Christmas Gingerbread Men Cookies

If the story wasn’t good enough (which it is), then there’s the delicious gingerbread men cookies to bake, ice and then eat. Yummy! We don’t have a secret recipe or anything; we use the gingerbread men recipe on the Chelsea Sugar website. So rather than copy it all down here, just pop over to their website for a look.

Decorating Your Gingerbread Men Cookies

When I was young, I remember I was excited when there were raisins for his eyes and lemon peel for his mouth. Nowadays, he seems to sport all sorts of quirky fashion items. The Chelsea Sugar website recipe uses royal icing, but we’ve got a few other ideas up our sleeves:

Lollies – stick on lollies with a dab of icing or go wild and cover the entire cookie with lollies. Royal icing makes a good edible glue for lollies.
Butter icing – make gingerbread men sandwiches by placing butter icing between a pair of cookies. They will go softer quickly, so once you’ve added the icing, it’s best to eat them right away.
Fondant – not traditional gingerbread man, but you can easily cut and mould it to make clothing

Whether you eat his arm first, or his head, once he is all eaten up, there’s nothing left. That’s why you should also make gingerbread men paper chains.

Making Paper Chain Gingerbread Men

You can use any light card or heavyweight paper for this craft activity. Those bags from the supermarket with string handles work really well!

You’ll need to cut the bottom off and then make a slit up the side. Then cut a 5 inch wide strip and then fold it like an accordion. On the top piece, draw the gingerbread man so that his arms and legs go all the way to both sides of the paper. Cut around the shape but not the ends of the arms and legs or you’ll have lots of single gingerbread men!

Have fun decorating with felt pens, glitter, paint or coloured pencils – and share a photo of these and your edible gingerbread men with us please!

Don’t forget to make sure your little ones are wearing their craft aprons to help keep their clothes cleaner (mouths certainly won’t be as icing has a habit of sneaking in…).

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