Gingerbread Cookies Recipe for Perfect Gingerbread Men! (2024)

This is the best gingerbread cookie recipe! It’s great for gingerbread men and any other cookies in cutout shapes that you want to make.

I love to bake, but making any sort of cutout cookie can challenge my patience and short attention span! Plus, finding a good gingerbread cookies recipe is a challenge in itself!

However, both my little ones have been sick and Haiden has been requesting gingerbread men cookies for the past several days.

Since I’d do my best to give my kids anything they wanted, especially when they’re unwell, making cookies doesn’t seem like such a chore 🙂

Don’t miss other delicious cookie recipes!

We love snickerdoodle cookies and this potato chip cookies recipe. You’ll also be missing out if you don’t make this brown butter s’mores cookie recipe!

What I love about this gingerbread cookie recipe

I have to say, my favorite thing about holiday baking, especially this recipe, is that it reminds me of my grandma.

She would make gingerbread men cookies every year before Christmas. She would always press 3 raisins down the center for buttons, and I loved how dried out and chewy they got when baking them.

Her cookies were always the perfect balance of crispy and chewy. It took me forever to realize that the it’s the combination of butter and shortening that creates that amazing texture.

It’s funny, I had forgotten all about the raisins on my grandma’s gingerbread men until I started writing about it. I’ll definitely be including them as a decoration in my next batch!

Apart from the nostalgia, there are plenty of other things to love about these gingerbread cookies!

First, they can be made ahead of time and frozen.

You can make just the dough, roll it and freeze it into sheets that are ready for cookie cutters when you thaw them.

You can also bake the cookies and freeze them. You’ll be able to decorate them after they’ve thawed, so the icing is fresh clean.

Another thing to love about these cookies is that they’re a blast to decorate. I like to pipe simple lines of icing, while my mom likes to cover them from corner to corner with frosting.

When my kids were really little, I’d do the icing and let them go to town with different sprinkles. Now that they’re older, they alternate between wanting to do the piping, frosting or sprinkling.

The whole experience of making, decorating, and savoring these cookies is just something truly special. It’s a tradition that brings people together and creates lasting memories, just like the ones I have with my grandma.

Kitchen equipment tips

These are just a few notes I have from my personal experience baking. I’m not a pro, but these particular products have worked for me!

Rolling pin

This is the perfect rolling pin. Seriously. Look at it. You can’t tell me that it won’t solve all your dough rolling problems.

Cookie cutters

If you’re looking for quality cookie cutter suggestions, I have to say that the Wilton Comfort Grip Cookie Cutters are my favorite.

The metal cuts through dough easily, and the grip reinforces the shape of the cookie cutter so it doesn’t get bent out of shape.

Cookie sheets

I like using my Nordicware half-sheet pans as cookie sheets. They’re sturdy but not heavy, they heat evenly and they’re big.

I really like that I can maximize the amount of cookies I can get into the oven at the same time!

Stand mixer

To be honest, my stand mixer usually helps me cheat and take shortcuts with most cookie recipes.

For reference, I have the a KitchenAid pro series mixer, just like this one. I’ve had it since 2005 and it’s still going strong.

I usually dump all the ingredients but the flour into the bowl of my KitchenAid pro series mixer and cream them together using the special paddle attachment with the rubber scraper.

Then I add the flour to the bowl, turn the mixer on low and let the beater circle the bowl two or three times.

My dough is never overmixed, and the Kitchenaid makes the dough come together in minutes.

Cookie sheet pans

I also like using my Nordicware half-sheet pans as cookie sheets. They’re sturdy, they heat evenly and they’re big. I really like that I can maximize the amount of cookies I can get into the oven at the same time!

This is my favorite gingerbread cookies recipe. I like that it comes together easily.

Keep scrolling to get a printable of this gingerbread men cookies recipe!

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions for the Gingerbread Men Cookies recipe:

1. Cream the butter, shortening and the sugar together. Add the egg, vanilla and molasses and mix until well-blended.
   
2. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, ground cloves and salt, mixing until well combined. Use a wooden spoon if needed.
   
3. Transfer the dough to an airtight container and chill for 2-3 hours.
   
4. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
   
5. Lightly flour a surface and roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thick. (this is the perfect rolling pin. Seriously.)
   
6. Use cookie cutters to cut out the dough in Gingerbread Men or other shapes
   
7. Place cookies 1″ apart on greased cookie sheets.
   
8. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cookies are light brown along the edges.

Enjoy!

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