Gingerbread reindeer are gingerbread men turned upside down, with no reindeer cutter involved at all. The legs become the antlers and the arms become the ears, then the face is iced brown with a red cinnamon candy nose. One batch gives eighteen cookies for a Christmas cookie plate.
Let the black outline crust before you flood the brown. The recipe sends you straight from piping to flooding, and wet icing on wet icing bleeds, so the edges go muddy instead of sharp. Ten minutes is enough.
You make a full pound box of royal icing and use about a cup of it. That also inflates the calories, because 267 a cookie counts icing that never leaves the bowl. Eat only what you pipe and it is nearer 155.
Gingerbread Reindeer
Course: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Medium4
servings30
minutes40
minutes300
kcalA spiced molasses dough rolled thin and cut with a gingerbread man cutter, then flipped to become a reindeer. Flooded in brown royal icing with a red cinnamon candy nose.
Ingredients
- For the Cookies:
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature
1/4 cup molasses
1 large egg
- For Decorating:
One 1-pound box confectioners’ sugar, or half for a smaller batch
5 tablespoons meringue powder
Black gel food coloring
Brown gel food coloring
18 red cinnamon candies
Directions
- Make the dough: Whisk the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, allspice, nutmeg, baking powder and salt together. Beat the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then beat in the molasses and the egg, which will look curdled. Add the flour mixture on low, then beat on medium to a sticky dough. Divide in two, flatten into disks, wrap and chill at least 2 hours.
- Roll and cut: Heat the oven to 350 degrees F with racks in the top and bottom thirds, and line two sheets with parchment. Let one disk sit 5 minutes, then roll it on a well floured surface to 1/8 inch, sliding a spatula underneath now and then. Cut with a 4 inch gingerbread man cutter, lift the shapes onto the sheets 1 inch apart and reroll the scraps.
- Bake: Bake about 12 minutes, rotating the sheets top to bottom and front to back halfway, until just firm to the touch but not browned. Cool 5 minutes on the sheets, then move to a rack to cool completely. They keep firming as they cool.
- Mix and color the icing: Stir the confectioners sugar and meringue powder together, add 6 tablespoons water and beat on low until thick, white and not bubbly. Put 1/3 cup each into three bowls, leave one white, dye one black and one light brown, then loosen the brown with 1 teaspoon water. Snip a tiny hole in the white and black bags and a larger one in the brown.
- Pipe the reindeer: With the cookie the right way up, outline the head and arms in black and draw a bowed line across the chest. Turn it upside down, pipe antlers out of the top over the legs, and let the black set about 10 minutes. Flood the face with brown, press in a cinnamon candy nose and dry 40 minutes to 1 hour, then add white eye dots, ear fur, a black smile and pupils. Dry 1 hour or overnight.
Notes
- Calories here count only the icing you actually pipe, which is about a third of the batch. The original figure of 267 counts the whole bowl. Half the icing recipe is plenty for 18 cookies.
FAQs
Do I need a reindeer cookie cutter?
No, and that is the whole idea behind the recipe. A 4 inch gingerbread man cutter is all you use, and turning the baked cookie on its head gives you the face, ears and antlers. Buying a reindeer cutter would make the cookies worse, not better.
Can I halve the royal icing?
Yes, and you probably should. The method portions a third of a cup into each of three bowls, which is a cup of icing against a pound box of sugar. Half a batch still leaves room to make a mistake and start a color again.
What can I use instead of red cinnamon candies?
A red M&M, a dried cranberry or a dot of red icing all read as a nose from a foot away. Cinnamon candies are harder and sit higher, which is why they catch the light. Press whichever you pick into the brown icing while it is still wet.
Why does my dough crack when I roll it?
Cold dough straight from the fridge cracks at the edges before the middle softens, so let the disk sit five minutes first. Press any splits back together from the outside in rather than patching the middle. The same dough behaves this way in these gingerbread men.
How far ahead can I make them?
Bake the cookies up to a week early and keep them un-iced in a tin, then decorate the day before. The card says three days, which really applies to iced cookies in a warm kitchen. Un-iced they keep like these butter spritz cookies.
