Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year. I love cosy nights in, big chunky knits and the smell of cinnamon baking, so for me, these super cute gingerbread Christmas jumpers are the perfect way to get into the festive spirit and are guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser!
Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year. I love cosy nights in, big chunky knits and the smell of cinnamon baking, so for me, these super cute gingerbread Christmas jumpers are the perfect way to get into the festive spirit and are guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser!
What You’ll Need
- Card
- Rolling pin
- Knife
- Scissors
- Piping bags
- Cookie scribe or toothpicks
- Gel Food colouring
- – Stand mixer or hand whisk
SERVES
PREP:
COOK:
EASY
INGREDIENTS
Ingredients
Cookie Ingredients:
- 400g plain flour
- 100g granulated sugar
- 1tsp baking powder
- 125g salted butter (soft)
- 125g golden syrup
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp ground ginger
Royal Icing ingredients
All in one recipe:
- 90ml cold water
- 500g royal icing mix
Egg white recipe:
- 2 egg whites
- 500g icing sugar
Making the cookies:
- Preheat your oven to 160 degrees |(fan)
- Add all of the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix together
- Add the softened butter and ‘crumble’ it in by rubbing it together with the dry ingredients between your fingers until fully incorporated
- Make a well in the middle of the mix and add in the egg and golden syrup
- Mix until it all comes together and forms a soft dough. If you take a little out and can roll it into a ball then it’s ready.
- Split the mix into two and roll each out to approx. 5mm thick.
- Place your jumper shaped card onto the rolled out dough and cut around it with a knife.
- Place all of the cut out cookies onto an oven tray and bake for 15 mins until they’re golden brown. Leave to cool completely before you start decorating.
Making the icing:
- Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Whisk on a slow speed for 5 minutes, then a high speed for 10 minutes.
- Split the icing into smaller batches (as many as the colours you plan to use). Mix gel food colouring into each bowl of icing until you achieve your desired colours.
- Pop a little of each colour into a piping bag – these will be your outline icings.
- Add a little water to each of the remaining icing bowls and mix to make your flood icings. Pop each flood icing into a piping bag and you’re ready to go!
Cutting out the shapes
I’m going to go ahead and assume you don’t have a jumper shaped cookie cutter lying about your house? No problem! Just draw or print the shape onto a piece of thick card and cut it out. You then simply place this on your rolled out cookie dough and cut around the edge with a knife. It takes a little longer than a cutter but it means you’ll never be restricted by what cookie cutters you have in your cupboard. Aim for the cookie shape to be approx. 6-8cm tall, no one likes a stingy cookie!
Outline and Flood Icing
When it comes to decorating, the key thing is to get the consistency of your royal icing right. You’re going to be working with two consistencies: outline and flood.
Outline icing should be fairly thick, like toothpaste, and hold its shape when piped. We use this to outline the cookie and create a barrier so that the flood icing, which we use to fill in the outlined area, doesn’t run over the edge.
Flood icing should be runnier than outline and shouldn’t hold its shape.
Flood icing should be runnier than outline and shouldn’t hold its shape. To achieve this just add some water to your outline. I go by the 6 second rule: if you run a spoon over the surface of your flood icing, it should go completely smooth again in 6 seconds.
Here’s a tip: when you’ve filled your piping bags with your outline and flood icings, write an ‘o’ on the outline bags and an ‘f’ on the flood bags. This will help you differentiate which is which as they will be the same colour and hard to tell apart. I can’t tell you the amount of times in the past that I’ve picked up a flood bag thinking it was outline and ended up with an icing mess!
Let’s get to the fun part
Once your cookies are completely cooled from the oven you can start to decorate. Yay! Begin by cutting the tip of your outline piping bag and slowly piping a line around the entire edge of your cookie. See the picture for a rough guide on how thin I make my outline. I used white as the base for my jumper designs but you can use any colours you like. Why not make them all different colours?
Give the outline a couple of minutes to harden up and then pipe the inside of the line with your flood icing in the same colour. I like to work from the edge and flood into the middle. Use a cookie scribe or a toothpick to swirl the icing around and cover any gaps. These are also handy for popping any air bubbles that might appear.
To achieve the 3 patterns in my jumper designs I added different coloured flood icing to the still wet white flood base. This is called ‘flood-on-flood’ and means the pattern detail will all lay flat at the same level. It’s important that the base flood doesn’t crust over before you add the pattern so you will need to work quickly!
Here’s how I achieved the swirly pattern (that’s what I’m calling it) on the ‘HAPPY HOLIDAYS’ jumper:
First, add thin lines of one colour to the flood going horizontally. Then add another coloured line in between each line. Using your cookie scribe or a toothpick, drag the icing in an upward motion through the lines starting from the left. Move about 5mm across and do the same thing again but this time in a downward motion. Keep repeating the whole way across the cookie et voila!
Drying the cookies
Before you can add the top layer of detail to the cookies the base icing needs to dry. Simply pop the cookies into your oven at the lowest temperature (approx. 55 degrees) and leave them in for approx. 40 mins. An added benefit of the low heat? A smooth and shiny finish – perfect!
The finishing touches
Let the cookies completely cool before you add the final details.
With your white outline, pipe a line of icing around the edge of the cookie and then add a line for the sleeves. I also added some lines to the neck and bottom of the sleeves for a roll neck and turn up effect.
I used a black outline to add some festive text to my jumpers by cutting the tip of the piping bag as thin as possible and piping the text verrrry sloooowly. If you aren’t too confident with piping text, grab yourself some greaseproof paper or some kitchen roll and practice piping it out a few times before you try it on the cookie.
The best thing about these cookies is you can let your creativity flow and try out any number of different styles. Why not try out different coloured text? Or even try piping a wreath or a snowflake onto some of your festive jumpers for a bit of variation?
The cookies will keep for up to 4 weeks if kept in an airtight container so you can make them well in advance of Christmas. They’ll be the perfect accompaniment to tea and coffee on Christmas day, or you could pop them into a little cellophane bag, tie a ribbon around the top and gift them to your family and friends. Enjoy!
