Paleo Gingerbread House (AIP)
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This paleo gingerbread house is perfect for decorating for the holidays! It’s nut-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, and AIP-friendly.
I can’t believe I’ve never decorated or made a gingerbread house before! It’s such a fun holiday tradition, and pre-made kits make it pretty easy. However, if you or your kiddos have food intolerances, those kits aren’t quite as helpful. Now that my husband and I have a baby on the way and I’ve been daydreaming about creating fun Christmas traditions with our little boy, I figured it was time to figure out how to make my own homemade paleo gingerbread house!
I was picturing this to be kind of a frustrating endeavor with the house collapsing. Surprisingly, this was super easy to make! The gingerbread walls are sturdy, they taste delicious, and it’s so easy to assemble and decorate this simple gingerbread house!
How to Make a Homemade Paleo Gingerbread House
- Make the dough: Using a large mixing bowl, sift the tigernut flour, tapioca starch, baking soda, gelatin, cinnamon and ginger together. Stir in the maple syrup and blackstrap molasses and mix well. Cut in the palm shortening and stir until a cookie dough is formed.
- Cut into shapes: Lightly flour a clean surface with tapioca starch and add the dough. Flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough to about 1/4″ thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut four even rectangles for walls and roofs, and two pentagons for the front and back of the house. Cut out gingerbread men, snowmen, trees, and other cookie shapes as desired with the leftover dough.
- Bake & cool: Move all of the cookies to the baking sheet and evenly space. Bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes or until cooked through. Carefully transfer to a cooling rack and allow to fully cool before assembling the house.
- Assemble: Pipe frosting onto all of the edges of the frame of the house and place on a cake stand, adhering the walls to each other and placing the roof on top. Transfer to the fridge and allow the icing to harden for 10-15 minutes before continuing to decorate with more icing and decorations of choice.
How do you make the paleo icing?
Homemade Paleo Icing
- Combine the palm shortening and maple syrup in a mixing bowl. Whisk with an electric hand mixer (or stand mixer) until light and fluffy.
- Add coloring of choice like matcha powder for green icing or pomegranate juice for red.
Storebought Icing
You can also use a storebought icing like simple mills brand!
The Tools
Gingerbread cookie cutters
You can use a gingerbread house cookie cutter (or a simple print out of a gingerbread house mold PDF as mold and score it with a knife) along with other cookie cutters like gingerbread men, Christmas trees, snowmen, etc. to add more to the scene.
Piping bags and tips
You can use actual piping bags, or zip lock bags with a tip cut out. I like using frosting tips to make things like a wreath!
Cardboard cake stand
These cake stands are easy to find at craft stores or online. It’s easier for the icing to set on this than a plate, which will slip and slide.
The Ingredients
Tigernut flour, tapioca starch, and gelatin
I have not tried any other subs in the gingerbread cookie mixture and cannot recommend any swaps that would yield the same results.
Maple syrup and blackstrap molasses
These add sweetness and flavor to the gingerbread.
Ginger & cinnamon
Necessary for that gingerbread flavor!
Decorations of your choice, like…
- Marshmallows or shredded coconut for snow.
- Chocolate chips for shingles, door handles, etc.
- Dried fruit (I used freeze-dried strawberries on mine for the bowl on the wreath!)
- Fresh pomegranate seeds for Christmas lights
- etc.
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Paleo Gingerbread House (AIP)
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Ingredients
- For the gingerbread house
- ¾ cup tigernut flour
- ¾ cup tapioca starch
- 1 tbsp gelatin powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ginger powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 2 tbsp blackstrap molasses
- ⅓ cup palm shortening
For the frosting
- ½ cup palm shortening
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- ½ tsp matcha powder, optional, for green color
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a large baking sheet with lightly greased parchment paper.
- Using a large mixing bowl, sift the tigernut flour, tapioca starch, baking soda, gelatin, cinnamon and ginger together.
- Stir in the maple syrup and blackstrap molasses and mix well. Cut in the palm shortening and stir until a cookie dough is formed.
- Lightly flour a clean surface with tapioca starch and add the dough. Flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough to about 1/4" thickness. Use cookie cutters (like this) to cut even rectangles for walls and roofs, and two pentagons for the front and back of the house. Cut out other cookies shapes gingerbread men, snow men, trees, and other cookie shapes as desired with the leftover dough.
- Move all of the cookies to the baking sheet and evenly space. Bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes or until cooked through.
- Carefully transfer to a cooling rack and allow to fully cool before assembling the house.
- To assemble the house, pipe frosting (see below) onto all of the edges of the frame of the house and place on a cake stand, adhereing the walls to eachother and placing the roof on top. Transfer to the fridge and allow the icing to harden for 10-15 minutes before continuing to decorate with more icing and decorations of choice.
For the frosting
- Combine the palm shortening and maple syrup in a mixing bowl. Whisk with an electric hand mixer (or stand mixer) until light and fluffy.
- Add coloring of choice like matcha powder for green icing or pomegranate juice for red.
Notes
Great recipe! My 5-year-old, who has food intolerances, loved it! Thank you!
Yay, so glad!!
This was incredible! The gingerbread was super sturdy, while also tasting phenomenal. I replaced the palm shortening with ghee because palm shortening doesn’t sit well with me – and it worked out wonderfully. Otherwise, I kept the gingerbread recipe the exact same! For the frosting, I simply made marshmallow (https://healmedelicious.com/aip-marshmallows/), and worked quickly before the marshmallow set. Held super strong. Thanks for this amazing gingerbread recipe!
I just made two batches of this for our family gingerbread house decorating activity! My son has recently had to go AIP. Not only will this make him happy, it will satisfy everyone! I used freshly grated ginger root. It adds an additional layer of ginger zing to the cookie.
Hi friend! I made these cookies as little Christmas tree cut-outs and they were awesome! I rolled out the cookie dough a bit thinner, (since I wasn’t making a “house”) and didn’t bake quite as long. They came out a kind of soft crisp. I made some royal frosting up, so the grand-kiddos could frost them on Christmas day for dessert. We all have loved them! Thank you so much for this recipe. I finally have a cookie recipe that tastes, smells and feels like the familiar ones I love.
…oh! I forgot to rate the recipe. It definitely earned 5 stars in my opinion! Great job!