Gingerbread Men Recipe

Here comes a recipe that requested by my Chinese fan. She wants to make some gingerbread men cookies for a church gathering. It’s my pleasure to help of course, although it’s not my plan to make any bakery in such a hot weather in Australia. I have already got used to celebrate Christmas in warm weather, although I miss the chilly season’s atmosphere in my hometown.

Got two gingerbread men put on swimming suits. Ready to go with me !

Going back to our gingerbread men making, I can’t stress enough about the importance of the sugar choice. Try the best to get brown sugar. It adds an inviting sugar cane fragrance and beautiful brownish colour. On top of it, use molasses or golden syrup, available at supermarkets, that helps create delightful taste and lovely texture. If you can’t find any, you can replace it with honey.

Gingerbread Men Recipe

(Printable recipe)
By Christine’s Recipes
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 15 mins + 60 mins for chilling dough
Yield: 55 cookies (cookie cutter size: 4cmx5cm）

Ingredients:

• 300 gm plain flour / all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 100 gm soften butter, at room temperature
• 75 gm brown sugar
• 45 gm golden syrup
• 1 egg
• 70 ml milk

Icing ingredients:

• 1 egg white
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 150 gm pure icing sugar, sifted

Method:

1. Combine the flour, baking powder, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg and salt. Set aside.
2. Use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Add golden syrup, egg and milk. Continue to beat well until creamy.
4. Sift in the flour mixture in three batches. Use a spatula to mix all ingredients until just combined. Use a hand if necessary to combine the dough thoroughly.
5. Divide the dough into two portions. Lightly flatten each into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 60 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 170C/340F.
7. Remove a dough disc from fridge. Roll it out between two pieces of plastic wrap to about 0.3cm in thickness. Use a gingerbread man cutter to cut out the dough. Transfer onto a lined baking tray, leaving about 3cm between each to allow spreading. Repeat this step for the remaining dough disc. Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes.

To make the icing (frosting):

1. Use electric mix to beat the egg white and lemon juice at slow speed until foamy.
2. Gradually whisk in the icing sugar in three batches, whisking well between each addition, until thick and creamy.

Notes：

• If the weather is too warm and you find the dough is too soft, you can put it back into the fridge until it’s workable.
• The baking time depends on the size and thickness of cookies. Every oven is very different. Please adjust accordingly if you use different size of cookie cutter.
• You can add more ground ginger if you’re into stronger ginger flavour. The amount yielded in this recipe should be accepted by younger kids.
• Don’t leave your cookies in oven unattended, especially approaching to the final 5 minutes. The cookies will be burnt very quickly.
• I used light brown sugar this time. Use dark brown sugar if you want your cookies darker.
• The beaten icing should be covered with plastic wrap if you’re not ready to do frosting as it turns hard and dry very quickly.
• If you’re concerned with using raw egg white, you might like to use 1 to 1½ tablespoon of water to dissolve the icing sugar until you get a thick paste. It doesn't look as snowy white as those made by egg white though. You might like to add some edible colourings. Here's another creative way of decorating gingerbread men by my fan.