These absolutely delicious Gingerbread Man Christmas Sugar Cookies are really easy to make and have lots of room for frosting and decorating.
Just whip up the royal icing and decorate them with a Christmas theme. It’s so creative that I bet your whole family will fall in love with this Christmas treat.
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Ingredients in Sugar Cookies
- Unsalted butter, room temperature
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Eggs
- All-purpose flour
- Cornstarch
- Salt
Ingredients in Royal Icing
- Egg whites
- Confectioner's sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Gel food coloring - brown, red, green, and black
How to Make Gingerbread Man Christmas Sugar Cookies
Preheat the oven and prepare the cookie sheets - Preheat your oven to 350º F / 180º C and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Combine the dry ingredients - In a large bowl, sift the all-purpose flour, cornstarch, and salt together, mix and set aside.
Cream together the wet ingredients - In a stand mixer (you can also use the hand mixer for this) cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla and beat it at medium speed, scraping down the sides for at least 2-3 min or until the mixture is creamy.
Add in the eggs and beat until everything is incorporated well.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture - Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in small increments and mix till the dough is formed.
Chill - Flatten the dough to form a disc, wrap it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Cut out the cookies - Once chilled, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to ¼-inch thickness and cut out gingerbread man shapes. For this recipe, a 4" gingerbread man cookie cutter was used for the cookie cutouts.
Bake - Place the cut-outs on the prepared baking tray and bake for at least 12-14 min in the preheated oven.
Cool - Let these Christmas sugar cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking tray before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
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How to Make Royal Icing
Beat the egg whites - Pour the egg whites into a stand mixer fitted with a whip attachment and beat on high until it becomes foamy. (You can also use a hand mixer)
Add the vanilla - Stir in the vanilla extract.
Add the confectioner's sugar - Add confectioners’ sugar in batches and mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated and the mixture looks shiny.
Beat until shiny - Turn the mixer speed up to high and mix until the mixture becomes thick and forms peaks.
Color and decorate - Divide the icing into separate bowls and color as desired before decorating.
What's Needed to Decorate Sugar Cookies?
RELATED: Instant Pot Gingerbread Cheescake
How to Decorate Christmas Sugar Cookies
To make these gingerbread man Christmas sugar cookies, you will need brown, red, green, and black icing.
Divide the icing - Divide the icing into 5 parts. Leave one part as it is (white) and tint the other four parts with green, brown, black, and red food colors respectively. Make a larger batch of brown than the other colors since this will be the background for the gingerbread man cutouts.
Create the flood icing - Reserve ¼ of the brown icing and add 2-3 teaspoon of water to the remaining icing to thin it out. (We will use thick icing to make the border around the cookies (Because it's thick and as no water has been added it will hold its shape well), and thin icing to cover the cookies completely.)
Add the icing to the piping bags fitted with piping tips - Put all the icings in different icing bags.
Outline the cookies - Outline the cookies with the thick icing first, keeping a little space on the edges of the cookies.
Flood the cookies - Flood the cookies with the thinner brown icing; use a toothpick to spread the icing and to fill the corners and burst air bubbles so it’s evenly filled.
Allow the icing to set - Let the icing set (dry) entirely before decorating further. This may take a while to dry completely depending on the temperature within the home.
Decorate - Decorate the gingerbread man as desired with different colored icing. It doesn’t have to be perfect; you can create your own patterns, just let your creativity flow! You can use the sugar cookies in this post as a guide.
Let set - Let icing set completely (2-3 hours). Serve and Enjoy!
Can You Freeze Sugar Cookies?
Yes, you can freeze both frosted and unfrosted sugar cookies. To freeze unfrosted sugar cookies, let the cookies cool completely and transfer them to a freezer-safe Ziploc bag.
Then, place the Ziploc bag in a seal-tight container and freeze for up to 3 months.
To freeze frosted sugar cookies, allow the frosting on the cookies to set completely before handling. Transfer the cookies to a freezer-safe Ziploc bag and then place the zippered bag in a seal-tight container.
These Gingerbread Man Christmas Sugar Cookies will last in the freezer for 3 months just like any other frosted sugar cookies in the freezer.
TIP: Lightly dust the top of the completely set icing with cornstarch to prevent the frosting from sticking to the underside of the other cookies.
📖 Recipe
Christmas Sugar Cookies
These absolutely delicious Gingerbread man sugar cookies are really easy to make and have lots of room for frosting and decorating. Just whip up the royal icing and decorate them with a Christmas theme. It’s so creative that I bet your whole family will fall in love with this Christmas treat.
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 4 cups all purpose flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4" Gingerbread Man Cookie Cutter
Royal Icing
- 2 egg whites
- 3 cups confectioner's sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Gel food coloring - brown, red, green, and black
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350º F / 180º C and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large bowl, sift the all-purpose flour, cornstarch, and salt together, mix and set aside.
- In a stand mixer (you can also use the hand mixer for this) cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla and beat it at medium speed, scraping down the sides for at least 2-3 min or until the mixture is creamy.
- Add in the eggs and beat until everything is incorporated well.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in small increments and mix till the dough is formed.
- Flatten the dough to form a disc, wrap it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
- Once chilled, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to ¼-inch thickness and cut out gingerbread man shapes.
- Place the cut-outs on the prepared baking tray and bake for at least 12-14 min in the preheated oven.
- Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking tray before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Sugar Cookies
ROYAL ICING:
- Pour the egg whites into a stand mixer fitted with a whip attachment and beat on high until it becomes foamy. (You can also use a hand mixer)
- Stir in the vanilla extract.
- Add confectioners’ sugar in batches and mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated and the mixture looks shiny.
- Turn the mixer speed up to high and mix until the mixture becomes thick and forms peaks.
- Divide the icing into 5 parts. Leave one part as it is (white) and tint the other four parts with green, brown, black, and red food colors respectively. Make a larger batch of brown than the other colors.
- Reserve ¼ of the brown icing and add 2-3 teaspoon of water to the remaining icing to thin it out. (We will use thick icing to make the border around the cookies (Because it's thick and as no water has been added it will hold its shape well), and thin icing to cover the cookies completely.)
- Put all the icings in different icing bags.
- Outline the cookies with the thick icing first, keeping a little space on the edges of the cookies. Then flood the cookies with the thinner brown icing; use a toothpick to spread the icing and to fill the corners and burst air bubbles so it’s evenly filled.
- Let the icing set (dry) entirely before decorating further. This may take a while.
- Decorate the gingerbread man as desired with different color icing. It doesn’t have to be perfect; you can create your own patterns, just let your creativity flow! You can use the sugar cookies in this post as a guide.
- Let icing set completely (2-3 hours). Serve and Enjoy! Merry Christmas!!
Notes
Note – make sure you save the largest portion for the brown icing as it is required to make the background. Around 5-6 tablespoon of the icing is enough for all the other colored icing.
You can store GINGERBREAD MAN SUGAR COOKIES in an airtight container for 1-2 days at room temperature or for 3-4 days in the refrigerator.
You can make the cookies ahead of time and freeze them to decorate later.·
Wait for the base icing to dry up completely before decorating the cookies with different colors because the colors will mix with each other and spread if the background is still wet.
If you are not into fancy decorating then you can just
make the brown background on the cookies and sprinkle some Christmas sprinkles while the icing is wet. Or you can even use edible marker colors to create fun patterns.
The number of cookies will depend on how thick you roll the dough and the size of your cookie cutter.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 24 Serving Size: 1 cookieAmount Per Serving: Calories: 244Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 36mgSodium: 35mgCarbohydrates: 39gFiber: 1gSugar: 22gProtein: 3g
Nutrition calculation is a rough estimate and can vary depending on the cooking technique and the exact ingredients used. For informational purposes only.
Michele
Thursday 3rd of November 2022
These are SO cute!! Definitely have to have a good gingerbread cookie recipe!