Cakes By Catriona
- Dec 15, 2021
- 2 min read

Festive Gingerbread Men

Festive Gingerbread Men (For about 12 cookies - Depending on your cookie cutter size)

300g pastry flour
2g salt
10g ginger powder
85g cassonade sugar (brown sugar)
140g unsalted butter
20ml vanilla essence (I use "Robson" brand)
A gingerbread man cookie cutter

For Decoration

1 sachet of white "sugar paste" - Refer photo step 5 - At Intermart at Rs175 (NJC brand) or Rs150 (Vahiné brand).
Food colorings powder or gel (brown/ green/ red)
Edible sprinkles (round and daisy shapes) - Refer photo step 8 and 9 respectively
1 sachet of chocolate bottles with liqueur (x12) - Refer photo step 10 - At Intermart at Rs150
20g of corn flour or icing sugar for dusting
1 small holly leaves fondant plunger/cutter
Edible pen in black (I use Americolor edible pen)

Procedure

Step 1 : In your mixing bowl, add your pastry flour, cassonade sugar, salt and ginger powder and mix well together.

Step 2: Add butter and mix until fully combined, add vanilla essence.

Step 3 : Knead well until you obtain a non sticky and firm dough. Then flatten your dough (thickness about 0.8cm) using your rolling pin and cut out gingerbread man shape using your favourite cutter.

Step 4: Place your little gingerbread men on a non-stick baking tray then bake for 16-20 minutes (until golden brown) in a preheated oven at 175 degrees Celsius. Once baked, allow your cookies to cool on a wire rack.

Step 5: Time for decoration ! Color your white sugar paste (75%) using some food colouring in brown as indicated by the blue arrow.

Step 6: Flatten your sugar paste (thickness 2mm) using your rolling pin (dust your working space with some corn flour or icing sugar to avoid your sugar paste to stick) and cut out shapes using the same cookie cutter you used to cut out your gingerbread men cookies. Stick your cut sugar paste on the surface of your cookies using a brush slightly soaked in water.

Step 7: Color another portion of your sugar paste in green (20%), flatten the latter (thickness 2mm) and cut out some holly leaves using your plunger/cutter as in the photo below (right). Stick them on one "hand" of your gingerbread man using your pastry brush and some water.

Step 8: Use two round edible sugar sprinkles to add some blush to your gingerbread men and your edible pen in black to draw the eyes and smile.

Step 9: Add 2-3 Daisy shape sugar sprinkles to make the buttons as below (left). Finally color your remaining sugar paste (5%) in red. Make small balls and stick them (brush/water) in the center of your holly leaves as below (right).