Looking for a unique twist on traditional gingerbread houses? Our gingerbread camper house recipe comes with a free template to help you craft a whimsical, delicious creation
Are you in need of a festive and delicious treat that will bring the holiday spirit to your home? We got this crazy idea to construct a gingerbread camper.
This delightful twist on the classic gingerbread house is perfect for those who love all things camping and want to add a touch of adventure to their holiday celebrations.
Luckily, our friend Monica of Paper Flour Ink is literally a detail-oriented genius and swooped in to help save the day to help us execute the idea. She was also the brains behind the magnificent Eiffel Tower gingerbread house.
So with our free template, creating this adorable edible masterpiece has never been easier. Gather your ingredients, roll up your sleeves, and get ready for a fun-filled baking experience that will leave everyone amazed by your culinary skills!
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Table of Contents
Ingredients Needed to Make aGingerbread House
There are several different type of gingerbread house recipes out there for gingerbread houses. Having a solid construction grade gingerbread recipe is really important to make sure that the cookie isn’t too soft to hold it’s shape.This particular recipe is very durable and meant more for building than eating, but it’s totally still edible!
All-purpose flour (and more for flouring surface)
Honey
Granulated sugar
Eggs
Cinnamon
Ground cloves
Nutmeg
Ground ginger
How to Make a Construction Grade Gingerbread House Recipe
Cream eggs and sugar together in a stand mixer with a dough hook rather than the paddle attachment.
Then, add the honey and spices.
Mix in flour, 1 cup at a time until mixed. Note that the dough will be very stiff.
Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for one hour.
Lightlywipe down the counter with a wet paper towel and place a large piece of foil on top (the water helps it stay put).
Flour your working surface and roll out the dough with a rolling pin to 1/8” thick on the foil or parchment paper.
Place your printed template on the gingerbread dough and cut with a pizza cutter.
Be sure to cut out all the windows and doors too!
Transfer the foil to a baking sheet and bake the sides of the house pieces first and let them cool.
Bake at 325ºF for 15 – 20 minutes for side pieces (until golden brown).
For the edge pieces that you will curve, bake for 8-9 minutes until they’re just starting to darken.
For the edge pieces, you’ll need to work quickly while the pieces are still warm and bend to create the curve of the camper before fully cooled.
Let all pieces cool to room temperature before gluing them together with royal icing. Let the royal icing harden for 4-5 hours before decorating.
Downloadable and Printable Camper Gingerbread Camper Template
When it comes to cutting out the shapes from your construction grade gingerbread recipe, you’ll want to make sure you have the templates. Below are the free printables for the gingerbread house template, but be sure to print them to scale.
Camper template
Edge pieces template
When assembling the pieces, make sure to ice the sides of your gingerbread camper BEFORE you assemble them for flooding the icing on an easier flat surface.
How to Assemble the DIY Camper Gingerbread House Windows
The trickiest part of this gingerbread house is assembling the edible candy windows.To create edible gingerbread house windows, you’ll need crushed butterscotch hard candy.
1 — When you’re using the gingerbread house template, cut out windows and doors before baking gingerbread dough. Then, bake the pieces per the instructions above.
2 — Once cooled, place the pieces needing “glass” on foil on a baking sheet. Fill with crushed butterscotch candy and bake at 350ºF for about 5 minutes, until candy has melted.
3 — Let them cool thoroughly, overnight is best, before removing from baking sheet/foil. Voila, you have edible windows!
4 — To make the windows illuminate, we used small battery operated twinkle lights to sit inside the camper.
Thick Royal Icing Recipe for Building a Gingerbread House
For this gingerbread house template, we used two different types of icing.
A thick royal icing for building/gluing the pieces together, and a thinner royal icing for “flooding” the colored sides.
Ingredients needed:
3 tablespoons meringue powder
4 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons water
Instructions:
1 — Mix all of the ingredients together and then store them in an air-tight container. Makes 3 cups of icing.
2 — Use this icing to bond the sides of your gingerbread house together.
You can use the same recipe but with additional tablespoons of water to decorate the sides of your gingerbread camper before assembling them.
Making your own royal icing as so easy, but also a good skill to know since it’s used in so many desserts.
We also have a paintable royal icing recipe that’s useful to have.
Decorating Ideas for aHomemade Gingerbread House
The sky is really the limit when it comes to what you can use to decorate your gingerbread camper house. This is a rough idea of what we used for the individual decor elements for ours —
- Rug and fence: Green sour belts and champagne bubble jelly beans
- Tree: Waffle ice cream cone covered in green royal icing and sprinkle bulbs
- Tree on top of the camper: Green Rice Krispies treat with a pretzel rod trunk and twine wrapped around
- Presents: Old fashioned candy mix wrapped in twine
- Wreath: Green Rice Krispies treat with sprinkles and a redfondant bow
- Wheels: Gingerbread cookie circles, pinkmelting chocolates, and jumbo confetti circles
- Flamingo: Pink jelly bean and white floral stems with pink food marker
- Toe hitch: Gingerbread V with striped candy cane and pink sprinkle
- Fire: Candy rocks, pretzel sticks, and orange and yellow ribbon candy
- String lights: Lime green twine and candied sunflower seeds glued on with royal icing
- Lawn chair: Woven sour belts, graham crackers, and candy cane feet help together with royal icing
- Sand: A mixture of brown sugar and coarse organic sugar
How to Display a DIY Camper Gingerbread House
To put your creations together, you can adhere them all to foamboard or a sheet of thin, sturdy wood with royal icing. We actually even ended up displaying ours in a white lacquer tray for our Christmas party so that we could contain the sand easily!
I realize this is quite the undertaking, but at least you can bask in the awesomeness of ours if you don’t want to spend hours on your own gingerbread house template!
Years later after our original creation, there has been a big trend with campers and RV’s. So you can also buy several store-bought camper gingerbread house templates now!
Here and here are the best places to buy gingerbread houses. What’s the craziest gingerbread project you’ve ever made in the name of a Merry Christmas?
More Fun Christmas Projects to Try
And in case you’re new around here, here are a few of my all-time favorite Christmas projects to go with your gingerbread house decorating —
- DIY Mini Wooden Christmas trees
- Jumbo (over the top)balloon tree
- This very playfulpom pom tree
- Colorful DIYConfetti Christmas tree
- Easy DIYcactus Christmas tree
- Bottle brush tree centerpiecefor the table
- Super easy DIY gradientfoam tree cones
Gingerbread Camper House Recipe
Print Recipe
4.80 from 25 votes
Nothing says happy holidays like a homemade gingerbread house, and we've got the template and recipe to help you recreate your own gingerbread camper.
Total Time6 hours hrs
Course Desserts
Cuisine Gingerbread House
Equipment
Printable for camper template
Printable for camper edge pieces
Stand mixer
Rolling pin
Foil or parchment paper
Pizza cutter
Baking sheet
Ingredients
For the construction grade gingerbread house:
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 3 eggs
- 5 cup all-purpose flour and more for flouring surface
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
For the candy windows:
- Crushed butterscotch candies
For the thick royal icing for assembling:
- 3 tbsp meringue powder
- 4 cup powdered sugar
- 6 tbsp water
Nutrition
Calories: 6101kcal | Carbohydrates: 1407g | Protein: 92g | Fat: 20g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 6g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 491mg | Sodium: 388mg | Potassium: 1210mg | Fiber: 21g | Sugar: 912g | Vitamin A: 731IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 256mg | Iron: 34mg
Servings: 1
Calories: 6101kcal
Instructions
For the construction grade gingerbread house:
Cream eggs and sugar together in a stand mixer with a dough hook rather than the paddle attachment. Then, add honey and spices. Mix in flour, 1 cup at a time until mixed. Note that the dough will be very stiff.
Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
Lightlywipe down the counter with a wet paper towel and place a large piece of foil on top. (The water helps it stay put).
Flour your working surface and roll out the dough with a rolling pin to 1/8” thick on the foil or parchment paper.
Place your printed template on the gingerbread dough and cut with a pizza cutter. Be sure to cut out all the windows and doors too!
Transfer the foil to a baking sheet and bake the sides of the house pieces first and let them cool. Bake at 325ºF for 15-20 minutes for side pieces (until golden brown).
For the edge pieces that you will curve, bake for 8-9 minutes until they're just starting to darken.
With edge pieces, you'll need to work quickly while the pieces are still warm and bend to create the curve of the camper before fully cooled.
Let all pieces cool to room temperature before gluing them together with royal icing. Let the royal icing harden for 4-5 hours before decorating.
For the candy windows:
When you're using the gingerbread house template, cut out windows and doors before baking gingerbread dough. Then, bake the pieces per the instructions above.
Once cooled, place the pieces needing “glass” on foil on a baking sheet. Fill with crushed butterscotch candy and bake at 350ºF for about 5 minutes, until candy has melted.
Let them cool thoroughly, overnight is best, before removing from baking sheet/foil. Voila, you have edible windows!
For the thick royal icing:
Mix all of the ingredients (meringue powder, powdered sugar and water) together. Then, store them in an air-tight container if not assembling right away. Makes 3 cups of icing.
KEYWORD: gingerbread camper, gingerbread house
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