With the holidays around the corner, among the creative decorating ideas is the classic gingerbread house. But engineering a gingerbread house can be tricky. 

One of the biggest challenges is trying to keep the walls and roof from caving in. To keep this from happening, check your ingredients. Culinary teacher Lisa Pluff suggests baking the gingerbread cookie longer than you normally would for less chance of collapsing.

Another important detail is the frosting.

”The frosting needs to be very thick so it can hold the walls and roof together,” Pluff said. 

You might also want to consider switching your butter for shorting and add more flour if needed.

As for the actual construction of the gingerbread house. Junior Blaisen Bammes suggests putting support beams inside to hold up the roof, and including triangle shapes on the corners of the house to hold up the walls. Also make sure they are even so it’s easier to put them together. “Making sure that everything is done correctly before you put it together will make the building process much easier,” Bammes said.