in three colors, such as leaf green, pink and violet
- About 16 yellow or orange hard candies for the window glass
- 3 pretzel rods for the porch posts
Steps
- Print the template at Actual Size and measure the test bar.
- Make the dough and chill it for at least an hour.
- Cut the front and back walls.
- Cut the side walls, the two roof panels and the porch roof.
- Cut the four tower walls and the four cap triangles.
- Bake at 300 degrees F, then melt crushed candy into the windows.
- Trim every piece against the template while it is warm.
- Pipe the lace trim over the pattern page and leave it overnight.
- Flood the walls in your body color and the door in the dark color.
- Pipe fish-scale shingles in the gable and shingle rows on the roof.
- Stand the four house walls and wait 2 hours.
- Build the tower against the left wall and glue the cap together.
- Set the roof panels, notched panel on the tower side, and wait.
- Glue the porch roof onto its pretzel posts and wait 4 hours.
- Hang the lace bargeboards, the porch frieze and the tower bands.
- Light the house and the tower, then set the cap on.
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 Victorian Gingerbread House Template
The template is five US Letter pages: four pages of pieces drawn at true size and one page of lace patterns you pipe over. 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 wall | 1 | 4 1/2 in wide, 6 in to the peak | The tall front gable. A tall window and a marked door sit under the porch, two small windows above it, and an arched window high in the shingles. |
| Back wall | 1 | 4 1/2 in wide, 6 in to the peak | The same outline, with a round-top light doorway so a tea light slides in from behind. |
| Side wall | 2 | 5 x 3 1/2 in | Two windows each. Skip the front window on the left wall, because the tower covers it. |
| Roof | 2 | 6 x 3.9 in | A steep roof, about 48 degrees. The left panel loses a thin strip of eave so it fits against the tower. |
| Porch roof | 1 | 4 3/4 x 1 1/2 in | Glues to the front wall at 2 1/4 inches and rests on three pretzel rod posts. |
| Tower front and back | 2 | 2 1/4 x 6 1/2 in | Two windows and a small round window each. |
| Tower side | 2 | 1 3/4 x 6 1/2 in | Windows on one only. The other stands against the house. |
| Tower cap | 4 | 2.65 in base, 2.61 in tall | Four triangles glued into a steep pyramid that lifts off like a lid. |
The checks behind the template are simple. The side walls are exactly the height of the gable eaves, so the roof rests on all four walls. The door is 0.3 inch shorter than the porch roof, so it fits underneath. The tower is 1 3/4 inches square inside, so a 1 1/2 inch tea light drops in from the top, and it stands almost 3 inches above the house ridge so it reads as the tower from across the room. All fifteen pieces come to about 186 square inches. That is close to one batch of our dough, which covers about 225, so make a batch and a half if your scraps run thin.
Solid black lines are cuts, red dashes are openings you cut out, the brown dash and dot outline is the door you only mark, grey dots are guides, and the thick brown lines on page 5 are for icing only. If you want an easier Victorian with no tower, our simpler Victorian cottage pattern has a porch and a spire on a smaller house.
Why the Style Is Called Gingerbread
The houses came first, and the name was an insult. In the middle of the 1800s, the steam-powered scroll saw made it cheap to cut thin boards into fancy shapes, and American builders covered their porches and gables with the results, according to Wikipedia’s history of gingerbread trim. In 1852, the writer Andrew Jackson Downing complained about roof trim “sawn out of thin board, so as to have a frippery and ‘gingerbread’ look”. He meant it looked like cake decoration. The name stuck, and Britannica now uses it for the lavish trim of American designers in the late 1860s and 1870s.
So a Victorian gingerbread house is a joke that has come full circle. The trim was named after the cookie, and now we bake the cookie to look like the trim. That is why this build spends its effort on three things a Victorian house is known for. Queen Anne houses, popular in the United States from about 1880 to 1910, often had a tower, a dominant front-facing gable, a porch across the front and shingles cut to look like fish scales, as Wikipedia’s Queen Anne entry lists them. The house on this page has all four.
The colors come from a later idea. San Francisco’s painted ladies are Victorian houses repainted from the 1960s on in three or more colors to show off their trim, and the name comes from a 1978 book about them. That is why the palette picker below gives you three colors plus white lace. Picture a family that builds a plain brown house with white icing every year. Give the same family a tower, a shingled gable and three soft colors, and the house becomes the one guests photograph.
Real gingerbread builders think big with this style too. The Fairmont San Francisco builds a two-story Victorian gingerbread house in its lobby each year, 25 feet high and covered in more than 8,000 baked bricks, according to the hotel’s own account. Yours will fit on a 12 inch board.
Lace Trim: Pipe It Flat, Stand It Up
The lace along the roof edges is the detail that makes the house read Victorian, and it is also the part that scares people off. The trick is that you never pipe it on the house. You pipe it flat on parchment, over the patterns on page 5, let it dry hard overnight, and then glue the dry pieces to the house like little fences.
Tape page 5 to a flat tray and tape a sheet of parchment over it. Use stiff white royal icing, the kind that holds a peak, in a bag with a small round tip. Pipe the straight top rail first, then the row of half circles hanging from it, then a dot inside each half circle. The rail is what holds the lace together, so make it a little thicker than the rest. The page tells you how many to pipe of each: two bargeboard strips for the front roof edges, one porch frieze and three tower bands, plus spares.
Pipe the spares. Thin piped pieces are fragile, and one or two will snap when you lift them, which is fine when you have extras. Leave the lace flat and uncovered overnight. To lift a piece, slide a thin offset spatula under it slowly, or peel the parchment down and away from the lace over the edge of the table, which is gentler than lifting the lace off the paper.
When the house is up, pipe a line of icing along the underside of the roof edge, press the lace rail into it with the half circles hanging down, and hold it for a minute. A broken strip can be glued back together in place, and a gap at the ridge hides under a small piped dot. Kids can pipe the dots inside the half circles, which are forgiving and make a real difference to the finished look.
Painted Lady Colors: Pick a Three-Color Scheme
A painted lady uses three colors: one for the body of the house, one for the shingles and trim, and a dark one for the door and accents, with white lace on top. On a gingerbread house, that means flooding the walls in the body color, piping the shingles in the second color and flooding the door, the tower cap and the porch roof in the third.
Mix each color a shade lighter than you want, since royal icing darkens as it dries, as Wilton’s coloring guide notes, and mix all you need of each color at once, because a second bowl is hard to match. As a rough split, about half the tinted icing goes to the body color, a quarter to the shingles and the rest to the door and accents. Pick a scheme below, or swap the body and shingle colors to see it the other way around.
Painted Lady Palette Picker
Pick a three-color scheme for your Victorian gingerbread house. See it on the house, then get a starting mix for each color.
Colors on screen are approximate, and gel colors vary by brand, so every mix is a starting point: tint a spoonful, pipe a test dot and let it dry before you tint the whole bowl. Nothing you choose leaves your browser.
What You Need for the Victorian House
You need about one batch of dough, three batches of royal icing, a bag of hard candies and three pretzel rods. Everything else is kitchen gear you probably own.
For baking
- 1 batch of our sturdy dough for tall walls, or a batch and a half to be safe. The fifteen pieces come to about 186 square inches, and one batch covers about 225.
- About 16 yellow or orange hard candies, unwrapped, for golden window glass that glows when lit.
For the icing
- 3 batches of royal icing that dries hard enough for lace, made one at a time. The first is thinned and split into your three colors for flooding. The second stays white and stiff for gluing and lace. The third is for the shingles, the roof rows and snow.
- Gel food coloring for your three colors.
- Two small round tips, one for gluing and shingles, one finer for the lace.
For the decorations
- 3 pretzel rods, cut to 2 1/4 inches, for the porch posts.
- A little white sanding sugar for the snow, if you like.
Tools
- Rolling pin with 1/4 inch guide strips, parchment and 3 half sheet pans
- Paring knife, scissors, tape and a ruler with a clean straight edge
- 6 piping bags, the two round tips, an offset spatula and toothpicks
- A paper cup for shaping the tower cap, and small cans for propping
- A 12 inch square cake board
- 2 battery LED tea lights, 1.5 inches across
How Long It Takes, Day by Day
Plan on six sessions over two days, for about 8 hours of hands-on work counting the chill and the bake. The rest is waiting, because royal icing needs time to harden before it can carry weight, and the lace needs a night to dry before it can be lifted.
| When | What you do | Hands-on | Then wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1, morning | Print, make and chill the dough, cut all 15 pieces, bake, melt the candy windows and trim. | About 3 1/2 hours with chilling and baking | Until the pieces are cool |
| Day 1, afternoon | Pipe the lace over the pattern. Flood the walls and tower walls in the body color and the door dark. | About 1 1/4 hours | About 1 hour |
| Day 1, afternoon | Pipe the fish-scale shingles, flood the roof panels and pipe their shingle rows. | 50 minutes | Overnight, pieces flat |
| Day 2, morning | Stand the house walls, build the tower and glue the cap together over a cup. | 40 minutes | 2 hours |
| Day 2, late morning | Set the roof panels and the porch roof on its posts. | 30 minutes | 4 hours |
| Day 2, afternoon | Hang the lace, snow the board, light the house and tower and set the cap on. | About 1 1/4 hours | 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 finished for a holiday open house on Sunday at 4. You bake Saturday morning, pipe the lace and flood the walls after lunch while someone else watches a movie, and do the shingles before dinner. On Sunday you stand the walls at 9, set the roof at 11:30 and hang the lace after lunch, so the lights go on just as the doorbell starts ringing. The planner below does that arithmetic for any date you choose.
Victorian Gingerbread House Build Day Planner
Pick when you want the Victorian 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 Victorian Gingerbread House Step by Step
Each step does one job, and the “why this matters” lines explain the reasoning behind the steps that keep a tall house standing and the trim crisp.
1. Print the template and measure the test bar
Print all five 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. Cut out the paper pieces from pages 1 to 4, including the windows and the light doorway. Keep page 5 whole: it is the lace pattern, and it never touches the dough.
Why this matters: the bar is the only way to know the page printed true before you spend an afternoon on dough. On a house with a tower, a page printed a little small means a cap that does not fit.
2. Make the dough and chill it
Make one batch of the house dough, or a batch and a half, split it into three, and flatten each part into a disc about an inch thick. Wrap the discs and chill them for at least an hour. They are ready when a poked disc dents and stays dented.
Why this matters: cold dough cuts with clean corners and spreads less in the oven, and a tall house needs straight edges to stand.
3. Cut the front and back walls
Roll a disc on parchment to an even 1/4 inch between guide strips. Lay the front wall pattern on it and cut along each edge with the tip of a paring knife, using the ruler on the long straight sides. Cut out the tall window, the two upper windows and the arched gable window. For the door, do not cut: trace around it with a toothpick. Then cut the back wall the same way, with its light doorway, and slide the parchment onto a pan.
Why this matters: the two gables carry the roof and the porch, so they need to match. Cutting both from one rolled sheet keeps them the same thickness.
4. Cut the side walls, the roof panels and the porch roof
From the second disc, cut the two side walls from page 3. Cut both windows on the right wall but only the rear window on the left wall, since the tower covers the front one. Cut the two roof panels, then lay the paper roof back on one of them and cut away the shaded strip at the corner marked on the template. That notched panel is the left one. Cut the porch roof from page 1.
Why this matters: the tower stands right against the left wall, so a full eave on that side would hit it. Taking off the thin strip lets the roof sit flush against the tower.
5. Cut the tower walls and the cap triangles
From the third disc, cut two tower fronts from page 4, with their windows and round windows, and two tower sides. Cut the windows from one side only and leave the other solid, since it stands against the house. Then cut the four cap triangles from page 2. Keep the tower pieces together on their own pan.
Why this matters: the tower pieces are long and narrow, so they bake best together, and a solid inside wall makes the tower stronger where it leans on the house.
6. 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 and roof panels take 22 to 30 minutes, until the surface looks matte and the edge feels firm under a fingertip. Start checking the smaller pieces, the cap triangles and the porch roof, about 5 minutes sooner. While they bake, crush the yellow candies in a zip bag. Pull each window pan out about 5 minutes early, fill every window two crushed candies deep, right into the corners, and bake again until the candy has melted flat and glassy, checking after 5 minutes.
This is the same way you melt hard candy into golden panes on any house: 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. If the candy is still lumpy after about 10 minutes, raise the oven to 325 degrees F and watch closely. At high altitude, the target drops about 2 degrees for every 1,000 feet, so check sooner.
Why this matters: melted candy is far hotter than the cookie around it and burns fast once it pools. Pushing the crushed candy into the corners gives you a square pane, not a blob.
7. 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, using the ruler on the long edges. Leave everything on the pan until it is completely cool and flat. Do not lift a window piece until the candy has hardened.
Why this matters: warm gingerbread trims cleanly, while cooled gingerbread tends to snap where you did not want it to. On a 6 1/2 inch tower wall, a few extra hundredths of an inch of spread make the tower lean.
8. Pipe the lace trim over the pattern page
Tape page 5 to a tray, tape parchment over it and pipe the lace with stiff white icing: the rail first, then the half circles, then the dots. Pipe every piece the page asks for, spares included. Leave the tray flat and uncovered overnight.
Why this matters: piped flat, the lace comes out even and straight. Piped on the house, it would sag and drip before it set.
9. Flood the walls in the body color
Thin part of the first icing batch with a few drops of water at a time, until a line drawn through it with a knife closes up in about 15 seconds, then tint it your body color. Outline each wall just inside its edges and around each window, then flood the inside, nudging the icing into the corners with a toothpick. Leave the gable triangle above the eave line bare for the shingles. Flood the door in the dark color, then the tower cap triangles and the top of the porch roof.
Why this matters: flooded walls give the house its painted look, and leaving the gable bare means the shingles sit right on the cookie instead of on wet icing.
10. Pipe fish-scale shingles in the gable
Once the floods look matte, about an hour, pipe the shingles in your second color with a small round tip. Start at the eave line and work up, following the grey arcs on the template as a guide: pipe a row of small U shapes side by side, then the next row up, offset by half a scale so each one sits between two below it. Flood the two roof panels in the dark color, and when they crust, pipe rows of the same scales across them. Leave everything flat overnight.
Picture a twelve year old on the gable shingles and a grown-up on the roof. The gable is small enough to finish in one sitting, and a wobbly scale disappears among the rest.
Why this matters: the fish scales are what make the gable read as Victorian siding and not as a plain triangle. Working from the bottom up lets each row overlap the one below, like real shingles.
11. Stand the four house walls
Pipe a thick line of white icing along the bottom and side edges of the front wall and stand it on the board, about 3 1/2 inches from the front edge and about 4 1/4 inches from the left edge, so there is room for the porch and the tower. Press the right side wall against its back, then the left side wall, solid front end forward, and close the box with the back wall, light doorway at the bottom. Prop the walls with cans and leave them for 2 hours.
Why this matters: with the sides tucked between the front and back, the four walls square each other up, and the house has to be standing firm before the tower leans on it.
12. Build the tower against the left wall
Pipe icing along the bottom and edges of the solid tower side and press it against the left wall of the house, its front edge flush with the front of the house. Add a tower front, then the outer side with windows, then the tower back, so the four walls make a box 2 1/4 inches square. Prop it and leave the top open. Then turn a paper cup upside down, rest the four cap triangles against it point up, and glue their edges together into a pyramid. Do not glue the cap to the tower.
Why this matters: the open top is how the tower gets its light, and the cap is a lid. Lift it off, switch on the tea light inside, and set it back. The cup holds the triangles at the right angle while they set.
13. Set the roof panels
After the walls have had their 2 hours, pipe a thick line of icing along the top edges of the side walls and the sloped edges of both gables. Set the notched panel on the tower side first, with the notch at the front so it sits snugly against the tower, and hold it for a minute. Set the right panel so its top edge butts over the first along the ridge, hold it, and pipe a line of icing into the ridge seam.
Why this matters: the steep 48 degree roof slides if you let go too soon, so a full minute of holding and a thick bead of icing on every edge keep it in place.
14. Build the porch
Cut three pretzel rods to 2 1/4 inches. Pipe a line of icing along the back edge of the porch roof and press it against the front wall on the grey porch line, flat side down, while a helper stands the three posts under the front edge, one at each end and one in the middle, each set in a blob of icing on the board. Hold it until it stays, prop the front edge with a can, and leave the house for 4 hours.
Why this matters: the posts carry the front of the porch roof and the wall carries the back, so the porch stays level without any weight on the door.
15. Hang the lace trim
Lift the lace pieces off the parchment. Pipe a line of icing under each edge of the front roof and press a bargeboard strip into it, rail up and half circles hanging down, with the two strips meeting at the peak. Glue the porch frieze along the front edge of the porch roof, between the posts, and a tower band on each of the three faces you can see, at the grey floor line. Pipe a small dot at the peak to hide the join, and snow the board with thick white icing.
Why this matters: this is the moment the house turns Victorian. Lace under the eaves is the detail people spot first, so take your time and use the straightest pieces in front.
16. Light the house and the tower
Switch on a tea light and slide it through the light doorway in the back wall. Switch on the second one and lower it down into the tower, then set the cap on top. The golden windows glow in the house and in the tower. Use only battery lights. A real candle inside sugar and butter walls can scorch them, which is why our guide sticks to battery lighting for gingerbread houses. Let the finished house stand overnight before you move it.
Troubleshooting
If it goes wrong, most problems come from loading icing before it has set, from a tall piece that spread in the oven, 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 |
|---|---|---|
| The lace breaks when you lift it | It was too thin, or not dry yet | Wait the full night, thicken the rail, and peel the parchment away from the lace. Use the spares. |
| The lace sags or spreads on the parchment | The icing was too soft | Stir in powdered sugar until it holds a stiff peak, then pipe again. |
| The tower leans away from the house | A tower wall spread in the oven, or the props came away too soon | Push it straight, add icing inside the corners and prop it for the full 2 hours. |
| The cap does not sit flat | The triangles set crooked, or the tower top is uneven | Sand the tower top gently with a grater, or pipe a bead of icing on the cap rim and press it on once. |
| The left roof panel hits the tower | The notch was skipped or cut too small | Shave the eave with a serrated knife until it sits flush, and fill the gap with icing. |
| A roof panel slides | It was let go too soon on a steep roof | Lift it back up, add icing along every edge and hold it a full minute. |
| The porch roof tilts | The posts are different lengths | Trim the long one, or set it deeper in its icing blob. |
| Shingles ran into a blur | The icing was too thin, or the flood under it was wet | Wait for the flood to crust and use thicker icing for the scales. |
| The colors dried darker than planned | Royal icing darkens as it dries | Mix the next color lighter, and test a dot before you tint the bowl. |
| The candy glass browned or bubbled | It stayed in too long, or you are at high altitude | Check from 5 minutes. A piped white frame hides small bubbles at the edges. |
Easier Versions: No Tower, No Bake and Kit Shortcuts
If two days and a tower are too much this year, the same look works three simpler ways.
A Victorian Cottage Without the Tower
Leave the tower off and build the house alone: front gable, shingles, porch and lace. It still reads Victorian, it saves about a third of the dough and a session of waiting, and the left wall gets both windows back. Our printable house patterns also include a smaller Victorian cottage with a spire if you want something in between.
A No-Bake Graham Cracker Victorian for Small Kids
Stand four graham cracker halves in a box and cut a triangle from a fifth for the gable, glued with royal icing. Pipe fish scales on the triangle, a lace edge under the roof and a door in a dark color. A graham cracker house you can build the same day lives or dies on the glue, so use royal icing, not tub frosting.
Picture a six year old who wants to help with the big house but cannot wait two days. Give them their own graham Victorian on day one, with the leftover colors from the floods, and it sits beside the big house on the board.
The Kit Shortcut
Any plain kit house with a front-facing gable can be dressed Victorian. Flood the walls in one soft color, pipe fish scales on the gable, and glue lace you piped over page 5 under the roof edges. The lit resin Victorian houses sold as decor are a different thing altogether, nice on a mantel but not edible. When you want a box that stands up to all that decorating, the kits guide at the end of this page sorts the sturdy ones from the wobbly ones.
Storage Instructions
Humidity is what softens gingerbread and makes candy sticky, so keep the house in a cool, dry room, away from the stove, the dishwasher and sunny windows. Strong light can also fade colored icing over time, so the pastels last longer out of the sun. The lace is the most fragile part, so move the house by the board, never by the roof. Switch the tea lights off when no one is looking: lift the tower cap to reach the tower light.
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
Why is it called a gingerbread house style?
The fancy wooden trim on 1800s American houses was nicknamed “gingerbread” because it looked like cake decoration. A critic used the word as a put-down in 1852, and it stuck. A Victorian gingerbread house turns the joke around by baking the trim back into cookie.
How do you make gingerbread house lace trim?
Pipe it flat. Tape a printed pattern under parchment, pipe over the lines with stiff white royal icing, leave it overnight, then lift the pieces and glue them under the roof edges. Pipe a few spares, since thin lace breaks easily.
What makes a gingerbread house look Victorian?
A steep front gable, a tower, a porch across the front, fish-scale shingles and lacy trim under the eaves, in two or three soft colors with white trim. You do not need all of them: a shingled gable with lace already reads Victorian.
Is a Victorian gingerbread house hard to make?
It is one of the most involved builds on our site because it has fifteen pieces, a tower and piped lace. But every cut is a straight line and every step has a clear wait, so a patient beginner can do it over two days. Leave the tower off for an easier version.
Can I use a real candle inside?
No. Use battery LED tea lights, one in the house and one in the tower, because the walls are sugar and butter and a flame inside can scorch them.
Can I make it bigger?
Yes. Print at 125 percent for a house about 11 inches tall at the tower tip. The pieces come to about 290 square inches, so make two batches of dough, use a 15 inch board and tea lights still fit with room to spare.
More Gingerbread House Builds and Recipes
If the Victorian made you want another tower, our castle with four tall towers uses the same straight-line cutting on a bigger scale. The famous screen homes in gingerbread include a row of painted ladies from a TV opening, and a few small Victorians lined up make a street of gingerbread houses. For the story of the cookie houses themselves, read our history of the edible kind. And when something sags, our fixes for a tall house that leans work on any build.
Build Your Next House With Best Gingerbread Houses
The Victorian proves the point we come back to on every build: a few strong details tell the whole story. Here it is a tower, a shingled gable and lace under the roof. When you want a head start next time, our kit picks that hold up to heavy decorating sorts the good boxes from the wobbly ones, so you can spend your time on the trim.