Gingerbread Cookies with Royal Icing
These gingerbread cookies with royal icing are designed for rolling, cutting, and decorating with crisp detail. The dough is deeply spiced, easy to work with, and bakes up sturdy enough to hold intricate cookie cutter shapes without spreading. Finished with classic royal icing that dries smooth and firm, these cookies are ideal for Christmas baking, holiday cookie platters, and edible gifts. Whether you’re cutting Christmas trees, snowflakes, maple leaves, or traditional gingerbread shapes, this is a reliable gingerbread cookie recipe that produces beautiful, bakery-style results every time.
Why these Gingerbread Cookie work:
This gingerbread cookie recipe was developed specifically for rolling and decorating, using mostly pantry staples with just two specialty ingredients: molasses and meringue powder. The dough is mixed, divided, and chilled to ensure clean edges and consistent thickness, helping the cookies hold their shape in the oven.
Molasses gives the cookies their deep, rich flavor, warm amber color, and moist yet sturdy texture—essential for cookies that need to support detailed designs. The royal icing is made with meringue powder, a shelf-stable and food-safe alternative to raw egg whites, allowing the icing to whip smoothly, pipe cleanly, and set firm without cracking.
Together, these elements create gingerbread cookies that are dependable, easy to work with, and well suited to both simple and intricate decorating.
Ingredients in this Gingerbread Recipe:
- all purpose flour
- light brown sugar
- confectioner’s sugar (10x or icing sugar)
- meringue powder
- unsulfered molasses
- spices: ground ginger, nutmeg, white pepper, cinnamon, cloves
- baking soda
- salt
- unsalted butter
- egg
- water
- sanding sugar
Special Equipment needed for this recipe:
- stand mixer
- rolling pin
- baking sheets
- cookie cutters- these are the ones I love
- icing bags with Wilton tips #1, #3, #5 or zip top bags- this is the icing bag set I have in my kitchen
- spatula, silicone scraper, bench scraper
Make- Ahead, Storage and Freezing
- Dough can be made ahead and chilled
- Dough can be frozen- divide dough into quarters, flatten into a small square, wrap tightly in two layers of plastic wrap, freeze- to thaw – place dough overnight in the fridge
- Baked cookies store well in an airtight container for up to 1 week
- Decorated cookies hold up once the icing sets. Store in an airtight container
Royal Icing and Decorating Tips:
- I use a simple sifted confectioner’s sugar, meringue powder and water recipe
- Use a wilton #1, #3 or #5 for detailed decorating- you can buy these online or at craft store’s like Michael’s . This wilton set has everything you need.
- After combining all the icing ingredients, if they icing makes about 5 seconds to drip off the whisk into your bowl- that is the consistency you want. You can always add more or less water or sugar to change the consistency.
- Food gels are the way to go for decorating- not the old style liquid in the tiny squeeze bottles. Just add a tiny drop of food dye gel at first- a little goes a long way.
- I like to use a thicker consistency to pipe instead of flooding the cookies. Then, while still wet, sprinkle white, gold or silver sanding sugar on the icing. This makes your cookies so elegant.
- You can store royal icing. Just place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap and chill until needed.
- Cookie cutters make decorating even more fun. I love to use copper or metal and not plastic. You get a sharper edge and the cutters stay cold. Here are the ones similar to mine. I bought most of my cookie cutters at markets in Europe. They are so much fun to collect.
More Holiday Baking Favorites:
If you love building out a holiday baking plan, these recipes pair well with gingerbread cookies and royal icing.
- Orange shortbread cookies
- Peppermint bark cookies
- No Bake rum balls
- Spiced Glühwein (German Market mulled wine)
- Chewy cocoa molasses cookies
Frequently Asked Questions:
Chilling the dough relaxes the gluten and firms up the butter, which helps the cookies hold their shape and prevents spreading in the oven.
Yes, This dough can be made in advance and refrigerated for several days or frozen (wrapped tightly in layers of plastic) for longer storage.
Traditional royal icing is made with egg whites, but meringue powder is a safe, reliable alternative that produces consistent results without using raw eggs. You can use egg whites, but look for fresh pasteurized eggs.
Cookies often spread if the r dough is too warm, rolled too thin or the butter was overly soft. Chilling the cut cookies before baking helps to maintain sharp edges.
Royal icing typically sets to the touch within an hour and fully hardens after several hours. depending on the humidity and thickness. Before wrapping or bagging or boxing your cookies- give them several hours ( or up to overnight) to set.
Pro-Tips for Gingerbread Cookies with Royal Icing:
- Divide and chill the dough to keep it manageable and prevent sticking.
- lightly flour your rolling surface and use a pastry brush to remove any excess flour from your cookies prior to baking .
- Roll the dough evenly to ensure consistent baking and clean edges.
- For cookies cutters with intricate patterns, chill the cookie dough prior to baking once the dough has been cut.
- Adjust royal icing consistency depending on whether you are outlining, flooding or just piping.
- Sprinkle sanding sugar while cookies are set on a wire rack with a rimmed baking sheet underneath to catch excess sugar.
- Allow decorated cookies to dry completely before stacking or storing or wrapping. .
Gingerbread Cookies with Royal Icing
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling.
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp white pepper
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ½ tsp baking soda- make certain it is fresh
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- 10 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg
- ⅓ cup plus 1 tbsp unsulfuerd dark molasses
For the icing
- 4 cups powdered sugar sifted well
- 3 tbsp meringue powder
- 9 – 10 tbsp water
Instructions
For the Cookies
- To prepare the cookie dough: In a large bowl, whisk flour, ginger, nutmeg, white pepper, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until well combined, light, and fluffy about 3-4 minutes. You can use a hand mixer as well. Beat in the egg and molasses. Scrape so down the sides of the bowl to incorporate all the ingredients. On low speed, add in flour and spice mixture. Beat until just combined about 2 minutes. Use a scraper to remove any streaks. On a lightly floured surface, remove the dough from the bowl and knead a few times until the dough is pliable. It will be sticky. Divide in half and wrap each half with plastic wrap. Chill for at least 3 hours or up to 3 days.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees for cookies OR Preheat to 325 for ornaments or gingerbread house-building Divide the dough into manageable sections. Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface until about 1/4 inch thick. Cut dough into shapes and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place cookies about 1 inch apart. Bake in preheated oven for 7-8 minutes for cookies. OR 20 minutes for ornaments or gingerbread house. (If making ornaments, be certain to pierce the top of each cookie with a bamboo skewer so you can attach a hanger. ) Cool cookies on the pans for five minutes. Then cool completely before icing- about 20-30 minutes.
For the Royal Icing
- Combine the sifted sugar and meringue powder in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add in 4 tbsp of cool warm and beat on low until creamy. Add in 4 more tbsp of water. Beat on high speed until fluffy. Add in 1-2 tbsp more. Note- if your icing seems too thin, beat on high for another minute or two. This whips air into the icing making it thicker. If it appears to be too dry, add in water but just a teaspoon or two at a time.
- Tint in batches using food gel. For icing with a piping bag: I use Wilton tips #1, #3, and #5 for piping. You can also flood your cookies using an offset spatula and then a toothpick to smooth out to the edges. I love simply sprinkling gold or silver sanding sugar on the flooded cookies. Buy sanding sugar at most craft shops in the baking aisle.
- For a stiffer icing, add in more confectioner’s sugar.
Notes
Nutrition
Did I ever tell you about the time I baked an entire collection of Gingerbread Christmas Ornaments, for my tree, iced them with delicate royal icing to look like snowflakes, hung them on our tree with tartan satin ribbons only to find our Golden Retriever, Zack, had eaten half of them overnight and then left us piles of gingerbread scented poo?
True story.
A caution:
Do not bake these and use them as Christmas ornaments if you have dogs, cats, or small children. While they make gorgeous ornaments- just go ahead and eat them.
What I do love about this recipe is these cookies are sturdy enough to construct a gingerbread house if baked at 325 for 20 minutes, but the cookie will remain chewy in the center if baked for the recommended 7-8 minutes. I love to make place cards with these cookies. Piping each guest name is a very thoughtful gesture.
Enjoy this classic Gingerbread cookie recipe. You’ll find none other that is better or more fun to bake with your family.
