Gingerbread houses, gingerbread men and gingerbread trees! I love this time of year. Let your kids make this gingerbread Christmas tree and give it as a gift to someone they love. Easy to assemble, quick to put together, and completely customizable – this is a great kids activity at Christmas time.
This article has been updated for better baking since it’s original 2013 publication. Enjoy!
More Holiday Treats for Later
Traditional Petticoat Shortbread for Hogmanay
Quinoa Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookies
Gingerbread Christmas Tree
Every year, the first week of December we host an annual Gingerbread House Making Party. We invite friends over with their assembled gingerbread houses and some bags of candy to share. I make the frosting glue and we all share our candy decorations around and have a blast.
Some years our house is more of a shack (like made from graham crackers and it’s not pretty). Other years we make a soft gingerbread in our gingerbread house mold. Most years, though, my engineering husband builds really nice, sturdy houses that the kids decorate to their hearts content.
We also make gingerbread men cookies, of course!
Gingerbread houses can be tricky to assemble with their several parts and roof pieces. However, gingerbread trees can be as simple as stacking star-shaped cookies or cutting gingerbread triangles.
Whichever method you choose, you’re going to need a really good gingerbread cookie recipe. Here are our two favorites:
- Healthy Gingerbread House Dough
- Sourdough Gingerbread Cookies – great for house and rees!
Here are two ways to make gingerbread Christmas trees:
- Use a graduated star cookie cutter set to cut one cookie from each cutter in the set. After you’ve baked and cooled the stars, stack them from largest to smallest and secure with royal icing or marshmallow fluff.
- Bake up to rectangles of gingerbread and cut them diagnally to create four triangles. Stand up these rectangles and secure them into a 3-D tree shape (instructions below).
Natural/Healthier Treats for Decorating Gingerbread Trees
Many of our gingerbread houses and gingerbread trees are also decorated with hazelnuts, pistachios, and dried apples to keep them healthier. We even use homemade raisins.
Here are some other homemade, slightly healthier candies to use for decorating:
Low Carb Marzipan – for making shapes via candy molds.
There are more recipes linked at the end of the article for healthier homemade candies for decorating your gingerbread tree.
- We also purchase some commercial, healthier treats from The Natural Candy Store online. They’re not an affiliate, we’re just a happy customer.
Make a Gingerbread Christmas Tree
Make this super fun gingerbread tree for Christmas this year if making a whole house just seems like too much of a good thing. Easy to decorate, simple to customize, and fun to gift for the holidays.
Holiday Gingerbread Tree
Equipment
- Pizza Cutter or Sharp Knife
- Foil Wrapped Cardboard Base
Instructions
Getting Started With Shapes
- Make your favorite gingerbread cookie recipe and roll out to 1/4" thick in the shape of a rectangle.
- If using graduated star-shaped cookie cutters, cut out one of each size.
- If making a customized 3-D tree, visualize two rectangles within the one you've just rolled out, the length of which should reflect however tall you want your tree to be. Cut out the rectangles, try to make them the same length and width, with a pizza cutter.
- Then, cut a diagonal line from one corner to the other in each rectangle. Move all excess dough out of the way and place your now 4 triangles on a baking sheet.
Bake & Cool
- Place the cut out gingerbread onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Space them so they don't touch, but the gingerbread shouldn't puff up too much.
- Right when it comes out of the oven, use that pizza cutter to trim up any ragged edges. They don't have to be perfect, just mostly straight.
- Cool completely before assembling.
Assembly of Cookie Cutter Tree
- To assemble a cookie cutter gingerbread tree, start with the largest cookie on the bottom and add a dollop of royal icing or marshmallow piping in the middle.
- Continue to add cookies with a dollop of sticky material in the center, going from the largest to the smallest on top. Be sure to stop and re-center the growing tree as you go.
- Decorate as soon as the tree is set up firmly. This usually takes a few hours or overnight.
Assembly of Custom 3-D Tree
- Put icing or marshmallow on the bottom and sides of two triangles one at a time. Stand the triangles together to form one large triangle, affixing them together down the center. Have someone help you!
- Hold them a moment or two while the icing cools dries and hardens. Affix another triangle along the seam down the center, one on each side. This will create a three dimensional tree out of the four pieces.
- Dry completely for a few hours or overnight, and then decorate.
Notes
Holiday Gingerbread Tree Notes
First, find a gingerbread cookie recipe that you like. It needs to be a gingerbread that will harden, so be sure it’s a cookie recipe and not a soft, sweet bread recipe.
- Plan to make your dough a good six hours or overnight before you need to assemble the tree because it needs to fully cool.
- I usually bake the gingerbread the night before I need to assemble the structure. I mostly do that so I don’t have to worry about the whole process all at once!
Give the extra pieces of dough to your kids to experiment with shapes, cut out gingerbread men and otherwise have fun.
- There are a lot of steps to making a gingerbread tree but the first parts are kind of boring. The children can join in on the gluing and decorating with candy part. That’s the fun part!
If you roll out your dough onto a silicone baking sheet or parchment paper, then you can just slide the sheet and it’s contents onto your cookie pan.
Shaping the Pieces of Your Gingerbread Tree
Right when it comes out of the oven, use that pizza cutter to trim up any ragged edges. They don’t have to be perfect, just mostly straight. Your kids can do this part with some supervision.
You’ll need to let the gingerbread completely cool before you can assemble your gingerbread tree. Do NOT try to put this together when it’s warm, or it will just crumble.
I usually bake the gingerbread the night before I need to assemble the structure. I mostly do that so I don’t have to worry about the whole process all at once!
Assemble the Gingerbread Christmas Tree
Now it’s time to make a gingerbread tree. To assemble and decorate the tree, use:
Marshmallow piping – be sure to assemble the tree quickly because the marshmallow will set up as it cools down.
Royal icing – sets up nicely but is super sweet and kind of bleh.
Hot glue – the easiest option, but certainly not edible!
You’re a highly intelligent person and I trust you not to eat glue. If you don’t want to use the glue, you can use the royal icing that you will use to affix the candy decorations. The icing isn’t tasty, but it’s edible.
- Put fixative on the bottom and sides of a triangle and then do the same to another triangle. Stand the triangles together to form one large triangle.
- Hold them a moment or two while the fixative cools down and hardens.
- Affix another triangle along the seam, one on each side. This will create a three dimensional tree out of the four pieces.
Decorate Your Gingerbread Christmas Tree
Use more marshmallow piping or royal icing to decorate the tree and add candies to look like ornaments.
To make the piping or icing a little healthier, use organic cane sugar. You can blend it up to make your own powdered sugar, if you don’t want to spend the extra money on commercial powdered sugar.
To Use Marshmallow Piping:
- Make your own marshmallow piping and put it into a gallon ziploc bag with a tiny hole cut in one bottom corner.
- Keep the piping warm in your hands while you work to assemble the tree.
- Be sure to get a helper!
If you want blue icing instead of white, use this recipe for Snowball Marshmallows.
To Make Royal Icing
- Mix 4 cups of organic powdered sugar with 2 egg whites.
- Beat until incorporated but slightly stiff.
- Add a little cream if you need to in order to get the correct texture. It’s better to start off dry and add a little more liquid.
You want it firm enough to stick on candies but not so stiff that the candy sloughs off!
More Gingerbread & Holiday Resources
Gingerbread & Holiday Resources
Homemade Healthy Gingerbread House
Here's a real foods, wholesome ingredient version of a healthy gingerbread house. This is the recipe that I use every year. It will produce a house approximately the size of a toaster, plus several dozen gingerbread cookies of various shapes and sizes.
Healthy Vegan M&Ms - They DO Exist!!!
Sugar-Free Gummy Bears
Homemade Chocolate Bars - Just 3 Ingredients!
Easy Vegan Peppermint Bark + VIDEO!
If you need more Christmas inspiration, be sure to download our e-book, The 12 Days of Christmas! With crafts, recipes, activity and service suggestions, and even holiday templates, this book is sure to help make your holiday merry and bright. From all of us at Homestead Lady, Merry Christmas!
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