The 12 Best Gingerbread Kits of 2024, Tested and Reviewed

Best Overall

Hasbro Candy Land Gingerbread House Kit

View On Amazon $41 View On Walmart $23 View On Instacart.com

Our Ratings

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

This is our tried-and-true favorite year after year. What's not to love? You get to relive a favorite childhood game with a fully edible Candy Land gingerbread house set. The kit includes 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. It's definitely easy enough for a child to build and decorate. And the end result is exactly how a gingerbread house should look: festive, fun, and completely decked out in candy. 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 only real qualm we had during testing 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.

As for taste? 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. 

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

Runner-Up, Best Overall

Sweetology Gingerbread House Decorating Kit

View On Sweetology.com

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 comes with fondant too, which is a nice fancy touch. 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.

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

Best Village

Wilton Build-It-Yourself Mini Gingerbread Village

View On Amazon $29 View On Walmart $18

Our Ratings

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

Wilton makes some of our favorite gingerbread houses year after year, and there are always new themes and designs. This village—with four miniature gingerbread houses—is particularly fun because you can put it together solo 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 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. Pro-tip for parents of young children: Build the houses the night before and have the kids decorate the village the next day. 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 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.

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 Hershey's Lovers

Create a Treat Hershey's Gingerbread Kit

View On Amazon $15 View On Walmart $19

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.

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

Best Tasting

Sensitive Sweets Gluten-Free & Vegan Gingerbread House Kit

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 tests. 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 on to 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. It's also the best-tasting gingerbread house kit we tried.

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

Best Cookie Cutter Set

Crafty Cooking Kits Ninjabread Cookie Kit

View On Amazon $12 View On Walmart $18 View On Instacart.com

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 we noted 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 we still decorated the one-legged ninjas and gave them candy canes so they could limp along.

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

Best for Homemade Baking

Nordic Ware Gingerbread House Bundt Pan

View On Amazon $25

If you really want to go all out on your gingerbread house this year, and you are determined to build the whole thing from scratch, this bundt pan is the perfect option. It comes with a set of instructions with some handy notes such as the type of cooking spray or fats to use for easy releasing and a sample recipe.

For our test, we used our own gingerbread house dough recipe and doubled it, filling up the pan about 3/4 of the way full. After baking, we let it cool for 3-4 hours because it's so dense and we wanted to be sure it had cooled thoroughly. Our gingerbread released easily and then we got to decorating. We were impressed with the end result—both in looks and taste.

Includes: Bundt pan, instructions, sample recipe

Best Oreo

Create-a-Treat Oreo E-Z Build Cookie House Kit

View On Amazon $20 View On Walmart $19 View On Cabelas.com

Create-a-Treat kits are incredibly popular for cookie houses of all holidays. We've tried a few ourselves and love the dependability and versatility of the brand. This particular kit is all about the beloved Oreo cookie. Not only does it include the black and white cookies, but the cookie walls taste like Oreos and the icing that holds it all together tastes like the famed cream. Additionally, the kit comes with candies for decoration, a blue icing pen, and a little cookie man eager to play in the snow.

Includes: Chocolate cookie house panels, white icing packet, blue icing pen, assorted candies, cookie man, cookie tree, EZ build tray

Best Aesthetic

Williams Sonoma Gingerbread House Kit

View On Williams-Sonoma $30

Part of the fun of building a gingerbread house is the process, but the end result is also satisfying: you'll have a gorgeous holiday decoration. Williams Sonoma has a stunning gingerbread house available, complete with all the accoutrements needed to make a truly one-of-a-kind house. The cookie pieces interlock for a nice, sturdy build. There are also imprinted details, like shingles, windows, and a door, that you can fill with the included icing. Colorful candy pieces add some brightness (and taste) to the kit. You'll go gaga over the gumdrops, star-shaped sprinkles, candy rounds, and chocolate-covered sunflower seeds.

Includes: 6 cookie panels, white icing, gumdrops, star sprinkles, assorted candy rounds, holiday sprinkle mix, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds

Best Vegan

Erin McKenna’s Bakery Vegan + Gluten Free Gingerbread House Kit

View On Goldbelly.com View On Myshopify.com

People with dietary restrictions don't have to miss out on the gingerbread house fun. This particular kit from Erin McKenna bakery is vegan, gluten-free, Kosher, soy-free, and naturally sweetened. It comes with six hefty pieces of gingerbread for the house, already prepared and pre-cut with handy instructions for assembly. The icing is easy to prepare with a whisk and a little bit of water. The candies—including gumdrops, candy canes, sprinkles, and more—are also vegan. The whole kit will give you peace of mind while you build and listen to carols about peace on Earth. It's definitely a splurge, but you're paying for quality.

Includes: 6 gingerbread house pieces, sugar icing mix, gumdrops, assorted candies, candy canes, sprinkles

Best for Families

Baketivity Gingerbread House Baking Kit

View On Amazon $40 View On Baketivity.com View On Target $40

Many holiday memories are made in the kitchen. The Baketivity Gingerbread House Baking Kit is a wonderful activity for the whole family to enjoy. The kit provides everything you need to make a delicious gingerbread house from start to finish. All of the ingredients are pre-measured and the instructions are easy-to-follow for young bakers. Let your imagination run wild when it comes to decorating, or follow a video guide for inspiration.

Includes: Flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves, brown sugar, vanilla sugar, confectioners sugar, sprinkles, icing bags, cookie stencil, instructions, video guide link, activity sheet