Gingerbread house door size
I looked for a door size in five gingerbread house recipes and patterns. None of them states one. Most tell you to cut the door from the front wall and leave the size to you. So this page sets a size by proportion and works it out for six houses. The proportions are my own rule, not a standard, so cut one door on scrap dough before you cut the wall.
The rule I use
The door is 75% as tall as the wall, measured from the bottom edge to the eave, and 40% as wide as it is tall. A door that tall stops below the eave line, so the front wall keeps a solid strip of dough across the top of the opening. The width is rounded to 1/4 in (or 0.5 cm) so a ruler can find it. I also keep at least 1 in of dough on each side of the door, the same border the windows guide uses at the wall edges.
The front wall here is the gable piece, the one with the peak. The table gives its width and its full height up to the peak, and the door sits in the middle of the bottom edge. Roof pitch is 45°, and the generator draws the wall without a door, so the door sizes below come from the wall sizes it prints.
Door size by house, in inches
| House | Front wall | Wall height | Door (wide × tall) | Dough each side | Wall cut away | Template |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini | 4 × 5 in | 3 in | 1 × 2.25 in | 1.5 in | 19% | Open |
| Small | 5 × 6.5 in | 4 in | 1.25 × 3 in | 1.88 in | 19% | Open |
| Classic | 6 × 7 in | 4 in | 1.25 × 3 in | 2.38 in | 16% | Open |
| Tall walls | 6 × 9 in | 6 in | 1.75 × 4.5 in | 2.13 in | 22% | Open |
| Large | 8 × 10 in | 6 in | 1.75 × 4.5 in | 3.13 in | 16% | Open |
| Showpiece | 10 × 12 in | 7 in | 2 × 5.25 in | 4 in | 15% | Open |
"Wall cut away" is the door's share of the rectangle below the eave. On the classic 6 × 8 × 4 in house the front wall is 6 × 7 in, and the door is 1.25 × 3 in. That leaves 2.38 in of dough on each side and 1 in above the door before the eave line.
A narrower house gets a narrower door from the same rule. If the side borders drop below 1 in, make the door a little shorter, or skip the cut-out and pipe the door in icing as the Food Network Kitchen peppermint house does.
Door size by house, in centimeters
| House | Front wall | Wall height | Door (wide × tall) | Dough each side | Wall cut away | Template |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini | 10 × 13 cm | 8 cm | 2.5 × 6 cm | 3.75 cm | 19% | Open |
| Classic | 15 × 17.5 cm | 10 cm | 3 × 7.5 cm | 6 cm | 15% | Open |
| Large | 20 × 24 cm | 14 cm | 4 × 10.5 cm | 8 cm | 15% | Open |
What the recipes say about doors
The sources I opened give method, never size:
- The PBS recipe cuts the door out of the front and back with a knife and puts the doors on the baking trays separately. It sticks the front door back on with icing, and the back door is cut into three pieces that prop up the trees. Its dough is 1/3 in thick.
- WRAL's gingerbread guide says windows and doors must be cut out of the dough before it is baked. It also suggests one door and two or three windows for a first house, and a cardboard template you test-fit first.
- The Savour School recipe cuts the front with a stencil and the door out with a knife. The pieces are 4 mm and bake 8 to 10 minutes at 170°C, then the door is stuck to the front.
- The Food Network Kitchen peppermint house has no cut door at all. You pipe the door on the front panel in royal icing and add a red cinnamon candy as the knob. Its front panel is 6 in wide, 4 in to the roofline and 4 1/2 in slanted up to the peak.
- Peter's gingerbread article only mentions doors and windows as something you might cut out. It gives no size or method.
Cutting the door, step by step
- Print the pattern and cut out the front wall. Draw the door on it with a ruler: 1.25 in wide and 3 in tall on the classic house, centered, with its bottom on the wall's bottom edge.
- Lay the paper on the rolled dough and cut around the wall. Then cut the door out with a knife, as PBS does, and lift it out. The door is a finished piece, so it costs no extra dough.
- Put the door on the tray next to the wall, next to it, as PBS does. The wall with the opening is the weakest piece in the house, so slide it onto the tray with a spatula and leave it alone until it is firm.
- For a round top, trace a coin or the rim of a small cup on the top edge of the opening. Cut the straight part 2.375 in tall instead of 3 in, so the arch ends where the full door would.
- After the wall is built, stick the door on with royal icing. Standing it slightly open with a dab of icing at the hinge side is my own idea, so try it on a spare house.
A front wall with a door is cut away at the bottom, so it needs the same care as one with windows. Roll the dough to the thickness in the thickness guide, and let the baked pieces dry flat before you build. Gluing the walls together is covered in the assembly guide. For a house with walls of every size, see the dimensions guide.