An Expert Baker Has Been Making Gingerbread Houses for Over 10 Years—Here's What She's Learned

Allrecipes Allstar Kim Shupe shares inside tips about making creative and fun gingerbread houses in your home kitchen.

Around the holidays, Allrecipes Allstar Kim Shupe’s Michigan kitchen is gingerbread house central. While her oven barely has time to cool down between baking holiday treats for her husband and coworkers, Shupe is particularly well-known for using those self-taught baking skills to make incredible gingerbread houses. Gingerbread houses are notoriously challenging, but Shupe insists it’s all about spending time with loved ones and simply having fun. We caught up with Shupe to learn more about how she got started making gingerbread houses and what she’s learned along the way.

How did you get started making gingerbread houses?

It’s something that started as a thing between my husband and me, just something we enjoy. My husband didn’t have the best experience with Christmas growing up, so I thought, let’s do something fun. That’s how it started, and we’ve been doing it for 10 plus years now.

What are some of your favorite gingerbread houses you’ve made?

One of my favorite things we did was make igloo out of gingerbread. That was difficult because we had to figure out how to get a round shape. We took a glass Pyrex bowl that's oven safe, and baked gingerbread over it to get a dome shape. And then to secure it, we filled it with caramel so it was a little bit more sturdy.

Where do you find inspiration for these builds?

Sometimes it's something I saw on Pinterest, or it could just be something that we both enjoy, like we made gingerbread houses with our favorite football teams. He's a big Green Bay Packers fan, and I'm a big Seattle Seahawks fan, so one year we included our favorite teams in the decor.

What’s your approach to building a gingerbread house?

We usually have an idea of what we want to make, and it’s usually something kind of off the wall. There’s no real theme we stick to. We play around with how we can make it work. The only rule we have is that it’s got to include all edible parts, so we have to figure out how to make something that’s edible that will actually stand up.

Roughly how long does it take you to make a gingerbread house? Do you work on this over multiple days, or do you just kind of sit down and spend hours at a time doing it?

It depends on your design. If you're going for something simple, it might not take as long, but I like to make the gingerbread dough in advance, because it usually needs to refrigerate before you roll it out. (Check out our most popular gingerbread recipe for houses, here!) And then I like to make the pieces themselves ahead of time. So, for me it is a multiday process, because I don't want to cram in too much at once. If I feel like I'm not going to get them constructed within a reasonable amount of time, sometimes I'll even freeze the cutouts and then defrost them at another time and put them together. It's fun to do in advance, because if you do some of those little prep work things, when it comes time to construct it, it doesn't feel quite so stressful or rushed.

What are some of the tips you’ve learned over 10 years of making gingerbread houses?

One of the biggest tips I have is don't do it on a humid day! I did that one time, and even though I baked my gingerbread until it was crisp, it absorbed the moisture from the air and the structure completely collapsed on me.

I know you do a lot of baking in addition to the gingerbread houses. Do you ever incorporate some of those elements into your gingerbread houses?

I do. One year I made these little polar bear truffles, and I put them in a little ice pool in front of the igloo. We also use other cookies for decor, like sugar cookies for cutting out trees or something like that.

Are there any specific tools that make the job easier for you?

One thing that I found, surprisingly, is, if you're going to do something where you need a stencil or specific sizes to cut the gingerbread, I found a metal bench scraper to be incredibly helpful with that. I am not good with straight edges, and rolling a pizza wheel just doesn't work for me. That has the straight edge, which I found to be incredibly helpful.

I have to ask—do you eat your gingerbread houses when you’re done displaying them?

We do sometimes. If they sit out a little too long, they may not be the best to eat, but I have an unusual way of getting rid of them—my chickens love gingerbread. So when it gets stale, they get some gingerbread cookies, and they love it.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone who’s new to making gingerbread houses?

One of the biggest things is to not expect perfection. Just go into it and have fun and be excited for what you made. It doesn't need to be Instagram picture-perfect worthy. It can just be fun.