It’s that time of year again where we decorate a gingerbread house, a tradition for us, now. Every year we scour the shelves for the best sweets for decorating a gingerbread house, so here are the top retro sweets we love using.
Strings ‘n’ things
I like string sweets for the gingerbread house because they can as easily make up the roofing as determine the outline of the garden path. Any number of belts, laces, cables or pencil sweets would work well laid side by side for the roof, guttering or outlines of the house. They also make a nice pathway from the door to the edge of the board, making a path that can be lined with other sweets. Or use the super thin laces to frame doors and windows. 
Tiles
Another good option for ‘roofing’ on a gingerbread house is anything that can be made into tiles. It’s a bit of work, but can look spectacular! If you have a steady hand you can slice fudge thinly and use the square tiles to cover the roof. Marshmallows could work well too, if you cut them roughly evenly. So can round chocolate coins or white or brown ‘gems’ (sometimes known as jazzies) for a very colourful roof.
Garden Decorations
No gingerbread house is complete without a garden, so make sure to save some sweets for the ‘outdoors’ area. You can have anything from a green coconut summery garden to a winter scape. Use cookie cutters to make biscuits – gingerbread people, stars, Christmas trees, reindeer and anything else you can imagine can adorn the garden space. Add trees or santas made from icing sugar (usually used to decorate cakes), little toadstool sweets or miniature sized Christmas table decorations. For the super sweet toothed, you could even do a candy-paving with swirly-lolly ‘trees’.
Add candy canes, a few details to the windows and doors – silver balls, jelly babies, jelly tots and other small sweets all work well for adding little details, and before you know it – you have a beautiful gingerbread house.