Gingerbread house windows with melted candy
Stained glass windows are cut out of the raw dough, filled with crushed hard candy and melted in the oven. The recipes I opened explain the candy and the timing, but none of them says how large a window to cut or how many a wall can take. This page answers that for three house sizes. The window size and the spacing rules below are my own, so test them on scrap dough before you cut a wall.
How many windows fit on a wall
I use square windows 1.5 in on a side, with 1 in of dough around the edge of the wall and 1 in between windows. The dough between windows holds the wall up while it is hot and soft from the oven, and the border is what you glue to the corners. The generator does not draw windows, so the numbers below come from the side wall size it prints. Walls are 1/4 in thick, with the classic 45° roof.
| House | Side wall | Windows per wall | Wall cut away | Both side walls | Template |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 5.5 × 4 in | 1 (1 × 1) | 10% | 2 | Open |
| Classic | 7.5 × 4 in | 2 (2 × 1) | 15% | 4 | Open |
| Large | 9.5 × 6 in | 6 (3 × 2) | 24% | 12 | Open |
On the classic house, each side wall is 7.5 × 4 in and takes 2 windows in a row of 2. That is the practical limit for a small house. A wall that is only 4 in tall has room for one row, because a border, one window and a border use 3.5 in of height. A second row needs 6 in of wall (1 + 1.5 + 1 + 1.5 + 1 = 6 in), like the large house in the table.
Windows on the front and back walls get awkward because of the peak. I keep them to the side walls and put the door on the front. A single round window in the gable also works, and you cut it the same way.
Candy and timing, from the recipes I opened
All of them use fruit-flavored hard candy. Tasting Table crushes Jolly Ranchers in a plastic bag with a rolling pin and mixes the flavors. The Food Network Kitchen light-up house uses 7 ounces for the whole house, with about 1 teaspoon of crushed candy in each cavity, in one or two colors per cavity. Those cavities are small cookie-cutter shapes, so for my 1.5 in squares I would plan on more per window and keep extra crushed candy by the oven.
The recipes differ on when the candy goes in:
- Food Network bakes the pieces at 350°F for 20 to 25 minutes, then adds the candy and bakes 2 to 3 more minutes until it melts.
- Tasting Table adds the candy 5 minutes before the gingerbread is done and bakes 5 more minutes.
- The Another Long Walk church bakes for two thirds of the time, fills the holes, then finishes. The author's first fill flattened out too thin, so a second layer of candy went on and the pieces were baked again. The book the author followed put aluminum foil under the windows so they would not stick.
Pull the sheet out as soon as the candy is liquid and flat, and leave it alone until it has set. Kitchen Pantry Scientist melts crushed candy by itself at 350°F in 7 to 8 minutes, which is a useful guide for a test piece.
Hot melted candy can burn. Don't touch the windows until they have cooled.
A plan for the classic house
- Get the printable pattern and cut out the paper pieces. Lay the side wall pattern on the rolled dough and cut around it.
- Mark the 2 windows on the dough with a 1.5 in square cutter or a ruler and knife. Keep 1 in of dough at the edges and between windows. Cut the openings out before baking.
- Chill the cut pieces. Food Network chills cut shapes at least 2 hours before baking, which reduces spreading.
- Bake until the walls are nearly done. With a 12 minute bake, the two thirds rule puts the candy in at minute 8. That is my arithmetic from the church post, not a time any recipe states.
- Fill each opening level with crushed candy, return the pieces to the oven and watch them. They are done when the candy has melted flat to the edges.
- Let the walls cool flat and dry. Store them somewhere dry until you build, because I would not trust candy glass in a damp room.
Windows weaken a wall, so use thicker dough if you are nervous. The dough thickness guide shows what 3/8 in does to the dough you mix. When the walls are done, the assembly guide covers gluing them up. To pick the house size first, see the dimensions guide.