Large gingerbread house template
A 12 × 14 in centerpiece with 9 in walls needs about 4,920 g of dough, which is 3 batches of the Food Network Kitchen recipe, and its biggest piece is 15 in long. That is a tight fit on a half sheet pan. This page works through what changes when a house gets big: how much dough, which pan, and what two published sources do to keep the walls standing. Every row opens in the generator with the size filled in.
| House | Footprint and walls | Longest piece | Dough | Batches | 18 × 13 in sheets | 24 × 16 in sheets | Generator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large | 8 × 10 × 6 in | 11 in | 2,319 g | 1.4 (mix 2) | 3 | 2 | Open |
| Showpiece | 10 × 12 × 7 in | 13 in | 3,539 g | 2.1 (mix 3) | 6 | 3 | Open |
| Centerpiece | 12 × 14 × 9 in | 15 in | 4,920 g | 3 (mix 3) | 4 | 5 | Open |
| Table-size | 14 × 18 × 10 in | 19 in | 6,902 g | 4.2 (mix 5) | does not fit | 6 | Open |
45° roof (50° for the showpiece), 1/2 in roof overhang, dough rolled 1/4 in thick, side walls between the gables. Dough includes 25% for trimmings. Batches use the 1,650 g Food Network Kitchen recipe, and "mix" rounds up. "Does not fit" means a piece is larger than the sheet once the edge margin is taken off. Sheet counts leave room for the gaps between pieces.
Metric sizes
| House | Footprint and walls | Longest piece | Dough | Batches | 40 × 30 cm trays | 60 × 40 cm trays | Generator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large | 20 × 25 × 14 cm | 28 cm | 2,072 g | 1.3 (mix 2) | 4 | 2 | Open |
| Centerpiece | 30 × 35 × 22 cm | 38 cm | 4,485 g | 2.7 (mix 3) | 2 | 5 | Open |
| Table-size | 36 × 46 × 25 cm | 49 cm | 6,597 g | 4 (mix 4) | does not fit | 6 | Open |
45° roof, 1.5 cm roof overhang, dough rolled 6 mm thick, 25% extra for trimmings. Measure your oven before you plan around the 60 × 40 cm column.
Worked example: the Food Network mansion
The Food Network Kitchen recipe gives a basic house from one batch and an advanced mansion from three. The mansion's main pieces are a 10 × 8.75 in front and back, 11 × 6.5 in roof panels, and end pieces 9 in wide at the base with 9 in walls and a peak 12 in from the bottom. The dough is rolled 1/4 in thick.
Put those numbers into the generator as a 9 × 10 in footprint, 9 in walls and a 34° roof, and the six pieces come to 3,016 g with trimmings. That is 1.8 batches, where the recipe calls for three (4,950 g). The rest goes into parts the generator does not draw: a third end piece as a center support, a chimney, an extra room, a porch, flower boxes, a door and trees.
The generator's gable piece comes out 9 × 12.04 in against the recipe's 9 in wide, 12 in to the peak, and its long wall 9.5 × 9 in against 10 × 8.75 in. The recipe sizes its pieces its own way, so expect differences of an inch or so. The 9 × 10 × 9 in template is a starting point. Print it, hold it against the recipe's pieces, and adjust.
Thicker dough costs batches
Thick dough is tempting on a large house, so here is what it costs. The 12 × 14 × 9 in centerpiece at three thicknesses:
| Thickness | Dough | Batches | Generator |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25 in | 4,920 g | 3 (mix 3) | Open |
| 0.3125 in | 6,132 g | 3.7 (mix 4) | Open |
| 0.375 in | 7,338 g | 4.4 (mix 5) | Open |
Dough weight rises in step with thickness, so 3/8 in costs half again as much as 1/4 in. The mansion recipe stays at 1/4 in. The dough guide has the same sums for smaller houses and for a village.
Baking and holding it up
For the mansion's extra-large pieces the Food Network recipe lowers the oven from 350°F to 300°F and bakes them 15 to 20 minutes longer than the 25 to 28 minutes of the basic house. It also says that for larger or more detailed houses it helps to let the baked pieces rest uncovered overnight.
For support, the mansion has a third end piece as a center support. A Popular Science test house adds two bonus triangles as buttresses for the walls instead, and glues with melted white chocolate one corner at a time, chilling each corner before the next wall goes up. The generator draws six pieces, so a support is one more gable cut from the same dough. The assembly guide covers the building order and the icing.
Does it fit your sheet?
The 14 × 18 in table-size house has a 19 in roof panel, longer than most home pans. You can pick a smaller footprint, lower the walls, or bake long walls in two sections and join the seam with icing. The last is my own workaround, so test it before the day. The generator lists which pieces are too big for the sheet size you enter, so you can try sizes before you roll any dough.
With only one pan, the one baking sheet guide works the other way around, from the pan to the house.
Make your own
Open the 12 × 14 × 9 in centerpiece in the generator, change the size, set your baking sheet under "More options", and print the pieces at true scale on letter or A4 pages.