Gingerbread Men

Is it too early to get into Christmas baking? I think not. And is there any cookie more Christmas-y than Gingerbread Men? I KNOW not! Smells like Christmas, tastes like Christmas, looks like Christmas! You’ll love these Gingerbread Men. You can actually really taste the ginger and spice flavour. They are lovely and moist inside, and you can make the dough months in advance – super handy to bake up fresh when the necessity arises!

What you need for Gingerbread Men

Here’s what you need to make these little Christmas Gingerbread Men! Just some notes on a few of the ingredients:

Molasses – Essential for that deep, rich, caramel-like gingerbread flavour! It also helps hold the dough’s shape. Golden syrup makes a great sub, or treacle. Honey will also work, but the cookies will spread out a touch more and not have the same deep flavour (but still very, very good!). Maple syrup is no good, it’s too thin.Brown sugar – I’ve used ordinary brown sugar here. Light brown sugar results in a slightly lighter colour gingerbread and dark brown sugar can also be used which yields a richer, deeper brown colour. All are tasty!Softened butter – If you want specifics: 17°C/63°F is ideal. It should be malleable but should not make your fingers shiny with grease when you poke it. Your finger should basically be clean. The texture is important: If it’s too soft, this will compromise your cookie dough!Large egg – This is an egg that is 55-60g / 2oz, labelled as “large eggs” on the carton (it’s standardised). Make sure it’s at room temperature. Fridge cold eggs won’t blend in well (and also could cool the butter).Spices:Ground ginger, of course. We are making GINGERbread men, after all!Mixed Spice is a store bought blend of spices used holiday dishes that gives Gingerbread Men more layers of flavour. Using just ginger and cinnamon as many recipes do is just too one dimensional! Smells of Christmas, hails from Britain, common in Australia but if you can’t find it where you are, don’t worry – it’s easy to make up your own using standard spices: cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and coriander (in recipe notes, and don’t worry if you’re missing one or two); andCloves are optional but add a nice hit of spice and warmth to the dough.

How to make Gingerbread Men

Gingerbread Men are made using a soft, generously-spiced cookie dough. It’s rolled out then a Gingerbread Men cookie cutter is used to cut the shapes out. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a Gingerbread Man – you can make any shape you want!

Ground ginger, of course. We are making GINGERbread men, after all!Mixed Spice is a store bought blend of spices used holiday dishes that gives Gingerbread Men more layers of flavour. Using just ginger and cinnamon as many recipes do is just too one dimensional! Smells of Christmas, hails from Britain, common in Australia but if you can’t find it where you are, don’t worry – it’s easy to make up your own using standard spices: cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and coriander (in recipe notes, and don’t worry if you’re missing one or two); and

Cloves are optional but add a nice hit of spice and warmth to the dough.

Cutting Gingerbread Men Shapes

Transferring and Baking

This recipe makes 20 Gingerbread Men using a cutter that’s 11cm / 4.5″ tall. I use 3 baking trays because the flow of this recipe works nicely to fill and bake one tray at a time. Rolling out between paper is easiest. Try to minimise use of dusting flour otherwise you will have white dust on the cooked gingerbread. When rolling, paper on underside tends to wrinkle as dough spreads out (which blemishes dough surface), so flip dough, peel off wrinkled paper then put it back on, smoothing out wrinkles.

Decorating the Gingerbread Men

The best icing to use to decorating Gingerbread Men is Royal Icing. It’s suitable for piping intricate designs which means it’s perfect for putting smiley faces on our Gingerbread Men, giving them decorative pants / skirts / shorts and gluing on belly buttons etc. Also, this icing sets hard and so won’t soften the Gingerbread Men. You can get as fancy as you want with your decorations! The way I’ve piped the icing across the arms and waist in a zig-zag is a pretty classic way of decorating Gingerbread Men. I use mini M&M’s and silver balls for the buttons. And yes, I did give him a smiley face. Nobody wants to eat a grumpy Gingerbread Man! 😂 And even through this toughest of years we can all find some reason to smile, right? – Nagi x

Watch how to make it

This goes down as the cutest recipe video I’ve made all year!!!

Life of Dozer

You wear an elf hat for a photo, I’ll give you a Gingerbread doughnut …. pretty good deal, if you ask me!