Gingerbread Men Recipe

How To Make Gingerbread Men Cookies

These crispy gingerbread men cookies are iconic in looks and taste and provide a blank canvas, ready for all sorts of festive artwork.

Making them from scratch helps to ensure they have all the bold flavors you love. Refer to the recipe for all the specifics, but generally, here’s how you make gingerbread men.

Make the Dough

In a large mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredients, then add in the dry ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms.

Chill the Dough

Once the dough is made, you’ll want to chill it in the refrigerator for 1 hour . Rolling out and cutting the dough is much easier when it’s cold.

Roll Out, Cut and Bake

Roll the chilled dough out to 1/8” thick (2 stacked quarters) and cut out with cookie cutters. Place each of your newly formed men onto an ungreased baking sheet. Decorate with candy or currants, as desired, and bake. Using an ungreased baking sheet prevents the cookies from spreading out too much in the baking process.

Pipe on the Frosting

Decorate the completely cooled cookies with frosting, as desired.

Gingerbread Men Decorating Ideas

Once the cookies are baked and cooled, the real fun begins! Here are some fun gingerbread men decorating ideas.

Currants or assorted candies of your choosing are great gingerbread men decorations and can be pressed into the cookie dough cut outs before baking. They are perfect for making eyes, noses or buttons, but use your imagination. How to decorate gingerbread men is entirely up to you and the sky’s the limit!

For more intricate designs, look for very small candies or use individual sprinkles, placed on the unbaked cookies with clean tweezers.

Colored sugar can be sprinkled onto the unbaked cookies for festive, but simple design.

Use Betty Crocker™ Creamy White Rich & Creamy Frosting in a piping bag to outline the cookies to make faces, bows, buttons, and more. Add a few drops of food coloring gel to the frosting, if desired. For a different style of frosting, try our recipe for Royal Icing which hardens as it dries.

Want to pipe your cookies but don’t have a piping bag? Not to worry. Here’s how to decorate your gingerbread cookies without a piping bag. You can use a resealable plastic bag filled with frosting. Once filled and the frosting is pushed into one bottom corner, use a pair of scissors to snip off the edge.

Of course, these decorating ideas can apply to other types of cookies. Take a look at some of our other cookie recipes to expand your decorating options.

How to Store Gingerbread Men So They Last Longer

If stored correctly, your gingerbread men cookies will keep at room temperature for up to 3 days. Store them in flat-bottomed plastic containers with airtight lids. Line the bottom of each container with waxed paper or plastic wrap, to help keep your cookies fresh, and they are all set for safekeeping!

Keep in mind that if your cookies are frosted, they become soft as you store them. So, if a crispy texture is important to you, consider frosting the cookies as you need them.

Cookies kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator can last for up to 2 weeks.

Perhaps the best way to store cookies and ensure they come out fresh and tasty is to freeze them. Unbaked frozen cookie dough will keep for up to 3 months in the freezer. Frozen baked cookies will keep for up to 2 months.

Try Other Gingerbread Recipes We Love

How do you make soft gingerbread cookies? A little less flour and a lot more brown sugar gives you a less crispy and chewier gingerbread cookie. So, if you like a softer cookie, with more chew, try our Best-Ever Chewy Gingerbread Cookies.

Heading to a cookie exchange party and need to march in with an army of gingerbread men? Or will gingerbread men be your go-to hostess gift this holiday season? Try this extra-large batch recipe of Gingerbread Cutout Cookies.

If you love the taste of gingerbread, but don’t have the time or interest in decorating a big batch of cookies, why not get your gingerbread fix in bar form? These Gingerbread Cookie Bars are here to save the day. With a spicy, sweet cookie base topped with a dreamy cream cheese frosting, these bars are sure to become your new family favorite.