The $4.99 IKEA Food Find You Need To Grab for the Holidays

This gingerbread house kit is so easy to assemble. Plus, there's a mini version that's perfect for kids.

Of all the holiday celebrations and traditions, there is one I always look forward to: building and designing my own gingerbread house. Perhaps it's the American dream of owning a little house, or maybe it's years of influence from watching HGTV’s beautiful home renovations. Either way, there’s something so satisfying about assembling the pieces with my bare hands. Plus, decorating is the fun part, and having an excuse to buy a kaleidoscope of candies in every color is too good an opportunity to pass up. As I joke with family and friends, "Looks like there’s finally a house we can all afford in this economy!"

Read More: How to Make a Gingerbread House

IKEA’s Gingerbread House Kit

• Price: $4.99 for the regular gingerbread house kit or $5.99 for the mini gingerbread house kit
• Why I Love It: It lets me skip all the baking and measuring and lets me get right to the joy of building and decorating the gingerbread house.

Why I Love IKEA's Gingerbread House Kit

This year, rather than stressing over making gingerbread dough or, worse yet, getting all the measurements just right (it can start to feel like structural engineering—and that’s no fun), I’ve decided to cut some corners and use IKEA’s gingerbread house kit. It comes in a plastic clamshell package about the size of an expensive Hallmark holiday card.

The kit includes all the gingerbread house pieces, perfectly measured and trimmed, with two crosshatch roofs, a small chimney, and four walls with windows. The cut-out windows are a little detail that brings me joy, especially knowing how difficult they’d be to make by hand. After all, IKEA is a furniture store, so rest assured everything is measured once and checked twice.

My favorite part of the kit is that it comes with IKEA’s iconic instruction manual with pictures and shapes, guiding you through every step of the gingerbread house-building process. It’s so easy and intuitive that anyone, with or without experience, can build a gingerbread house. While the kit doesn’t include frosting, I don’t mind it since I’ll be adding frosting to my shopping list along with my candy wishlist.

IKEA Also Sells Mini Gingerbread House Kits

This year, IKEA released mini gingerbread house kits as well that are significantly smaller and perfect for kids, as they can easily handle the smaller pieces. These mini gingerbread houses also have small circular punch-outs at the top of the roof, allowing your gingerbread creations to double as holiday ornaments if you wish.

I think I’ll keep my mini gingerbread houses grounded for now, though, so I can build a gingerbread villa around the larger house. Let your imagination run wild, and those mini houses could even become dog houses in a gingerbread backyard! Oh, and did I mention? These houses taste great, too!

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