This recipe is quite prefect and exactly what we made in class this year! You will see the gingerbread recipe and the icing too. The icing has meringue powder in it. It can be found in the cake decorating isle of any grocery store or supercenter. The meringue powder is a little pricey, but a little goes a long way. Ignore all other recipes, you are just looking for your royal icing to get hard eventually. The more meringue powder you use, the quicker it hardens. I honestly prefer a softer gingerbread man and a softer icing. Both will hold up for days in an airtight container. If you are not in the mood for cookie cutters…roll the dough into balls, roll in sugar, flatten slightly and bake into “Gingersnaps”.
Merry Christmas!!
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 10 minutes
Cool Time: 10 minutes
Icing time: as long as you want!
4 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
¼ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
2 Tbsp gingerbread spice (new and in baking isle! best $1.88 ever spent)
½ Cup granulated Sugar
½ Cup Light Brown Sugar
½ Cup Molasses
2 Tbsp Butter, softened
⅓ Cup Applesauce
1 Egg
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Tbsp meringue powder
2 Tbsp vanilla
1 Cup Powdered Sugar
1 Tbsp water…maybe more until the correct consistency
Gingerbread Men:
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Grease 2 cookie sheets.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine 3 cups of flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices–mix well and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter. Add the granulated and brown sugars and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well. Add the molasses, applesauce, and vanilla extract–mix well.
- Incorporate the flour mixture, a third at a time, and mix until just combined. The dough should form a ball, and should not be sticky. If it is, add a Tablespoon of flour at a time until it is firm.
- Cover with plastic wrap placed on top of the dough and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
- Work with half the dough, scatter 2 Tbsp flour on counter. Roll out with a rolling pin. Should be about 1/4-1/2 inch thick.
- Use a cookie cutter to cut the dough into shapes. The less you handle the dough, the better. Gather scraps, roll into ball, roll out again.
- Place cookies on cookie sheets and bake 9 to 11 minutes (DO NOT BAKE UNTIL FIRM, they will seem underbaked, but go ahead and take them out of the oven!!!)
- Immediately remove cookies to wire rack to cool–after about 10 minutes, they should be cooled and you can ice them!
BEFORE you start, watch this great video to get an idea of what your frosting should look like. I do like to use the tints from the wedding/craft/cake decorating isle.
Click here for the video we watched in class: HOWCAST Gingerbread Men
Some day I will make my own howcast..but for now my students just want the recipes!
Royal Icing:
- In mixing bowl, mix powdered sugar and meringue powder by hand with whisk, until sifted together. Add 1 Tbsp of water, mix until all water is incorporated. Continue to add water, 1 Tbsp at a time, until frosting is spreadable. You don’t want it to be really watery, it needs to go into a piping bag.
- You can buy icing bags at the same place as the colors for the royal icing. All can be found in the wedding/cake/craft isle. Make sure to buy the NO-Taste red!, it will taste terrible otherwise. Our red never got super red..pink was OK for us!
- To tint icing, use a toothpick dipped in color gel to tint a small portion of your icing.
Looks delish!
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Thanks! I will make these for our trip to Charleston!!
Yummmmmm!