These cute gluten free gingerbread men are fun to make and tasty to eat. They are a classic gingerbread biscuit, crisp at the edges and with a slight softness in the middle. Flavoured with ginger and with a delicious overtone of caramelised sugar. Perfect for enjoying with a tea, coffee or a nice cold glass of milk :D.
Gluten free gingerbread people (as I should really call them, after my three year old wisely informed me that the “men” could be ladies too <3) are quite a simple bake. The biscuit dough yielded by this recipe is lovely to work with, very satisfying to knead, roll out and cut. It requires a bit of chilling in the fridge, then you’ve a perfectly pliable dough that you can even set young children loose on with good results.
Once baked, cooled and decorated, store these gluten free gingerbread people in an airtight container and enjoy within 3 days. And of course, you don’t need to limit yourself to people shapes either! Try stars, festive shapes or any other cookie cutters you have in your baking cupboard.
What Ingredients Do I Need?
You’ll need gluten free plain flour, bicarbonate of soda, light brown sugar, golden syrup, butter, xanthan gum, ginger and nutmeg (optional for a bit of extra flavour) for these gluten free gingerbread people. Plus icing sugar and sprinkles if you want to decorate them.
What is Golden Syrup?
For my non-UK readers, you may not be familiar with the golden syrup I have included in this recipe. Golden syrup is akin to corn syrup, but with a slightly more rounded flavour.
Corn syrup is a good sub, or try use extra light brown sugar to replace the golden syrup if none is available to you. The final biscuit texture won’t be quite the same, but they’ll still be delicious!
Which Spices Do I Need?
Obviously ginger is a key component of gingerbread men, and ground ginger is the type I use. I also add a little nutmeg to add depth of flavour, but this is optional and you can feel free to omit this if you don’t have any in your store cupboard.
How Many Gingerbread Men Will This Recipe Make?
You should get roughly 12 biscuits out of this dough, but it completely depends on the size of your cutters. Mine are medium-sized, so if you are using large cutters and still want to have a good number of biscuits you may wish to double the recipe.
Do I Have to Decorate with Icing?
No you can absolutely enjoy these plain, or instead decorate them with melted chocolate and add all sorts of sweets and treats to complete your creations.
If you want to jazz your icing up, you can use food gels to colour the icing or play around with the flavours too. Instead of water, why not use orange or lime juice to make the icing – it gives a delicious flavour and both will complement the ginger.
Gluten Free Gingerbread Men (People) Recipe
This recipe makes about 12 gingerbread biscuits. You’ll find a full method below, plus some photos to help guide you through the recipe. Feel free to email me any questions or comments you might have. You can contact me at laura@mygfguide.com or message me on Instagram/Facebook @myglutenfreeguide. I love seeing your home creations too so please do tag me on social media if you make these.
Lastly, if you enjoy these gingerbread people, I would be really grateful if you could leave a star rating or review on the recipe card below. Thank you!
Laura xxx
Gluten Free Gingerbread Men (/People)
An easy gluten free gingerbread recipe yielding biscuits that are crisp with a very slightly soft centre. Classic gingerbread flavours of ginger, caramelised sugar and a hint of nutmeg. Delicious!
Ingredients
- 80g unsalted butter
- 60ml golden syrup
- 50g light brown sugar
- 180g gluten free plain flour
- 0.5tsp xanthan gum
- 0.25tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2tsp ground ginger
- 0.25 tsp ground nutmeg (optional)
To decorate:
- 100g icing sugar
- 15ml water
- Sprinkles/sweets
Instructions
- Add the butter, golden syrup and light brown sugar to a small pan. Place over a low heat for 10 minutes, allowing the butter to melt and the sugar to dissolve. Don't allow the mixture to come to the boil or bubble, as you'll risk it turning into toffee!
- Take a large mixing bowl (or stand mixer) and combine the plain flour, bicarb, xanthan gum, ginger and nutmeg. Stir them together and make a well in the centre.
- Pour the butter and sugar mix into the well in the mixing bowl and combine the ingredients until you have a fairly-firm cookie dough. If using a stand mixer this will take about a minute - if you are using a wooden spoon, a couple of minutes (you might have to get your hands in there to knead the dough if mixing with a spoon isn't doing the job).
- You should now have a lovely smooth, pliable cookie dough. It'll still be quite warm, so transfer it onto a piece of cling film, wrap and then chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour (or if you need to leave it for longer, just give it a knead with your hands before using it, to avoid any crumbling).
- Once the dough has chilled, preheat your oven to 180C (fan).
- Roll the dough out with a rolling pin until it is roughly the thickness of a £1 coin (5mm). Or slightly thicker if you like really soft-centred gingerbread biscuits.
- Line a baking tray with greaseproof baking paper. Then take a gingerbread man cutter and cut out as many person shapes as you can, placing each cookie on the baking tray as you go. Leave a little space between the cookies as they will spread slightly during baking. After cutting, recombine and reroll the dough scraps, cut out more shapes and repeat until you've used all the dough. You can either use two trays, or bake in batches (I do two batches of six gingerbread men).
- Into the oven they go! Allow the cookies to bake for 8 minutes, until lightly golden. They will still be soft when you take them out, so allow them to harden on the tray for 5 minutes. After that, you should be able to carefully transfer them to a wire cooling rack.
- Once completely cooled, you can ice the gingerbread men. Simply mix the icing sugar and water until you have a smooth, thick paste. Transfer to a squeezy bottle (these make it mega easy to use the icing and very kid friendly) or piping bag, and decorate the gingerbread men with icing patterns, sprinkles and sweets.
- Allow the icing to harden, then enjoy your gingerbread people or store in an airtight container for up to three days.
I hope you’ve enjoyed making these gluten free gingerbread people! For more tasty bakes, why not try some of my other gluten free recipes:
Happy baking! Laura xxx
