Easy Gingerbread Men

Gingerbread men are a classic must-have during the festive season and it's no wonder why - I mean look how adorable they are...

Gingerbread are great fun to make and make a great family activity, which the kids are sure to love ( just as much as the adults ;) )

These ones are soft and chewy so you're not going to be breaking your teeth chewing down on them!

Anyway, use them as a canvas and decorate them however you'd like, be it with sprinkles, icing, chocolates or something else of your choice...

Be sure to also check out our easy mini gingerbread houses, which utilize the exact same recipe as these!

So without further ado, let's get on with the recipe!

Happy Baking!

The Chai Home 😋

INGREDIENTS

For the gingerbead dough

• 6x cups of plain flour

• 1/2 tsp of baking powder

• 5x heaped tsp of ground ginger

• 3x heapedtsp of ground cinnamon

• 2x heaped tsp of ground nutmeg

• pinch of salt

• 170g of butter (softened)

• 1 1/2 cups of light brown sugar (muscovado)

• 2x eggs

• 1x cup of molasses

• 1x tbsp of water

For the icing

• 3x cups of sieved icing sugar

• 6x tbsp of full-fat milk

• 1x tsp of vanilla extract

• food colouring of your choice

For the decorating

• a handful of your favourite decorations, such as sprinkles or sweets etc

METHOD

For the gingerbread dough

Add the flour and all the spices, and baking powder to a large mixing bowl and mix together well, then put aside.

Using a freestanding mixer beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy.

Add the eggs, water and molasses and beat until thoroughly combined.

Now add the flour mixture and mix together until fully combined.

Flour your work surface and turn out your dough.

Knead by hand for a few minutes until smooth.

Divide the mixture in half and pat into discs.

Wrap each one with clingfilm and pop them into the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.

When you remove your dough from the fridge go ahead and preheat your oven to 180C and line your baking sheet.

Remove the dough from the fridge and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Heavily flour your work surface and roll out one of the dough discs to 1/4 inch in thickness. You can flour the dough surface too if the rolling pin sticks.

Using your gingerbread cookie cutter start cutting out your shapes. We went for a variety of sizes.

Repeat until all of the dough has been used. You will probably have to do several batches in the oven.

Transfer to your lined tray and place on the top shelf of the oven and bake for 12 minutes. We find this to be the perfect time in our oven (don't forget all ovens vary)

Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before decorating.

They will be slightly soft when they come out of the oven, but will firm once fully cooled. Once cooled you can go ahead and make your icing.

For the icing

Add the milk, vanilla extract and icing sugar to a mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly.

Divide equally into three bowls and add your desired food colourings to two of the bowls and leave the third white. This step is up to you.

To decorate you can use a pipping bag if you desire, however we just used a spoon to pour and spread the icing.

To decorate

Go as crazy or as modest as you like, but have fun. We dipped our toppings into the icing to stick to the gingerbread.

Once all of the cookies have been decorated, set them aside so the icing can set (they take about 1 - 2 hours to harden fully, or just eat them immediately).

Serve and enjoy!

Merry Christmas!