What holds a gingerbread house together besides royal icing
Royal icing is the usual glue, and the sources I opened give four edible alternatives: melted sugar, caramel, melted gummy bears and a meringue. This page lists what each one says, in its own words, and adds one number of my own: how many inches of joint a house has, so you can judge how much glue you need. The sources give no amounts per house.
The options, from the sources
| Glue | How it is made | What the source says |
|---|---|---|
| Royal icing | 1 pound of powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar and 2.5 ounces of egg whites (a chef quoted by The Takeout). | It lets the house stay together much longer and be displayed. The drawback is staleness (a chef quoted by The Takeout). Let the structure dry fully before decorating. |
| Melted sugar | 1 cup of white sugar in a pan on low heat. Tasting Table stops at a syrupy liquid, about 10 minutes at most. The Daily Meal melts it until it turns brown. | Dip the edge of each piece and hold the pieces together until the sugar hardens. If it cools, reheat it. Tasting Table says to move quickly so it does not cool before you have used it. |
| Caramel | 2 cups of granulated sugar in a warm saucepan, then about half a cup of heavy cream or butter (a chef quoted by The Takeout). | It "will take shape very quickly", so lay out the pieces beforehand. |
| Melted gummy bears | White or clear gummies melted in a double boiler, so the water does not touch the bowl. | Brushed over the seams with a paintbrush to reinforce the walls. |
| Swiss meringue | Used by the chef who gave up royal icing (The Takeout). | It can be torched, but "the meringue will start to weep the next day", so the house is eaten sooner. |
Sources: Tasting Table on melted sugar, The Daily Meal on melting sugar, The Takeout, with chefs on what keeps a house up and NPR and WGBH.
The NPR and WGBH piece says icing "even after it dries, it often isn't strong enough to hold the structure together" and recommends melting caramel, gummy candies and marshmallow, which "become this [...] strong, cementlike substance". Tasting Table still finishes with royal icing: once the shell is built, go back and "reinforce the edges of your structure with royal icing". The two sources point to a mix.
How much joint a house has
The table adds up the edges that are glued: the four wall corners, the base all around, the roof on the two gable slopes at each end and on the side walls, and the ridge. Measured along the piece edges, in inches, for houses at 45°. This is my own arithmetic, so treat it as a guide to size, not to grams of glue.
| House | Wall corners | Base | Roof and ridge | All joints | Template |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini 4 × 5 × 3 in | 12 in | 17 in | 26.3 in | 55.3 in | Open |
| Small 5 × 6 × 4 in | 16 in | 21 in | 32.1 in | 69.1 in | Open |
| Classic 6 × 8 × 4 in | 16 in | 27 in | 41 in | 84 in | Open |
| Large 8 × 10 × 6 in | 24 in | 35 in | 52.6 in | 111.6 in | Open |
| Showpiece 10 × 12 × 7 in | 28 in | 43 in | 64.3 in | 135.3 in | Open |
On the classic house the joints add up to 84 in, and the roof and ridge make up 41 in of that. The roof is the longest group for every size in the table. The pitch guide shows how a steeper roof lengthens those edges.
What I would do
This is my own advice, from reading the sources above and not from baking every method.
- Use royal icing for a house kids build, and keep hot sugar for an adult. Melted sugar and caramel are far hotter than boiling water and cause serious burns. Keep children away and let a helper hold the pieces, with a bowl of cold water nearby.
- If you use sugar, use it on the base and the wall corners, with a helper to hold the pieces. Those 43 in on the classic house carry the weight.
- Finish with a bead of royal icing over every sugar joint, as Tasting Table suggests.
- Test the glue on two scrap pieces first. Hold them at a right angle and see how long you have to hold.
Before you glue
The glue only works if the edges meet, so trim them as in the straight-edges guide. The assembly guide covers the order and the royal icing, and the icing amounts are by house size. If you carry the finished house, see how to transport a gingerbread house. Open the classic house to print the pieces.