Paleo Gingerbread House

This Paleo Gingerbread House features Paleo-friendly versions of all your gingerbread house fixings, including gumdrops and icing!

Friends! Did you see my guest post on the Paleo Parents last week?

If you missed it, no worries. I’m re-sharing it here today!

This recipe is complete with colorful, nutrient-dense gumdrops; cookies that {I guarantee} will become your go-to for delicious “I can’t believe these are Paleo” gingerbread men; and an all-natural Royal icing which makes the perfect edible house glue. Note that my frosting does contain powdered sugar – while this doesn’t usually fall within the parameters of a Paleo lifestyle, it is unmatched in its ability to create a hard frosting. Instead of the mystery ingredient meringue powder, I’m providing steps for Royal icing with natural, household ingredients. Enjoy sparingly!

As always, I hope you love this recipe and find my step-by-step photo instructions helpful.

You can take this recipe as far as you want! Go for the full-blown 2-3 day homemade candy and gingerbread house experience or just use the dough to make cookies! Either way, I support you 100%.

Now let’s get to work! These are all the players in our Paleo-friendly gumdrops. We’ll walk through each step and ingredient one at a time and then at the bottom of this post, you can find the summarized recipe.

For this example, we’re going to make pink gumdrops! I also made purple, yellow and green {ingredients for these will all be listed below}. Regardless of the flavor, we’ll need one cup of fruit or vegetables.

I chose a mixture of strawberries and cranberries. Put the fruit into a blender.

Add 1-2 Tbs of maple syrup – adjust with more or less depending on your taste.

We’ll also need 1 cup of liquid. I used a mixture of approximately ¼ cup lemon juice and ¾ cup water. Use all water if you don’t like sour candies.

Gelatin! The magical and incredibly healing ingredient. You will need THIS kind for these gummies to work. I promise this won’t be a one-purpose purchase. You will find yourself using this gelatin for a lot of really fun projects.

Add 5 Tbs of the gelatin to the blender or blender cup.

Blend! Ah it smells so good. Must resist the urge to gobble it up right now.

For easy gumdrop pouring, I like to use a pastry bag. You can use either a real pastry bag or just pour the fruit mixture into a plastic bag-lined cup.

Pull the bag out.

And clip the corner! Poof! Inexpensive pastry bag is born.

Have you seen these cute little ice cube trays? We’re going to use them to mold our gumdrops! I found this one HERE.

If you don’t have one of these trays, you could also just pour the liquid fruit mixture into a plastic wrap-lined baking dish. Let it set in the fridge overnight then use a small circular cookie cutter {or maybe even a ring?} to cut little discs.

If you’re using the ice cube tray, pipe the fruit mixture into each little opening.

Scrape off the tops.

And then put this puppy into the freezer!

Note that this recipe will make about 120 gumdrops {WOW that’s a lot} so either half the recipe or snack to your hearts desire. They’re healthy after all!

After the gumdrops have set in the freezer overnight, pop them out then store in an open-air container in the refrigerator. On the day you make your gingerbread house, pull the gumdrops out of the refrigerator so that they can crisp and dehydrate a bit on the counter – dryness will help them stick to the frosting.

Now let’s make the actual gingerbread! Pour 3 cups of almond flour into a large bowl.

Add 1 tsp ground ginger.

Then 1 tsp cinnamon.

Then throw in ½ tsp ground cloves.

½ tsp kosher salt.

And then finally ½ tsp baking soda.

That’s it for the dry ingredients!

Give it a good whisk to combine and break up any almond flour chunks.

Onto the wet ingredients! We’re using blackstrap molasses as the main sweetener in these cookies. It will give the gingerbread that flavor you know and love.

Pour ½ cup of the molasses into a jar.

Add 2 Tbs of maple syrup.

Then to that, add 2 Tbs of extra virgin coconut oil.

Take this jar and either stick it in the microwave {if you’re okay with using microwaves} or heat it on the stove until the oil melts and the molasses is running thinly.

All melted? Good! If it feels hot to the touch, let it cool for a bit. We don’t want it to cook our next ingredient.

Add 1 egg.

Whisk together!

Pour the wet into the dry ingredients.

Stir until it’s evenly combined.

Take your dough and plop it onto a few sheets of plastic wrap {parchment paper would work too}.

Wrap it up and place it in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight. We want it nice and firm before we start cutting our cookies.

While the dough is firming in the refrigerator, make your cookie stencils! You can use the dimensions here on paper or use them to trace onto a poster board.

The gingerbread cookie rolling Mise en Place! We’ve got our chilled dough, the cookie stencils, a rolling pin, and a bowl of arrowroot flour {our saving grace}.

Throw some arrowroot flour onto a large piece of parchment paper.

Put the cold dough on top.

Then sprinkle with more arrowroot.

Roll into a ball {using as much arrowroot as you need}.

Then flatten with your hands.

Rolling pen time!

Roll until it’s about ¼“ thick.

Make sure it’s well dusted with arrowroot! Sticky cookies aren’t much fun.

Place your cutouts on the dough in any arrangement that works. If you can’t fit them all in on the first go, no worries! You’ll get ‘em on the next.

Using a knife, trace each stencil.

This is so exciting!

Pull the non-cookie dough away from the cut pieces.

From here, carefully move each piece onto a new piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet.

Roll the leftover dough out and cut your remaining pieces.

When you’ve got all the pieces on their baking sheet, I recommend you take your original stencils and reform any that are misshapen.

Time for the oven! Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes.

Done! Let them cool completely before you move any pieces. Once they’re cooled, carefully transfer them to a wire cooling rack so that they can cool and harden over night.

It’s finally here. Paleo Gingerbread house day! We made our gumdrops, we made our house pieces, and now it’s time to make the frosting!

Add 6 Tbs liquid egg whites to either your stand mixer or a bowl ready for your hand-held mixer.

Note: royal icing is usually made with a powdered meringue powder that’s packed full of non-intelligible ingredients. Egg whites make a great substitute.

Add 2 tsp fresh lemon juice.

Mix these two together until it’s frothy like this.

We’re going to use organic powdered sugar for this frosting. While the refined sugar isn’t a health product, its ability to make a royal frosting is completely unmatched.

Sift the powdered sugar until you have 3 cups.

Look at those clumps! Nobody likes clumpy frosting.

Ah, beautiful sifted powdered sugar. My Nana would be so proud.

With the mixer on low, slowly add the 3 cups of sugar to the egg whites and lemon mixture.

Pause after the sugar has been added to scrape down the sides.

Then turn the speed up! Run the mixer on high speed for at least 6 minutes.

If your kitchen looks this messy, you’re doing something right.

It’s finally done!

Perfect frosting.

Spoon some of it into a bowl if you want to color it.

Cut the tip of a pastry bag or plastic bag {I find that because I’m using a fitted tip, an actual pastry bag works best here}.

Push a star tip through the opening.

Grab a few big spoonfuls of the frosting.

And put it in the bag.

OR, put a few drops of all-natural food coloring onto about ½ cup of frosting. I made green frosting for the trees.

Add that frosting to it’s own bag.

Then squeeze until it comes through the tip.

Before you get too carried away frosting your soon to be gorgeous house, cover any leftover frosting with plastic wrap – this will help keep it from drying out.

Start frosting!

Add decorations as you go – especially before the frosting dries. The Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips make great decorations if you don’t want to make gumdrops.

Time to make the house! Choose your plate or platter and lay out the pieces so you have an idea of where it will go.

Lay one line of frosting.

Place the first piece in the middle of the line and hold until it’s able to stand on its own. This should take between 30 and 60 seconds.

Lay an adjoining piece by piping frosting on the plate and along the side of the original piece.

Continue with the next!

Then the final piece.

Scrape off any large clumps of leftover frosting and don’t worry if it looks messy … A) this is just for fun and B) we can always cover it up with more frosting.

The foundation is set!

Pipe a generous amount of frosting along the roofline.

Then place the roof pieces on top and hold into place until they’re set. This will probably take about 2 minutes.

Using a star tip, pipe the frosting over all seams.

Using a small circular tip, decorate the roof, doors, and windows.

Add the gumdrops! I cut mine in half so that they wouldn’t stick out as much.

How cute is THAT?!

I love it so much.

Pipe some frosting on the plate for your other decorations.

Trees! This Paleo gingerbread house needed trees.

And side windows. Oh, hey Peter! Peter’s my photo-bombing gingerbread man. This is his house.

Peter wanted a close-up. He also asked that I turn on his Christmas lights.

Adorable! I hope you have the absolute BEST time making your own Paleo gingerbread house and be sure to share pictures on Instagram and Facebook!