How much gingerbread dough for a gingerbread house
A 6 × 8 in house with 1/4 in walls needs about 1,299 g of dough (2.9 lb), which is 0.8 batches of the Food Network Kitchen recipe. A 10 × 12 in showpiece needs 3,539 g, or 2.1 batches. Recipes say "enough for one house" without saying how big, so this page works the amount out from the pieces.
| House | Footprint | Wall area | Pieces only | With 25% extra | Food Network Kitchen batches | King Arthur batches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini | 4 × 5 × 3 in | 98.9 in² | 486 g | 608 g | 0.4 (mix 1) | 0.5 (mix 1) |
| Small | 5 × 6 × 4 in | 153 in² | 752 g | 940 g | 0.6 (mix 1) | 0.7 (mix 1) |
| Classic | 6 × 8 × 4 in | 211.4 in² | 1,039 g | 1,299 g | 0.8 (mix 1) | 1 (mix 1) |
| Large | 8 × 10 × 6 in | 377.5 in² | 1,856 g | 2,319 g | 1.4 (mix 2) | 1.8 (mix 2) |
| Showpiece | 10 × 12 × 7 in | 575.8 in² | 2,831 g | 3,539 g | 2.1 (mix 3) | 2.7 (mix 3) |
Every house has a 45° roof (50° for the showpiece), a 1/2 in roof overhang and dough rolled 1/4 in thick. "Area" is the total of all six pieces. Batches divide the dough with extra by the weight of one batch, and "mix" rounds up. The piece sizes behind each row are in the dimensions guide.
How the grams are worked out
The area of the two gable walls, two side walls and two roof panels, times the dough thickness, times a density of 1.2 g per cm³ (my estimate for raw gingerbread dough; the generator lets you change it), plus 25% for trimmings you reroll and the pieces that break. The 6 × 8 in classic has 211.4 in² of pieces, which is 1,039 g before the extra.
Windows and doors are not subtracted. The cut-outs go back into the scrap pile, so they are covered by the extra.
How many batches of a real recipe
I added up the ingredients of two published house recipes to get the weight of one batch of raw dough:
- Food Network Kitchen: 6 cups (750 g) flour, 1 1/4 cups (435 g) molasses, 185 g shortening, 200 g sugar, an egg, vinegar, salt and spices, about 1,650 g in all. It is rolled 1/4 in thick and makes one 8 × 8 in house.
- King Arthur: 5 cups (600 g) flour, 227 g brown sugar, 170 g molasses, 170 g buttermilk, 85 g butter, an egg and spices, about 1,310 g in all. It is rolled 1/8 in thick and makes a 10 × 7 in house plus decorations.
I counted a large egg as 50 g and the spices, salt, vinegar and soda as roughly 10–30 g, so the batch weights are rounded estimates. As a check, the pieces of an 8 × 8 × 6 in, 1/4 in thick house come to 1,617 g, 98% of the Food Network Kitchen batch. The pieces of a 7 × 10 × 4 in, 1/8 in thick house come to 684 g, 52% of the King Arthur batch. The wall heights and the pitch are my guesses, since neither recipe gives them, so the check only shows that the amounts are in the same ballpark.
The point is how the batch count follows the size. Because King Arthur rolls 1/8 in thick and Food Network 1/4 in, one King Arthur batch covers about 1.6 times the wall area of one Food Network batch. If you roll your dough thicker than the recipe says, you need more batches than the table shows.
Thickness changes the amount
Dough weight is linear in thickness: double it and the weight doubles. The same 6 × 8 × 4 in house:
| Thickness | Pieces only | With 25% extra | Food Network Kitchen batches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.2 mm (0.125 in) | 524 g | 656 g | 0.4 |
| 4.8 mm (0.1875 in) | 783 g | 979 g | 0.6 |
| 6.4 mm (0.25 in) | 1,039 g | 1,299 g | 0.8 |
| 7.9 mm (0.3125 in) | 1,293 g | 1,616 g | 1 |
| 9.5 mm (0.375 in) | 1,544 g | 1,930 g | 1.2 |
Both recipes above work at their own thickness, 1/8 in and 1/4 in, so the dough amount for a house depends on which one you follow. The generator takes the thickness as an input and also shortens the walls to match the corner joint, so the dough amount and the printed pieces always agree.
Dough for a gingerbread village
For several houses, add the dough of each. Here are copies of the 6 × 8 in classic:
| Houses | Dough with extra | Food Network Kitchen batches | King Arthur batches | Half sheets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.3 kg | 0.8 (mix 1) | 1 (mix 1) | 2 |
| 2 | 2.6 kg | 1.6 (mix 2) | 2 (mix 2) | 4 |
| 4 | 5.2 kg | 3.1 (mix 4) | 4 (mix 4) | 8 |
| 6 | 7.8 kg | 4.7 (mix 5) | 5.9 (mix 6) | 12 |
| 8 | 10.4 kg | 6.3 (mix 7) | 7.9 (mix 8) | 16 |
"Half sheets" is the number of 18 × 13 in baking sheet loads, counted as 2 per house. Some of that can be shared, since scraps from one house fill gaps in the next, so it is an upper figure. A home mixer usually handles one batch at a time, which is why the "mix" column counts whole batches. Houses in a village do not have to match, so for mixed sizes add the rows from the first table.
Get the number for your own size
Type your width, depth, wall height, roof pitch and dough thickness into the template generator (opened here with the classic house) and it shows the dough in grams, the baking sheets, and prints the pieces at true scale. Divide the dough by the batch weight of your own recipe to get your batch count. For gluing it together, see how much royal icing to mix.