I have a special assignment to make a Gingerbread Man, One, display in the historic farmhouse for the upcoming holiday season. However, it needs to be only partially complete, so it looks like the farmwife is currently decorating the gingerbread cookies. We have an old cookie tray in the farmhouse, so that’s a great start to the display.
The first thing I do with any historical display in the farmhouse is to go online and see what I can come up with. From what I find from my research, during the 1930’s the farmwife used easily available food items to decorate her cookies. Raisins, red hot candy, and gum drops were popular.
Knowing I only have a couple of weeks to get things done, I went online and found/ordered some very realistic looking faux gum drops to decorate the cookies.
The faux gumdrops are apparently made from resin but look delicious.
The second thing I did was to go through all my cookie cutters to see if I have the right size gingerbread man. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the large size I wanted so I ordered a set online. The set I ordered, arrived quickly, and has three different sizes. This has already come in handy.
For the faux cookie “dough” I use Crayola Clay Magic in white as the “dough”. I, also, work with a rolling pin and use wax paper on the table. I kneed the Crayola Clay Magic a few times. Then I flatten out the dough with the rolling pin and cut out the cookies.
This photo shows two of the three cookie cutters I recently ordered. I have one gingerbread man cookie cutter in a holiday display, but it was quicker to order another set.
Making Gingerbread Man, One, Cookies
It is also helpful to estimate the placement of the faux gumdrops, to make sure you have enough space. The last thing you want on a time crunch is to have to redo things that do not fit. It looks like we will have three gum drops on each cookie; it looks good and things mesh well.
Cutting Out and Drying the Gingerbread Cookies
I rolled the faux “dough” thickly and used two of the cookie cutters to cut things out. Each faux cookie was carefully placed on a wax paper lined tray. Try not to stretch the dough out. I redid a cookie because the head stretched out too large.
To make Royal icing, I thinly rolled bits of the Crayola Clay Magic into faces and other details. When the faux cookies are fully dry and painted, the details will then be glued on with white household glue.
To attach the gum drops, we used faux Royal icing around the base, see below.
Ending Notes on Gingerbread Man, One, Blog
For now, the cookies are air drying on the tray.
Next step is to find the right shade of gingerbread brown paint in craft size bottles. I have some crafting acrylic paint ordered; we’ll see if it is a good match.
So, keep reading Farmhouse Magic Blog for the painting and finishing touches to the cookies.