So how about a Giant Gingerbread Man? These seem to be everywhere this Christmas and with a price tag of £5-6.00 I thought for Day 4 of The Pink Whisk Christmas we’d make our own!
To make 2 Giant Gingerbread Men, you will need:
1 x Quantity of Gingerbread Dough recipe here
Royal icing
Piping bag and no. 3 piping nozzle
Mini silver or pearl dragees (sprinkles!)
Links to The Pink Whisk Shop/Amazon
Print off the giant gingerbread man template here and cut it out.
Split the gingerbread dough in half and roll out each between two sheets of baking paper, use the template to guide you to the right size, it should be around 5mm thick.
Chill the rolled out dough, still in the baking paper in the fridge for 30 minutes or until firm.
Peel off the top piece of baking paper and lay the template down on the top.
With a sharp knife cut around the template.
Remove the extra dough from around the man and transfer the whole lot, lifting the baking paper sheet to a baking tray.
Preheat the oven to 170c(fan)/190c/Gas Mark 5.
Bake Mr Gingerbread in the oven for 12 minutes until lightly golden around the edges. Keep an eye on him, we don’t want any sad burnt men!
Once baked let him cool fully on the tray.
Now to decorate him, keep him on a flat board or a baking tray so you can move him around easily. Mix up some royal icing according to the instructions on the packet.
Fill a piping bag fitted with a no.3 piping nozzle.
Pipe around the outside edge of Mr Ginger and add the details to his arms and legs.
Pipe two white bulbs for eyes, a smiley mouth and two bulbs for buttons on his tummy.
Colour some of the royal bright red using a gel paste colour. Pipe a red bulb for a button, two bulbs for rosy cheeks and carefully pipe the outline of his scarf.
For the scarf outline make sure the piped sections form a complete closed box, otherwise the flooding will run everywhere!
Squeeze the red royal icing out of the piping bag into a small bowl. Add a couple of drops of water, slowly does it, to turn the icing into a runny consistency.
Add this to a squeezy bottle and carefully fill in the scarf with the flooding icing.
Poke out any airbubbles in the icing with a cocktail stick and encourage the icing right into the corners.
Before it sets of completely sprinkle over some tiny pearl sprinkles. Don’t try and remove the excess pearls for now, leave it overnight to dry off completely. To begin with the royal icing softens the gingerbread slightly but don’t worry as the icing dries out the gingerbread does too. Just make sure you keep it on a flat board or baking tray so that you can move him around without disturbing any of your hard work.
Once dry gently brush off the rogue pearls, draw on two black pupils with the edible icing pen, wrap him in cellophane and tie it up with a bow!
Giant Gingerbread Man – Done!
Ruth Clemens, Baker Extraordinaire
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