The 16 Best Gingerbread Kits of 2023, Tested and Reviewed

Best Overall

Hasbro Candy Land Gingerbread House Kit

4.8

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Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  5/5
• Kit Quality
  4.5/5
• Taste
  4.5/5

Relive this favorite childhood game with a fully edible Candy Land gingerbread house set. Adults and kids alike will love the fact that the kit has everything you need in it to make a fun and colorful gingerbread house, although there is no piping bag included for the icing.

The kit does include prebaked gingerbread house walls and roof, premade icing to help decorate and keep everything together, and candies that come in different shapes and colors, like jewels, stars, sprinkles, fruity gummies, and swirled mints. This one is definitely easy enough for a child to build and decorate. We also thought the end result was exactly how a gingerbread house should look: festive, fun, and completely decked out in candy.

The only real qualm we had in our test was that we wished there had been more royal icing. You'll have enough to make sure the front of the house is pretty, but the sides and back didn’t get much more than basic decorating with the icing supplied in the kit. Luckily, that's an easy fix—just buy or make more of your own royal icing. After building and decorating in our test, we were pleased with the end result but think you could always add more candies—since that is the theme.

We found the gingerbread cookie pieces to be mild and pleasant (great for kids who may not want strong ginger flavor) and the icing had a slightly buttery flavor in addition to the vanilla. The spice drops had a nice flavor and the mint candies were standard peppermint, but the sprinkles, balls, and stars were just colored and flavored sugar. 

Price at time of publish: $30

Includes: Pre-baked gingerbread panels, icing, candies, gummies, sprinkles, paper cutouts, and tray

Best for Easter

Pez Easter Cookie House Kit

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Who says cookie houses are just for Christmas? This one from Pez was made for Easter. The pre-baked cookie panels have charming embossed designs including windows and scalloped shingles for the roof. To make the building process easier, the kit includes a handy plastic starter tray to hold the cookie pieces in place while you use frosting to cement the sides together.

For decorating, there are egg-shaped candies and, of course, Pez. The vibrant sugary bricks come in Easter-centric colors, including pink, yellow, purple, and light blue. As a fun bonus, this also features a mystery Pez dispenser. Could it be a bunny? A baby chick? A lamb? There's only one way to find out.

Price at time of publish: $13

Includes: Pre-baked cookie house panels, plastic starter tray, white icing for construction and decoration, candy eggs, Pez candies, mystery Pez dispenser

Best Easter Combo

Create-a-Treat Oreo Easter Cookie & Chicken Coop Vanilla Cookie Decorating Kits

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This Easter combo kit comes with both chocolate and vanilla cookies. The first features an adorable cookie coop, complete with sweet baby chickens. It's a comprehensive set that also includes yellow sanding sugar, colorful round sprinkles, icing for assembly, and a black icing pen to add details to both the structure and the chicks.

The Oreo-themed kit has eight chocolate Easter egg-shaped cookies. There are three colored icing pens—blue, yellow, and pink—as well as a white icing pouch, all of which are perfect for adhering the decorative confetti sprinkles and mini Oreos. It's a well-rounded, comprehensive decorating set perfect for a delicious Easter gathering.

Price at time of publish: $33

Includes: Pre-baked vanilla cookie coop panels, 3 cookie chickens, yellow sanding sugar, round colorful sprinkles, tipped white icing bag, black icing pen, 6 chocolate Easter egg-shaped cookies, a packet of Mini Oreos, 3 colored icing pens (pink, yellow, blue), confetti sprinkles, packet of white icing

Runner-Up, Best Overall

Sweetology Gingerbread House Decorating Kit

4.8

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This gingerbread house kit from Sweetology wowed us with its décor. It was one of the most fun houses to build (and we've tried a lot!). It comes with a ton of cute candy for decorating, including gummy penguins, candy cane sprinkles, and colorful chocolates that perfectly resemble Christmas lights. And the house itself was easy to assemble—the pieces are interlocking like puzzle pieces so it comes together smoothly. It came with fondant too, which was a nice fancy touch (and a surprise as it is not listed in the product description on the website). The fondant was surprisingly easy to work with and mold into windows for the house.

The house is easy enough for kids to tackle, but it will also keep the adults entertained. The biggest appeal is all the candy and sprinkles for decoration—you can really go all out! We think it's perfect for any aspiring pastry chef or artist who wants to get creative with this sweet holiday treat.

Our only complaint was that the frosting it came with could have been a little bit stronger; it didn’t feel quite sticky enough to hold everything together sometimes. It also did not come with a base, which would have been helpful. We assembled the house on a piece of cardboard, which worked fine, but a base would be a nice touch.

Price at time of publish: $30

Includes: Interlocking gingerbread house, 8-ounce royal icing, 1/2 pound of sprinkles and candy

Best Splurge

Dylan's Candy Bar Gingerbread House Kit

4.3

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Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  5/5
• Kit Quality
  4/5
• Taste
  4/5

If you end up frustrated when trying to get your gingerbread pieces to stay in place, you can skip the hard part and get right to decorating with this gingerbread house kit from Dylan's Candy Bar. The cute "Candy Cabin" arrives prebuilt, meaning you don't have to worry about carefully applying icing or letting it cure. The assembled house features a textured roof and "stone" foundation, and you get a variety of candy to decorate the sweet abode. Let your imagination run wild with festive sprinkles, starlight mints, gumballs, jelly beans, gumdrops, and a bonus bulk candy bag.

Our gingerbread kit arrived with the back and roof slightly crushed. Unfortunately, this is a common issue, but it shouldn't make or break the kit. We were able to frost the broken bits together easily and it looked great in the end. We did end up using some of our own icing because there wasn't enough provided for the repairs and the decorating. Overall, we found the structure to be sturdy despite the breaks.

The Dylan's Candy Bar Gingerbread House Kit comes with the most amazing assortment of candies and color overload. As far as taste, we found the actual cookie to be pretty standard for a gingerbread house (the real magic is in the appearance), but most of the candies were high-quality and delicious. If you're looking for a gingerbread house that will really turn heads and is easy enough for kids to work on—and you're willing to splurge a little—this one really wowed in our testing.

Price at time of publish: $60

Includes: Pre-assembled gingerbread house, icing mix, icing decorating bags, food coloring capsules, holiday sprinkles, starlight mints, gumballs, jelly beans, gumdrops, and a bonus bulk candy bag (products subject to change)

Best Village

Wilton Welcome to Christmas Mini Gingerbread Village

4.5

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Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  4.3/5
• Kit Quality
  4/5
• Taste
  3.5/5

With four miniature gingerbread houses, you can put this kit together yourself or turn it into a group activity. The set includes everything you need to make the tiny buildings. The four mini gingerbread homes are about 3 to 4 inches high, so the walls and roofs may be a bit delicate, but even if the pieces break, they can be glued back together pretty easily with icing.

This kit also comes with four types of candy and icing to decorate, and you can always add on more candy to your liking. We didn't wait the recommended 1 hour to let things dry and everything still held up well. Besides one roof piece breaking slightly, we found the cookies very sturdy. We wished for more detailed instructions, and we definitely think an adult would need to be involved to set up the houses. The smartest thing to do would be to build the houses the night before and have the child decorate the village. The fun of this kit really comes with decorating and not necessarily the building stage.

We wished for more icing (and the fondant was more annoying than anything else—it will stain your hands!). There is enough icing to make sure the fronts of the houses are pretty, but the sides and back won't get much more than basic decorating with the icing supplied in the kit. Luckily, that's an easy fix—just buy or make more of your own icing. As far as taste goes, our at-home tester found the spice flavors obvious, with a hint of molasses. The cookies weren’t overly sweet on their own, which worked out since the decorations added more sweetness. However, we'd still recommend this more for the craft aspect than the dessert aspect.

Price at time of publish: $25

Includes: 4 sets of gingerbread house panels, 3 types of candy, green fondant, red and white ready-to-use icing, 2 decorating bags and tips, and instruction sheet

Best for Reese's Lovers

Create a Treat Reese's EZ-Build Chocolate Cookie Holiday House

4.8

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This Create a Treat kit was a crowd favorite during testing. The final product was impressive thanks to solid cookie pieces and easy-to-follow instructions. The included Reese's candies really make this gingerbread house stand out. Between this one and the Hershey's (below), we're giving the Reese's the slight edge for the quantity of candy included.

This kit was also given a skill level of 2 by the brand (low-medium easy), and we think that's accurate. However, it's probably better for older children: The classic icing bag took a good amount of force to keep a steady stream through the tube. With a generous amount of icing, the house stuck together with just a little bit of hand-holding. We recommend decorating the front/sides before actually putting the large pieces together so the Reese’s pieces and the Reese’s window boxes don't constantly slip down the sides. In the end, we foresee this standing tall all season long—or as long as you can hold off on eating it.

Price at time of publish: $15

Includes: Pre-made chocolate cookies, pre-made icing with tip, candy

Best for Hershey's Lovers

Create a Treat Hershey's Build Your Own Cookie House Gingerbread Kit

4.5

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If you're a classic Hershey's lover, this gingerbread kit is for you. It's not the fanciest of the houses we built, but our gingerbread architect liked its clear instructions and simplicity. It also includes a sturdy base, which makes building convenient. The only Hershey’s specific parts are the rooftop Kisses and Hershey’s bars, though there are extra for snacking during the process. We definitely wish it came with even more Hershey's decorations (if you want to add a little something extra, we like these candy cane mint kisses).

Like all gingerbread houses that come with a bag of icing, you need a lot of it to get the house to hold together, and the bag popped twice from pressure during the building process. We'd suggest having some extra icing on hand, and maybe a pastry bag or two. Create a Treat gives this gingerbread kit a skill level of 2 (low-medium easy), and we agree with that assessment.

Price at time of publish: $20

Includes: Pre-made Hershey's chocolate cookies, icing, base, candies

Best for Gamers

Wilton Build it Yourself Super Mario Gingerbread Castle Decorating Kit

4.5

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Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  4.5/5
• Kit Quality
  4/5
• Taste
  4/5

Why build a house when you can build a gingerbread castle? And not just any castle, but the famous castle from the classic Nintendo game Super Mario. This kit comes with a little bit of everything, so you can build the castle of your video game dreams. Of course, there are prebaked pieces to build the structure of the castle, as well as a gingerbread mushroom cookie decoration, three different types of candy, white and black icing, and red and green fondant.

You’ll need some tools and basic ingredients to assemble the castle, such as granulated sugar, cornstarch, confectioners' sugar, a rolling pin (for the fondant), parchment paper, and a few other items that you likely already have in your pantry. However, this set does include piping tips, a sturdy cardboard base, and a decorative base to make your Super Mario castle look just like the one from the game. 

In our test, we found that assembly of the castle was fairly easy. We appreciated that the white icing it comes with had a good consistency that was quick to dry. As noted with other options on this list, a couple of the pieces arrived broken—an unavoidable risk with shipping—but we were able to glue them back together with icing with no noticeable seams in the end. A child would undoubtedly have fun decorating the castle with the gold coins and stars, precut Mario candy, and gumdrops, however, measuring and shaping the fondant for the door and windows proved quite tricky for anyone without some serious pastry skills. It would have been nice to have some precut molds to help with the shapes.

The taste was similar to most Wilton options on the list. It might not be the tastiest gingerbread cookie you've ever tried, but we didn't feel it ruined the experience. We did wish for a few more gumdrops, though!

Price at time of publish: $15

Includes: Pre-baked gingerbread castle pieces, gingerbread mushroom cookie, 3 types of candies, Super Mario and mushroom icing decorations, white ready-to-use icing, red fondant, green fondant, black icing tube, colorful presentation board, plastic decorating tip set, cardboard base, and a helpful instruction sheet

Best Value

World Market Woodland Holiday Barn Gingerbread Kit

4.2

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Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  3.5/5
• Kit Quality
  4/5
• Taste
  4/5

This rustic-looking gingerbread barn would make a great addition to a winter village, but it also makes a fun decoration (and sugary treat) on its own. The kit comes with everything you need to assemble the barn, including the prebaked cookie panels, candy for decorating, icing, connector clips for the base, and cute animal cutouts that really help set the scene.

In our test, we found that the cookies were sturdy and the connector clips made it easy to assemble the base of the house. The assembly required shaving down the pieces significantly, so it might be difficult for a child to master this one without adult help. One thing to note: When we transferred the icing from the packet to the piping bag it was very clumpy and liquidy (almost oily). However, the texture improved the more mixed it got. Like several of the kits we tested, we thought this one could use more icing. We did appreciate that there was more than enough candy for decorating, though.

When it came time to taste test, the gingerbread cookie was easy to chew and tasted slightly cinnamony. The icing was sweet and the candy had a fruity taste.

Price at time of publish: $15

Includes: Pre-baked gingerbread panels, gumdrops, candy lights, white icing, 3 icing pens, connector clips, piping bag, and paper cutouts

Best Branded

Favorite Day Target Store Cookie Kit

4.5

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We're willing to bet you know someone who is obsessed with shopping at Target, and this is, hands down, the gingerbread house kit for them. The included Target dog (Bullseye) and shopping cart are literally the icing on the gingerbread—and quite possibly our favorite parts. We found assembly fairly straightforward, however, the instructions recommend decorating the house before assembly and we would suggest decorating after assembly.

The only real issue was that the icing did not include the classic red so our builder had to get creative with actually constructing the Target logo on the building. We did find the flat roof easier to work with than the typical slanted roofs.

While this Target store was new for 2022, Favorite Day offers some other—slightly more classic—options that we also tested. Unfortunately, the Classic House Gingerbread Kit with Roof Helper that we received arrived with some broken pieces. Our gingerbread architect tried and tried (and tried again) to "glue" the broken pieces back with frosting. It ended up standing in the end, but we'll admit the final product wasn't as pretty as the others. From lots of experience testing, broken pieces happen fairly frequently (and there isn't much you can do about it). If you're planning on decorating with small children, in particular, we recommend opening up the kits before decorating day.

We also tested the Favorite Day Mini Village Gingerbread Kit, which would be great for families or small gatherings. The final result looked very cute too; arrange it on your fireplace mantle and fill in the space between buildings with some cotton balls for a little winter wonderland. Our only complaint with the village was the icing: The white icing (which was the glue that held the gingerbread pieces together) was a pain to squirt; instead of nicely flowing out of the piping tip, at one point it burst through the plastic.

Price at time of publish: $13

Includes: Pre-baked sugar cookie store pieces, pre-made icing, candies, icing decorations

Best for Pet Lovers

Wilton Gingerbread Corgi Doghouse Kit

4.8

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Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  4.5/5
• Kit Quality
  4.5/5
• Taste
  4/5

Have a love for pets? Build this delicious doghouse for your four-legged confectionary friend. A fun experience for both adults and kids, this easy gingerbread house kit contains six prebaked gingerbread house panels, white and green ready-to-use icings, lightbulb sprinkles, and a corgi dog icing decoration, as well as an easy-to-follow instruction sheet for assembling the animal's abode. Of course, this isn't safe for dogs to eat, but the gingerbread, vanilla icings, and candy pieces are completely edible for humans to enjoy.

This kit was beloved by all of us for its sweet design and smaller build. The instructions only include assembly so the decoration is entirely up to you (we copied from the box but it would have been nice to see the back of the house). We found that shaving off the sides of the cookie pieces with a knife to make sure they were as straight as possible helped in the assembly, and the icing seemed to stick better that way, too. We did wish for more white frosting, however.

We found the taste to be about on par with most gingerbread houses. You aren't getting the taste of homemade cookies, but we think the fun is really in the decorating. The candies tasted as you'd expect—sugary and delicious.

Price at time of publish: $4

Includes: 6 pre-baked gingerbread house panels, white and green ready to use icings, lightbulb sprinkles, and a corgi dog icing decoration

Best Tasting

Sensitive Sweets Gluten-Free & Vegan Gingerbread House Kit

4.8

View On Sensitivesweets.com

Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  4.7/5
• Kit Quality
  5/5
• Taste
  5/5

Sensitive Sweets Bakery specializes in desserts that are allergy-friendly, and this gingerbread kit is vegan and free of gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, coconut, oats, and sesame. It's also the gingerbread kit we ranked highest in taste in our Lab test. We found most gingerbread kits offer just average taste, but this one really wowed us—in fact, it tasted homemade.

Everything you should need comes with the Deluxe kit, but note that the Basic version is missing the frosting and candies. The quality of the kit itself is outstanding. We thought the pieces were heavy, but that said, the kit provided adhesive frosting that was very efficient. It dried quickly, too. We only had to wait about 10 minutes before moving onto the next side.

The directions are easy to follow and contain helpful tips to help you succeed, particularly the idea of having mason jars on deck to hold up the heavy gingerbread sides as you go so the house doesn't collapse. We never worried about the gingerbread sides actually cracking because the gingerbread cookie consistency was closer to that of a soft cookie rather than having a hard exterior. None of the sides needed trimming either so this is a kit we would recommend for kids and adults.

Price at time of publish: $37

Includes: Gingerbread cookie walls and roof, icing mix for connecting walls, plastic holiday trees, and rings for decoration

Best Traditional

Create A Treat Pre-Built Gingerbread House Kit

4.5

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Our Ratings

• Ease of Assembly
  5/5
• Kit Quality
  5/5
• Taste
  3/5

This pre-built gingerbread house is what you think of when you think of the classic holiday decoration and sweet treat that has become so popular over the years. Plus, you don't have to be a pastry chef to create a masterpiece—it's perfect for all skill levels and no baking is required. The kit comes with everything you need including more than enough icing (something most other kits can't boast) for decorating.

After some serious decorating, we gave this kit the highest marks in both ease and quality. We did think it left a little to be desired in the taste department, but we think this gingerbread house is more about the visual of the finished product anyway. It's definitely kid-approved, too. The larger tube of icing means a kid can even waste some and still have plenty left over for all the decorations.

Price at time of publish: $22

Includes: Gingerbread house, icing, candy decorations, 2 decorator bags, 1 star decorator tip, and 1 round decorator tip

Best Cookie Cutter Set

Crafty Cooking Kits Ninjabread Cookie Kit

4.5

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While this kit may not be the standard gingerbread house, it’s super cool because it actually includes all sorts of fun gingerbread ninjas. These fighting gingerbread men are taking back Christmas one deliciously funny ninja at a time. The kit includes a gingerbread mix and plastic molds so that you can create your own custom scenes, just note that the mix requires the addition of softened butter and honey along with a little water.

The kit has all the standard fixings, like icing, piping bags, and candy beads. These kits make between 10 and 20 ninja-bread men, so everyone in the family can have their own custom silly cookies, and because the molds are reusable, you can make them all year round with different cookie doughs if you want. This may be something you want to do off the bat, actually, as our tester said the dough included with the kit is kind of hard and not very flavorful.

Instructions say the mix is enough for 20 cookies, but even though we rolled the dough as thin as possible, we only got 19 ninjas and a little leftover blob for tasting. Unfortunately, because the cookies were so thin, a few extra seconds in the oven overbaked some, and two lost a leg after baking. The final count included 17 full cookies to decorate, but she still decorated the one-legged ninjas and gave them candy canes so they could limp along.

Price at time of publish: $12

Includes: Cookie mix, royal icing mix, candy beads, piping bags, (4) ninja cookie cutters