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!
I made these gingerbread men and gave them as gifts in a brown paper bag with a ribbon with a tube of icing inside for the recipient to ice their own gingerbread man, it was really well received by all. And I have received a text from one of my nieces who showed me her gingerbread man, she had brought to life, very cute.
my daughter made this recipe and loved it, ate most of it in dough form. Can this recipe be adapted well to make ginger bread balls rather than men?
I love all things Nagi. However, with 3 cups of flour, my gingerbread men (and women) were very dry and hard (especially when baking them for 12 min.) I made them again with just 2 cups of flour and 8 min of baking. This way they won’t break your teeth. I like my men a little softer ;).
I’ve never used molasses before so I don’t know if an after taste is normal. For me the biscuits taste different, and I’m not sure I like it, but that could be I’m used to ones with golden syrup.
You should have seen the state of ours, they look like they were made from a blind folded toddler, but they taste very very nice, going to do it again soon, practise makes perfect x
Did not turn out nice at all for me. I used just standard molasses from Coles and it was a nightmare. I should have stuck to treacle or golden syrup like I have in other years.
Great gingerbread.
My only issue was that the preparation time doesn’t include the time to refrigerate. I didn’t realise the dough needed to be refrigerated until halfway through the recipe and at that point it was too late in the evening to finish in time.
Can these be made with whole wheat flour?
Definitely take notice of the molasses note about NOT Blackstrap molasses. I have never bought molasses before and didn’t realise which one I got. It smells awful (I should have stopped there!) and made the biscuits taste bitter and terrible. I threw the whole batch out as well as the jar of blackstrap molasses I bought. I am trying again today with the right molasses. Wish me luck!
This recipe gave me a heart attack, if i could give this a 0 stars i would
Can this recipe be used to make a gingerbread house?
Can I use this recipe for a ginger bread house?
Why not blackstrap molasses for the gingerbread men? It is the only kind I can find in my country. Baked them with honey… They are a lot crispier, not soft at all, but tastes GREAT and look so pretty too.
A question please Nagi. Could I use shop bought gluten free flour to replace the plain flour in this recipe.
Actually can i do that with all your baking recipes?
🙂 Chris from Brisbane
I substitute Organ GF plain flour in everything. So far it has worked a treat. I get it from Coles & Woolies
I’ve made these the last two years with Well & Good GF flour and the results have been fantastic 🙂
Hi Navi, just wondering if you’ve got an egg free version of this recipe?
I made this tonight and they taste great but a bit grainy almost? I mixed the brown sugar in the initial “mix dry ingredients” not with the butter so I’m wondering if this is why or whether I’ve done something else wrong!?
Definitely why! It needs to be mixed with wet until fluffy to remove the graininess from the brown sugar.
My family raved about these biscuits and they were gobbled up very quickly
I’m not a fan of gingerbread and I believe a lot of Asians aren’t, too (I’m Asian btw, so I can say that 😉 ).
My 13 year old used this recipe to make gingerbread to sell last year and this year for pocket money. It has great reviews. The recipe’s ginger and spice taste are not overpowering and off-putting like the commercial gingerbread house etc. It’s actually good. Thanks Nagi for this wonderful recipe and giving my daughter something to make and sell. Merry Christmas!
Don’t try this with gluten free flour! Mixture was impossibly sticky and the finished product tasted foul. Not sure what it’s like with regular flour… maybe it works? Normally Nagi’s recipes are great but this one won’t be repeated in our household. Big waste of a day.
Lovely recipe as usual 🙂