Gingerbread Men! The ultimate Christmas cookie, is it not??
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); and
- Cloves 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!
Making the Gingerbread Cookie Dough
- Cream the butter and sugar, then add egg and vanilla. You can use a stand mixer or a handheld beater, as I have done;
- Beat in the molasses – it will change the colour to a deep golden brown colour;
- Beat in the dry ingredients in 4 equal batches. Adding them gradually helps them incorporate more easily; and
- The dough will be soft and sticky – kind of like clay – and should stick together when you press it together.
Cutting Gingerbread Men Shapes
- The dough is quite soft and sticky so refrigerate it to firm it up. Do so for at least 2 hours, but you can leave it in the fridge for up to 5 days, or even freeze it for 3 months!
- Cut the dough in half so you have one half to work with while you return the other half to the fridge to keep it cold.
- Roll the dough out between two sheets of baking paper / parchment paper;
- Cut out Gingerbread Men shapes. My cutter is 11cm/4.5″ long. Press down firmly to cut all the way through so they lift out cleanly (though if you have scrappy edges, you can just tidy them up easily on the baking tray).
Gingerbread Dough Rolling Tips
Gingerbread dough is quite soft and sticky which is what makes the cookies moist instead of dry inside. Refrigeration makes the dough easier to work with. At any point during the roll/cutting process, you can stop and refrigerate it to make it easier to work with (be sure to cover dough with cling wrap).
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.
Transferring and Baking
- Peel off excess dough from around the Gingerbread Men;
- Transfer shapes to a baking tray using a palette knife or large kitchen knife. Something long and thin is best to minimise ruining the shape!
- Place on a baking paper/parchment-lined tray, adjust the shapes and tidy up the edges if needed (I use a butter knife – just press on the scruffy edges to make them neat); and
- Bake for 12 minutes for light golden and mostly soft (though slightly crisp on edges), or 14 minutes for deeper golden and crisp. The gingerbread men will be soft out of the oven but will firm up as they cool. Note however even crisp gingerbread men soften the next day. I’m yet to discover the secret to keep Gingerbread Men crispy (other than using a drier dough but that just makes dry Gingerbread Men!).
Crispy vs Soft?
If you want a softer cookie with the signature golden colour (pictured – my pick!), stick to 12 minutes bake time. For a crispy cookie with more colour, bake 14 minutes. For the latter, the cookies will be soft straight from the oven, but will harden upon cooling. Note however, even crispy cookies go soft the next day. They just won’t stay firm, sadly!
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.
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!!!
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Gingerbread Men
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour , plain/all purpose
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp mixed spice (Note 1)
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves (Note 2)
Wet Ingredients:
- 85g / 5 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter , softened (Note 3)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar (Note 4 re: light or dark brown)
- 1 large egg , at room temperature (Note 5)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup molasses, light / true (NOT blackstrap)(Note 6)
Instructions
- Whisk Dry Ingredients on one bowl.
- Cream butter & sugar – In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together using a stand mixer or electric beater on speed 7 for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
- Egg & vanilla – Add the egg and vanilla, then mix on speed 5 until combined (~30 sec).
- Molasses – Add the molasses, mix for 1 minute using speed 2.
- Gradually add dry ingredients – Add 1/4 of the Dry ingredients, then mix until you can't see flour (start on speed 1 to stop flour flying everywhere!). Repeat until all Dry ingredients are mixed in, then mix for further 15 seconds. Dough should be soft and a bit sticky – see video for texture.
- Refrigerate – Pat dough into a disc shape, wrap in the cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until firm. (Can refrigerate 5 days or freeze 3 months).
- Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C (170°C fan) and set a shelf in the middle. Line 3 x baking trays with parchment/baking paper.
- Take the dough out of the refrigerator and cut into half. Wrap half and return to the fridge.
- Roll out (Note 7)- Sprinkle a sheet of baking paper very lightly with flour. Place dough on top, sprinkle surface very lightly with flour. Place another sheet of baking paper on top. Roll dough out until 4mm / 1/6" thick using a rolling pin. As you work, flip and if paper is wrinkling, peel it off then put if back on, smoothing out wrinkles.
- Cut out shapes (Note 8) – Use a gingerbread cookie cutter to cut out gingerbread men shapes, firmly pressing to cut all the way through. If the dough sticks to the cutter, dip it into flour.
- Transfer – Use a palette knife (or large knife) to transfer shapes onto baking sheet. Place 6 on the first sheet. Tidy edges if necessary using a butter knife.
- Bake Tray 1 – Bake for 12 minutes (for classic light golden) or 14 minutes (dark golden and crisp). Then remove and cool fully on tray.
- Repeat – Meanwhile, gather scraps of dough, press together then roll out again. If dough is sticky, return to refrigerator and work on the other half of the dough instead. Repeat rolling out and cutting out. You should have 18 to 20 gingerbread men in total (depending on cutter size)
- Trays 2 & 3 – Fill and bake 2nd and 3rd tray with gingerbread men, 6 to 8 on each tray. I find the workflow that works best is baking one tray at a time ie. roll/cut-out/fill/bake one tray while you prepare the next.
- Decorate – Fully cool on trays, then decorate! Use a half batch of this Royal Icing recipe to pipe and stick on decorations (sets hard and doesn't soak into cookies). The recipe makes more than you need, but it's impractical to make less. So freeze leftovers in fully sealed piping bag for future use.
Recipe Notes:
- 1/4 tsp each cinnamon and all spice
- 1/8 tsp each nutmeg, cloves, ginger and coriander
Nutrition Information:
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!
Hi! Just following some of the other comments, made these yesterday and my dough came out dry as well (but tasted fine). I used the metric/weight conversion and only conclusion is this website says 450g flour and I cross-checked with your Instagram post that says 300g?
Hi Michelle, 450g as per the recipe is correct – 150g per cup ( x 3 cups). What type of flour were you using? Did it resemble the texture like in the video? N x
Hi Nagi, thanks for your reply!
I’m not living in Aus at the moment.. I use the British brand “Homepride” all-purpose flour. Wouldn’t have thought it would affect as not had issues with anything else?
My dough was not like the video, was dry and could still see white flour. I handled it (to maybe melt the butter/sugar) and got it to just stick together. Was fine though, no complaints from the guinea pigs!
These cookies are AMAZING. So tasty and easy to make!! Thanks for sharing!
First I want to say that your site is the first I go to for recipes. I’ve made many of them with outstanding success.
Which is why I tried your gingerbread men. I followed the recipe completely. My men were not very tasty, so I decided to check out other gingerbread recipes and found that of the ten or so I looked at, none had baking powder in them — only baking soda. Did you intend to include baking powder in your recipe? 😞
Hi Mary! I’m sorry you didn’t think they were tasty, I would have thought all those spices and the molasses packs them full of Christmassy flavour! The baking powder is the rising agent, it works just like baking soda but it’s not as strong so I find it makes the cookies rise more evenly. 🙂 So it would not have affected flavour. Is there a chance you were using old spices? The flavour of spices fades with time 🙂 N x
Thank you for sharing your recipe. It turned out good. Tastes good too❤
Kids absolutely loved these cookies. We are getting ready to icing them.
These are delicious 🤤
Yum yum and yum
So easy and tastes exactly like Christmas
I’ve made 3 batches of these little tasty biscuits and they go quicker than I can make them
Definitely a winner
Another winner of a recipe! I’m an avid baker, but first time I’ve done gingerbread and it turned out really well! Just curious about the icing. I did mine exactly like yours, so very little icing on each cookie. Just curious about the raw egg white and hot Brisbane weather! I ended up putting them in a container in the fridge (which is obviously not ideal, but also don’t need food poisoning for Christmas lol). Thoughts?
I don’t know anyone that got sick from a gingerbread cookie Lauren! But you’re right – there may be a small risk (but not from storage, it would be form eating the egg white whether is was stored in the fridge or not). You want to keep cookies in an airtight container on the bench and always use pasteurised eggs to avoid any risk of salmonella 🙂 N x
Hi! My dough came out crumbly…can it be fixed or should u start over?
Hi Claudia, it should actually be quite sticky! Is there a chance you mismeasured something? N x
We had fun trying this recipe. But the gingerbread turned out hard. Was it coz we used golden syrup instead of molasses? Any way to rescue the remaining dough in the fridge?
G hi
I have long been in love with your recipes and various posts. However we made these gingerbread men yesterday for Xmas gifts and I was disappointed that they had a strong baking powder aftertaste. Otherwise they worked well
Hi Andi, with all the spices in there and the small amount of baking powder, you shouldn’t be able to taste it. You used baking powder and not baking soda didn’t you? N x
Thx – Yes I did use baking powder and not bicarbonate soda but maybe I’m just sensitive to that flavour and others won’t notice.
Can anyone tell me what these taste like? Are they more on the spicier side? I really like that in my gingerbread and was hoping that this would be good.
I made these over three days while my baby was sleeping.
Day 1 – dough
Day 2 – roll, cut and bake
Day 3 – decorating.
I used white spelt flour and the 12 minute bake was perfect. YUM! Thanks and happy Christmas!
Great tasting gingerbread men but why did mine come out the oven with cracks in them
Hi Claudia, sorry you had issues here – this could be from a number of reasons, if you used too much flour to roll them out, if your oven is too hot, or if they rose too much. N x
Hi Nagi, I know someone asked about substituting the baking powder and you mentioned baking soda AND cream of tartar. Do I need both to substitute the 3 tsp of baking powder? All I have is baking soda? 🙂
Hi Ellie, it’s because baking soda reacts differently so as mentioned in the other comment, you’ll need 3/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1 3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar to get the same effect as baking powder – N x
Thanks for replying so quickly Nagi! Also a massive fan of your Pad See Ew 🙂
Hi Nagi, I am making this in the UK and using golden syrup as a sub. Is it still 180g even if not molasses? Thanks, jen
These are so great! The flavours of these cookies are absolutely heavenly. Thank you Nagi, as always
Definitely the best flavoured gingerbread I have made. I agree that the Molases is the difference – Golden syrup does not cut it.
Highly recommend 12mins for cooking time. I cooked extra time and they came out hard.
Will be making these again in two days time for more xmas give-away gifts. 🙂 Merry Xmas everyone.
Hi Nagi. I don’t have molasses but a jar of treacle. Will this work just as well? I can easily buy molasses if I have to
Hi Nagi, I am going to make gingerbread man cookies with my daughter this coming weekend. I have a question. When you say 1 Tablespoon in your recipe, do you use Australian measuring spoon (20ml) or American/UK (15ml)? I read this page (https://www.recipetineats.com/nagi-recipetin-eats/) but I wasn’t sure which one you use. Thanks, and Happy Holidays from Canada.
Oh BTW I am making your Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatziki for dinner – can’t wait!
Is your name Nagi a short version of Nagisa?? Just curious 🙂
Hi Kaz, yes it’s short for Nagisa! 🙂 I use 15 ml but in the vast majority of my recipes, it does not matter if you use 20ml or 15 ml. BUT if it does matter, I either specify as such or I say 4 tsp (which is 20 ml) or 3 tsp (which is 15 ml) instead (because teaspoons are more standard across the world). 99% of the time it’s baking recipes where it matters. Or where I use a very strong sauce like dark soy sauce. And in those cases, I always cater for the difference. – N x
Hi Nagi, Can I substitute baking powder with 1/4 of the amount with baking soda instead? Thanks!
Hi Xen, you can sub the 3 teaspoons of baking powder with 3/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1 3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar to get the same effect – N x