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 always love your recipes, Nagi, but even more so you invaluable advice. I just learnt that ‘room temp’ butter is 17. How convenient that’s the setting of my wine fridge 😂 my butter just found a new home.
It states on the picture of the ingredients to use salt. Then there is no mention of it. Do you use salt or no? If so how much? If you made it without salt, will it work???
Made this with my son; 85 gr of butter is not enough for the amount of flour. Dough came out dry and cookies came out very dry. Is it possible that is the typo mistake in the recipe?
Thank you
Turned out great baking with the kids
Tastes nice and you can adjust spice to your liking but it’s a perfect recipe.
Merry Christmas 2023
Such a great recipe. This is one of the best recipes I’ve made. Thanks Nagi! I’m been a long time lurker on your website but thought I would finally leave a review! 100% will make again! I subbed the molasses for treacle and only rested half the dough for 1hr (my fiance was too impatient about baking it)
I used the only molasses I could find, available at Woolworths and the taste was quite strange…will try again with golden syrup but can’t figure out where else I might have gone wrong.
The exact same thing for me. I usually use golden syrup so I don’t know if it’s a normal flavour or not. Did you make these again?
I made them again and they were awful again. So I went back to my original recipe from taste and they were normal and tasty. Still don’t know where I went wrong, it’s not often I have a flop from this site!
Shame! I’ve never had issue with recipes from here before either. I threw all the gingerbread out. I guess some people just don’t like molasses. I also used a Taste recipe originally which I will go back to.
Turned out great and icing perfect!
The first batch of dough I made was dry and crumbly. I added milk to get the right consistency but my cookies had little cracks on them after baking.
The second batch I tweaked. I added 130g butter while only using 2 1/2 cups of flour and appeared to be the right consistency as described in the recipe notes. My cookies had a smoother finish after baking.
At the end of the day, they both tasted the same.
Absolute favourite gingerbread recipie! I make it every year without fail and never have had a bad batch- it smells so good in my house while baking!
Hi Nagi, can we half the recipe? Would using one egg in half recipe work? I want to make with my 3 year old but it’s only me and him and a whole batch is too much.
Hi Nagi. What is the problem caused by blackstrap molasses?
I went out and bought molasses and made the dough and just realised the molasses is blackstrap.
Should I just throw the dough out and start again?
Did you use blackstrap? Did you smell it beforehand? Some commenters love it, so it seems a personal choice. I accidentally got blackstrap instead of the other molasses, it smelled awful and made my biscuits taste bitter and disgusting. If you like blackstrap and use it and your biscuits taste nice to you then you’re all set! 🙂
I have made this recipe with blackstrap and it was still delicious! I’ve also used the normal molasses and I didn’t think there was much of a difference.
Made these with the kids today and they love them! A slight sugary crunch on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside.
Thanks Nagi 😊
Hi Nagi, am I right to assume this same recipe can be used to make pieces for a gingerbread house? Thanks! Love your work
I’ve just made a double batch to make gingerbread houses…hope it works, 😆 otherwise, just add a toy dinosaur because it clearly destroyed a perfectly good house
This recipe is a really good one and the cookies come out looking really pro.. My only issue was they taste very strongly of molasses. Next time I think I will try to sub out half with golden syrup to see how that goes. Thanks
We made them a little crunchier than expected! But a great recipe.
Making these in Queensland heat…No molasses so subbed golden syrup. No mixed spice so used the tips provided. Dough in the fridge, out of the fridge, roll, cut, back in the fridge, repeat endlessly. Son eats half the dough before it gets in the oven, neighbour turns up, overcook a batch. Dough back out of the fridge, too hard, let sit for too long, too soft, back in the fridge…
And still the best gingerbread bikkies ever!
What temperature oven should we use please? Is it the usual 180C or maybe 160C ?
Wow! This was the first gingerbread men recipe i have ever made and they turned out SO delicious! It was easy and fun!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Dear Nagi,
I live in the UK and I unfortunately cannot find any molasses. However, there is black treacle in the supermarkets, and I was wondering if I could sub that for molasses? I have researched it and some websites say that black treacle is bitter, so should I just use golden syrup? I love your recipes! 💖
Made this recipe while camping at Christmas with the kids – it is very forgiving! We had no measuring cups or electric beaters and the finished product was still absolutely delicious. We also subbed the molasses for golden syrup, left out the vanilla and cloves. Thanks Nagi!