Gingerbread Men
These gingerbread men decorated cookies are soft and spicy, very tender and so good!
Tips and tricks for making the perfect Gingerbread men
Over mixing
These cookies are meant to be soft and tender, but thick enough to handle without breaking them.
To maintain this perfect consistency, you need to be careful not to overwork the dough. After the flour is added to the rest of your ingredients, make sure to mix until just combined.
Over mixing the dough can add excess air to the dough and gluten development, causing your cookies to have a denser consistency.
Refrigerating the dough
Refrigerating the dough before cutting your little men will make your life way easier. Handling cold dough is easier, and will make the process faster and with less complications.
Also, this will ensure that your cookies don’t spread too much! There’s nothing worse than your gingerbread men loosing their form for excess spreading while baking.
And lastly, refrigerating your dough makes it have more depth of flavor and consistency will also improve.
How to store Gingerbread Men cookies
To avoid your cookies from absorbing moisture, make sure to store them in an air-tight container at room temperature.
Wrapping them individually will ensure they stay fresher for a longer period of time and will help avoid the cookies absorbing moisture.
They will keep fresh for around 5 days if stored correctly.
Can I freeze these cookies?
You definitely can! I made these and froze them already decorated for 3 weeks, and they were perfect when defrosted, even the royal icing and sprinkles!
Just make sure they are very well stored before freezing, in a freezable air tight container and with parchment paper between each layer of cookies to prevent them from sticking between one another.
If you have enough patience, you can wrap them individually -and very carefully- with aluminum foil or plastic wrap; this will make them have a better chance at avoiding frost bite from your freezer.
Follow this link for more Christmas dessert recipes, or follow the links below to see some of my favorite ones:
Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bark
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Gingerbread Men
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 1 1/4 Cups powdered sugar
- 3/4 Cups butter room temperature
- 1/3 Cup molasses
- 3 Tablespoons maple syrup
- 3 Tablespoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 4 Cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Royal icing:
- 2 Cups confectioners sugar sifted
- 3 Tablespoons meringue powder
- 6 Tablespoons water room temperature
Instructions
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper & set aside
- Mix for 1 minute in medium-high speed the powdered sugar, butter, molasses, maple syrup, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.1 1/4 Cups (150 g) powdered sugar, 3/4 Cups (170.3 g) butter, 1/3 Cup (112.3 g) molasses, 3 Tablespoons maple syrup, 3 Tablespoons ground ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) ground nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon (0.3 teaspoon) ground cloves
- Add egg and mix; then add flour, baking soda and salt and mix until just combined. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-2 hours1 large egg, 4 Cup (500 g) all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon (0.3 teaspoon) salt
- Preheat oven to 350 farenheit. Lightly dust the rolling pin, and over a parchment paper, roll out the dough to 1/8 in thickness. Cut the gingerbread men and place them on the prepared baking sheet 3 inches apart. Bake for 8-9 min and let cool completely before decorating
- For the royal icing, mix all ingredients together until no lumps are visible. Fill a piping bag and decorate as desired2 Cups (240 g) confectioners sugar, 3 Tablespoons meringue powder, 6 Tablespoons water
