Once upon a time, in a country entitled Germany, the first gingerbread houses were designed and built by bakers inspired by the world renowned Brothers Grimm Tale, the legendary story of Hansel and Gretel. Ever since the first gingerbread has been erected by a master baker the small have skyrocketed in popularity. While the most common design line in DIY Gingerbread Houses are the small cozy and warmth home filled with colorful decorations, castles and forts are an often used theme as well. Some mesmerizing ensembles are not even houses though, creativity surpassing the simple architectural term into unimaginable realms of sweets warmth and coziness in extraordinary shapes.

DIY Gingerbread Houses-Historical Newfoundland Home

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These sweet ensembles have determined many families to embrace the procedure and transform it into a family tradition by constructing every year such wonders. The home showcased above was inspired by the Newfoundland Historic award. The original home design has been assigned to W.F Butler, world renowned for many Queen Anne Revival Style homes. Follow the level of details on the edible  establishment and you will remain speechless.

DIY Gingerbread Houses- Old Home Theme

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In the upper left corner of the picture above you can see a Victorian Gingerbread House that took more than two months to complete and it has been an exact replica of the Carson Mansion that resides in Eureka, California. The Pink Victorian Christmas House has won the Old House Gingerbread Contest.  As you have probably noticed already, townhouses are yet another popular gingerbread design theme. Mansions and Victorian creations being wildly popular even when they`re found in unusual colors as displayed above, in blue. The reason behind this extraordinary popularity  being probably the coziness and warmth inspired by these traditional designs that have welcomed Christmas with such an amazing air.

DIY Gingerbread Mansion

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Above a replica of the Winchester Mystery House has been showcased, a Victorian Design and architecture wonder that resides in San Jose, California. The real home stands aside from most homes of its in era with high end features at its time such as sewer systems, gas lights actioned at the press of a button, modern heating, three working elevators, 47 fireplaces, all these for 160 rooms ! The amount of luxury and details has been expressed in the edible version as well. The original version featured rambling roofs, exquisite hand inlaid parquet floor, gold and silver chandeliers along with extraordinary Tiffany art glass windows. Take a look at the monumental amount of details poured into each detail and tell us what you think.

Gingerbread in All Shapes and Sizes

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Gingerbread castles and homes have achieved of an unbelievable level of details by continuously trying to get as close as possible to the masterpieces that they are using as examples. After all the level of detail is directly related to the amount of detail found on the real version. These details are making the home sweet through sugar, honey and icing. The amount of work and love that goes into a project is phenomenal, from baking the gingerbread to putting it all together for hours, weeks or even months sometimes.

Unusual Shaped Gingerbread Houses

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The treehouse is an amazing dream home that we’ve all dreamed off or even experienced. Living on a boat came up in our childhood stories as well. Not all gingerbread are resembling regular homes, from enchanted lighthouses and boat homes up to gingerbread mermaids and candy sea creatures, imagination is shaping items daily, fueling creativity and dreams. These is no written rule of what is a gingerbread house so get creative and shape out edible dreams.

Gingerbread Castles and Forts

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Castles are unique. Fairy Tale playgrounds, wars scenarios and history pages. Whatever you understand from the word castle, every sense of the word is extraordinary, legendary, marvelous and for some individuals, edible as well. The Sugar Castle displayed in the world renowned historic  Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco took over 400 hours to create and has been modeled after an European Architecture Line. Not all castles showcased above have actually won gingerbread competitions but we find them all extraordinary enough to be considered winners in any scenario.

 Gingerbread Lighted Details of Victorian Rowhouse

(image credits:This Old House)

As we’ve stated above baking gingerbread houses became a family tradition for many families, all attempting to create a grander and more beautiful ensemble every year. The home above was inspired by the Newfoundland Historic Award winner. The original home is supposedly one of the W.F.Butler designs. The masterpiece has took only 60 hours to complete. If you take a closer look at the Victorian Rowhouses detail level you will understand why we’ve dared to type the word “only”.

 Gingerbread White House Replicas

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Bakers are targeting high on the prizes through impressive buildings like the White House. The most extraordinary creations are winning prizes so illuminated White Houses with an intricate level of details are expected to be nominalized. We can hardly call these gingerbread homes anymore.

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The White House showcase above wears the 1st place badge of a grand contest held in 2008. It has been materialized out of gingerbread and it was edible but the design was kept in the initial state.

Disney`s

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Disney has its own division that creates gingerbread ensembles and they always think big and design big. Their 16 foot high gingerbread house had a real store inside of it . All these out of gingerbread and sweets. In the making being used 600 pounds of sugar, 800 pounds of floor and more than 3000 egg whites. The creation of Disney are always legendary, always sweet.

 

What do you think about this legendary collection of DIY gingerbread homes and sweet ensembles? We would love to hear from you in the comment section below and add your masterpiece in our article.