Gingerbread Cookies
My husband is the chief gingerbread cookie maker in our house, he is the one who introduced me to this soft gingerbread cookie recipe.
The kids and I are the cookie shapers and gingerbread decorators! This year I think we outdid ourselves with gingerbread men, gingerbread Christmas trees, reindeer cookies, and star-shaped gingerbread.
Why This Recipe Works
- It makes soft spiced gingerbread cookies
- An easy recipe
- Can be cut into any shape and decorated any way you want (gingerbread men, reindeer, christmas trees, stars. )
Ingredients you will need
To make this gingerbread cookie recipe you will need flour, baking soda, eggs, caster sugar, golden syrup, butter. Spices; ground ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
I decorate my cookies with royal icing, food colouring, sprinkles, and sweets. To make your own royal icing you will need egg whites, icing sugar and lemon juice.
Ingredient Notes and Substitutes
- Plain flour: I have succesfully made these gingerbread cookies with gluten free flour.
- Caster Sugar: These cookies are lovely made with brown sugar.
I am an ambassador for Countdown supermarket, they support my blog by providing ingredients for recipe creation and testing. I used macro organic butter, free-range eggs, and spices from their range in this recipe.
How to make gingerbread cookies
Below are illustrated step-by-step instructions to make my soft gingerbread cookie recipe, if you prefer just the written instructions then head straight to the printable recipe card below.
Step one: Start by whisking the dry ingredients together: flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg
Step two: Separate the eggs, gently whisk together the 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg.
Step three: In a large mixing bowl beat/cream the butter, caster sugar and, golden syrup. I use an electric beater for this
Step four: While beating slowly pour the eggs into the creamed butter, sugar, and syrup.
Step five: Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, one third at a time. By this I mean add one-third of the dry ingredients, mix until combined, and then add the next third until all the dry ingredients have been added. I use a wooden spoon for this stage.
Step six: Split the dough into two balls, flatten these into disks (makes it easier for rolling later) wrap in cling wrap or a beeswax wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 days.
Step seven: Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Step eight: Bring the gingerbread dough out from the fridge, allow it to soften. Roll out each disk to 5mm thick, I do this between two sheets of baking paper. Use cutters to cut your gingerbread into Christmas shapes. Re-roll the offcuts until you have used all the dough.
Step nine: Bake the cookies on baking paper-lined trays for 10- 15 minutes. They will be golden when cooked. Cool the cookies completely on cool racks.
How to make Royal Icing
Step one: Place the egg whites in a mixing bowl. Add 2 Tablespoons of the icing sugar and whisk until well combined.
Step two: Continue to add the icing sugar 3-4 tablespoons at a time whisking between every addition. When you have added about half of the icing sugar add the lemon juice. Continue adding and whisking in the icing sugar until it is all gone.
Step three: You can now divide the royal icing into smaller bowls and colour with food colouring if desired. Use piping bags to decorate your cookies.
Gingerbread Cookie Decorating Ideas
Once you have made your gingerbread dough and have your royal icing made, the options for decorating and creating gingerbread cookies are endless. You can use cookie cutters or a knife to cut the dough into any shape you want.
Gingerbread Men
Of course a traditional choice would be to create gingerbread men. We went for simple gingerbread men, We used royal icing in a piping bag with a small tip to create a face, m and m's for buttons and they looked great.
I also made a jumbo gingerbread man for each of my kids, they had a great time decorating them, my son went for a gingerbread man villain!
Reindeer Cookies
Ok, so this is a great hack, if you have a gingerbread man cookie cutter then you also have all you need to make reindeer cookies. All you need to do is turn it upside down. The legs become antleers, the arms are ears, and the head forms the nose/mouth of the reindeer.
To decorate our gingerbread reindeer we used white and black royal icing, candy eyes and a red m and m for the nose.
Christmas Tree Cookies
If I'm honest Christmas tree cookies are my favourite way to mkae gingerbread cookies with my kids.. as no matter what, they always turn out looking great!
We coloured some of the royal icing green. We piped a green zig zag from the top to the bottom of the tree. Sprinkled on some 100 and 1000s, and then added a few gold star sprinkles.
A little tip for the sprinkles, pop your cookies inside of a baking tray that has an edge, this contains the sprinkles so they don't end up everywhere!
Gingerbread Stars
I also love decorating gingerbread stars with my kids. I keep it simple, we just use white royal icing in a piping bag and then I let them go crazy, even white scribbles on the cookies still look awesome, and if you have them all decorated a little bit differently they look amazing when you put them together.
Top Tips
Here is how you can make these gingerbread cookies with your kids perfectly every time!
My top tip for making gingerbread cookies with your kids is to do it on a day when you aren't in a rush when you are feeling patient. Because honestly baking with kids doesn't always end up as fun as it looks on Instagram!
You can make. thedough in advance, then just do the fun bits with the kids!
FAQs
Yes! You can freeze the uncooked dough wrapped. in cling film for up to 3 months, you can also freeze baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Yes, you can make the dough in advance and store in your refrigerator for up to 3 days, or freeze it.
Christmas Kitchen Projects you can make with Kids
If you've landed on my gingerbread cookies recipe it might mean you are game for taking on some other Christmas baking with your kids!
- Healthy Christmas cookies: A low sugar cookie dough great for younger children
- Low sugar reindeer cookies: Reindeer cookies decorated with berries.
- Coconut Snowballs: an allergy friendly no-bake recipe
- Christmas pudding cupcakes
- M and M Christmas Cookies: The perfect cookie to leave out for Santa.
Gingerbread Cookies
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Ingredients
- 550 g flour 3 ½ cups
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 200 g butter softened
- 200 g caster sugar 1 cup
- 160 g golden syrup ½ cup
- 2 egg yolks
Royal icing
- 2 egg whites
- 500 g icing sugar
- 2 lemons (juice only)
Instructions
Cookies
- Start by whisking the dry ingredients together: flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg
- Separate the eggs, gentley whisk together the 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg.
- In a large mixing bowl beat/cream the butter, caster sugar and, golden syrup. I use an electric beater for this.
- While beating slowly pour the eggs into the creamed butter, sugar, and syrup.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, one third at a time. By this I mean add one third of the dry ingredients, mix until combined and then add the next third until all the dry ingredients have been added. I use a wooden spoon for this stage.
- Split the dough into two balls, flatten these into disks (makes it easier for rolling later) wrap in cling wrap or a beeswax wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 days.
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- Bring the gingerbread dough out from the fridge, allow it to soften. Roll out each disk to 5mm thick, I do this between two sheets of baking paper. Use cutters to cut your gingerbread into Christmas shapes. Re-roll the offcuts until you have used all the dough.
- Bake the cookies on baking paper-lined trays for 10-15 minutes. They will be golden when cooked. Cool the cookies completely on cool racks.
Royal Icing
- Place the egg whites in a mixing bowl. Add 2 Tablespoons of the icing sugar and whisk until well combined. (This makes ALOT of royal icing, but means you have plenty for lots of colours, flood icing if you decide to. But you can halve the recipe)
- Continue to add the icing sugar 3-4 tablespoons at a time whisking between every addition. When you have added about half of the icing sugar add the lemon juice. Continue adding and shisking in the icing sugar until it is all gone.
- You can now diivide the royal icing into smaller bowls and colour with food colouring if desired. Use piping bags to decorate your cookies.
Notes
- My top tip for making gingerbread cookies with your kids is to do it on a day when you aren't in a rush when you are feeling patient. Because honestly baking with kids doesn't always end up as fun as it looks on Instagram!
- You can freeze the uncooked dough wrapped. in cling film for up to 3 months, you can also freeze baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Ingredient Notes
- Plain flour: I have successfully made these gingerbread cookies with gluten-free flour.
- Caster Sugar: These cookies are lovely made with brown sugar.
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