Gingerbread Man Cake Decorating Ideas
This gingerbread man cake is cute and tasty! He is sure to delight the kids and will become a festive addition to your holiday celebration. Serve him to your guests with a cup of hot cocoa!
Gingerbread is one of the quintessential holiday treats! I’ve teamed up with some blogger friends to bring you our best gingerbread ideas. Be sure to check out their yummy gingerbread recipes at the end of this post!
Inspiration for a Gingerbread Man Cake
Last weekend, I came across these gingerbread man cake pans at our church holiday bazaar. They appear to be somewhat vintage, and for $1 each, I couldn’t resist! I knew that I’d be making a gingerbread man cake!
How to Make a Gingerbread Man Cake
I found a gingerbread cake recipe online, and followed the directions with one minor adjustment…I only used half of the molasses and substituted the other half with maple syrup. Why? I wanted the cake a little sweeter and a little more moist. I was very pleased with the result!
Gingerbread Man Cake Decorating Ideas
Once the cake is baked and cooled, flip it over on top of a cutting board and remove it from the cake pan.
If you greased the pan well it should loosen and come out pretty easily.
A little bit of the cake stuck to the pan, but it wasn’t that noticeable.
To decorate the cake, I used Wilton white cookie icing in a squeeze bottle.
I started by outlining along the edges of the gingerbread man. If you want, you could frost the cake with brown frosting first.
The gingerbread man cake pan created indentations for the eyes and mouth. I just filled them in with frosting.
There were also indentations for buttons. I filled those with frosting and added red M&M “buttons”.
Finally, I added some wavy lines on the arms and legs for interest.
What a happy and handsome gent!
Gingerbread Man Cake
Equipment
- Electric hand mixer
- gingerbread man cake pan
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 large egg beaten
- 1/2 cup molasses unsulphered
- 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup hot water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 gingerbread man baking pans with cooking spray.
- Using an electric hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg, molasses and maple syrup. Mix well by hand with a wooden spoon.
- In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.
- Slowly stir in the hot water and mix until well combined.
- Pour the batter into the greased baking pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
More Holiday Desserts
Did your batter fill both pans? I have my grandmother’s gingerbread man pan and am going to try this for Christmas.
This turned out so cute and the recipe sounds absolutely delicious! What a great find you had in those $1.00 pans!!
Aww! This is adorable!
Your cake is so cute!
such a cute idea! Love it! the gingerbread man cake looks so special on the red transfer ware plate!
This is really cute. I love the pan you used too!