I posted a few pics of our gingerbread house on Instagram yesterday and got comments saying I was far too early for Christmas! Since when was a gingerbread house just for Christmas? I think they make a pretty good treat for Halloween too as they are really versatile and easy to decorate for any season.

Decorating a Halloween gingerbread house

As we’re currently in the middle of half term we decorated a gingerbread house as part of our Halloween celebrations. This is always a great activity to do with my children and it kept them occupied all afternoon. It also combines some elements of STEM which is something I am always keen to introduce to my kids.

First we assembled our gingerbread house. I have to admit to using a ready made kit from Ikea, they are great value, smell wonderful and taste pretty good. This time I tried something new and made a sugar syrup to ‘glue’ the pieces together.

How to make a sugar syrup to glue a gingerbread house together

I placed 125g caster sugar with 2.5fl oz of water in a pan and let them boil until the colour darkened and the mixture thickened. Then I reduced the heat so that the syrup didn’t burn but stayed warm and easy to use. It was obviously incredibly hot so I dipped each piece of the gingerbread house in the sugar syrup and fixed it to another piece. I allowed it to cool until the sugar syrup started to set and then carried on adding a piece at a time until the walls, roof and chimney pieces were all glued together.

I left the gingerbread house to dry and harden over night. The sugar syrup dried white and looked a little like snow.

Decorating a Halloween gingerbread house

The next day we collected our decorating supplies which included special green popcorn, red icing pen, sweetie eyes and a selection of Halloween chocolates.

We set our Halloween gingerbread house on a tray and the children placed the green popcorn around it to look like green snow.

We used the icing pen to decorate around the edges of the gingerbread house and used it as a glue to hold the sweetie eyes in place on the roof. My 5 year old added a pumpkin and spider using the icing pen and filled the tray with some of our sweets to create a very spooky Halloween house.

The children enjoyed decorating a Halloween gingerbread house and it’s making our living room smell seasonal which is always a bonus. Look at their faces – I think you can tell they had eaten a few sweets along the way!

I think we might enjoy our spooky Halloween house for another couple of days before breaking it and eating it.

Have you ever made or decorated a gingerbread house for Halloween?