The Ultimate Gingerbread Cookie Wreath: A Dazzling Edible Centerpiece for Your Holiday Celebrations
Craft this exquisite gingerbread cookie wreath, a true holiday showpiece that’s as delightful to look at as it is to eat! Perfect for hanging on your door or gracing your festive table, it’s a stunning creation with fantastic flavor. Discover clever tips and tricks to make it with ease, whether you’re baking a classic or a gluten-free version.
As the world transforms into a winter wonderland, blanketed in a pristine white, our thoughts turn to the cozy warmth of home and the cherished tradition of holiday baking. It’s that magical time of year when snowflakes adorn spruce boughs like fairy icing, and ordinary yard objects are transformed into enchanting, marshmallowy sculptures. This festive ambiance sets the perfect stage for creating something truly special: an edible gingerbread cookie wreath.
There’s nothing quite like the comfort of being indoors, sipping a mug of hot cocoa, and sharing laughter with friends while baking up a storm. This year, we continued our delightful tradition with our third annual Christmas Baking Bonanza. Our previous culinary adventures included a spectacular German-flavored Bûche De Noël, and last year, we indulged in decadent holiday trifles, with my gingerbread Lebkuchen Trifle being a particular hit. These moments are not just about the food; they’re about creating lasting memories and enjoying the festive spirit together.
This year, we decided to embark on the enchanting project of crafting a gingerbread cookie wreath. Imagine beautifully iced and sparkling gingerbread cookies, carefully “glued” together to form a festive circle. This edible creation serves as a truly showstopping Christmas decoration or an elegant table centerpiece. Not only is it a feast for the eyes, filling your home with the delightful aroma of holiday spices, but it can also be gently pulled apart and enjoyed as a sweet cookie treat or a charming dessert. Alternatively, this gorgeous cookie wreath can simply hang throughout the holiday season, adding a warm, welcoming touch to your festive decor.
To personalize your cookie wreath, select a variety of themed cookie cutter shapes in different sizes. I’ve found that collecting snowflake shapes, often from thrift stores, offers a wonderful assortment. However, stars, gingerbread men, bells, hearts, Christmas trees, or even a mix-and-match of several different shapes would all work beautifully. Don’t worry if you don’t have an extensive collection of cutters; you can easily cut out shapes by hand using a small, pointy-tipped knife, allowing for even more unique designs.
Crafting Your Delicious Gingerbread Cookies
The foundation of your edible masterpiece begins with a perfect gingerbread dough. Preparing the dough is made effortless with a stand mixer, which quickly combines ingredients into a smooth, pliable mixture. A crucial step for achieving perfect cookies that hold their shape is chilling the dough. You’ll need to chill it for at least an hour, or up to 24 hours. This firms up the dough, making it much easier to roll out without sticking or tearing. Divide the prepared dough into two equal balls, flatten each into a disc about 1-inch (2.5cm) thick, and wrap them tightly in plastic food wrap or parchment paper before refrigerating. This chilling process is key to preventing your cookies from spreading too much during baking, ensuring your intricate shapes remain defined.
Shaping the Foundation: Rolling the Dough for Your Cookie Wreath
Once your dough is perfectly chilled, it’s time to create the base for your magnificent wreath. Take one of the dough discs and roll it out evenly between two sheets of parchment paper. This technique prevents sticking and ensures a consistent thickness of about ¼-inch (.6 cm). If you prefer, you can roll it on a lightly floured surface and then carefully transfer it to parchment paper. Next, find a large bowl or round platter, approximately 11-12 inches (28-30 cm) in diameter. Invert it onto the rolled-out dough and use a knife to carefully cut around its perimeter, forming the outer edge of your cookie wreath base. For the inner edge, select a smaller bowl or plate, about 6-7 inches (15-18 cm) in diameter, and use it to cut the inside circle. Your goal is for the wreath to be 4-5 inches (10-12 cm) wide. For instance, I successfully used an 11-inch bowl for the outer cut and a 7-inch bowl for the inner cut, achieving ideal proportions.
Carefully slide the cookie wreath base, still on its parchment paper, onto a rimless baking sheet or the back of an upturned cookie sheet. This makes transferring it to and from the oven much easier. Bake it until it’s lightly golden at the edges, then allow it to cool completely. While the base bakes, roll out the second disc of dough. Use your chosen cookie cutters to create as many festive shapes as possible. Remember to gather the dough scraps from both discs and reroll them, continuing to cut out cookies until all the dough is used. This maximizes your yield and ensures plenty of beautiful cookies for decorating and assembling your wreath, with some extra to enjoy!
Whipping Up the Perfect Royal Icing
Royal icing is the magical component that transforms your gingerbread cookies into sparkling, snow-dusted decorations. This simple mixture of egg whites and icing sugar (powdered sugar) not only provides a brilliant white “snow” effect but also acts as the essential “glue” to secure your decorated cookies to the wreath base. The key to perfect royal icing lies in achieving the right consistency, which may require a little finesse, especially if it’s your first time working with it.
Begin by whisking an egg white with powdered sugar until smooth. Then, gradually add fresh lemon juice, a tiny amount at a time, until you reach the desired consistency. You’re aiming for icing that is thick enough to hold its shape when piped, creating crisp lines and details, yet fluid enough to flow smoothly from a piping bag or squeeze bottle fitted with a small, round tip. This step often requires a bit of trial and error. If the icing is too thick, add a few more drops of lemon juice; if it’s too thin and spreads, carefully mix in a little more powdered sugar. After a bit of practice, you’ll intuitively understand the perfect balance needed for precise and beautiful decorations.
Once your royal icing reaches the perfect consistency, carefully scoop it into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip. Alternatively, a squeeze bottle with a fine hole works wonderfully for precise lines. If you don’t have specialized tools, a heavy-duty zip-top bag with a tiny corner snipped off can serve as a makeshift piping bag. Remember to keep any unused icing covered with a damp cloth or plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out, as royal icing hardens quickly when exposed to air.
Unleashing Creativity: Decorating Your Gingerbread Cookies
With your gingerbread cookies baked to perfection and the royal icing ready, the real fun begins: decorating! This is where you can let your imagination soar and infuse each cookie with unique holiday spirit. Go wild piping intricate designs, delicate fine lines, charming dots, and playful squiggles onto your cookies. The beauty of royal icing is its versatility; you can outline shapes, flood areas for a smooth finish, or create textured patterns.
To add extra sparkle and festive cheer, immediately after piping, adorn your cookies with an array of edible embellishments. Consider colorful sprinkles, shimmering edible glitter, tiny candy beads, sparkling sanding sugar, or crunchy crushed candy canes. Each addition contributes to the visual appeal and makes your cookie wreath truly stand out. Remember to work swiftly as royal icing begins to set relatively quickly. Once decorated, carefully place your cookies on a flat surface and allow the icing to harden completely. This ensures your beautiful designs won’t smudge when you assemble the wreath.
Bringing It All Together: Assembling Your Edible Cookie Wreath
Now comes the exciting part: assembling your cookie wreath! If you plan to hang your beautiful creation and have concerns about its stability, a clever trick is to add a cardboard reinforcement. Cut a cardboard circle slightly smaller than your baked cookie wreath base. Then, using small dabs of royal icing, “glue” the cardboard to the back of the wreath. This simple addition significantly reinforces the structure, making it sturdy enough to hang securely. When it’s time to enjoy your edible wreath, the cardboard can be easily removed by carefully sliding a butter knife between the cardboard and the cookie base.
If you intend to hang the wreath, now is the time to incorporate a brightly colored decorative ribbon. Position the ribbon and secure it to the cookie wreath base with a few dabs of royal icing. Next, strategically place some of your larger decorated cookies onto the wreath base. Take your time to arrange them until you are satisfied with their placement, then lift each one, apply a dab of royal icing to its back, and firmly press it back into its chosen spot. The royal icing will set to create a strong bond.
Continue this process with the remaining cookies, experimenting with different arrangements and layering them to create depth and visual interest. Don’t be afraid to overlap cookies slightly to achieve a lush, full appearance. Once you are pleased with the overall design, secure each cookie with royal icing on its back. It is absolutely essential to leave the assembled cookie wreath flat on a surface until the royal icing has completely hardened and dried. For best results and maximum stability, allow it to dry overnight. This patience ensures that your masterpiece will hold together beautifully whether you choose to hang it on a door to welcome guests or display it as a stunning table centerpiece. For an extra special touch when using it as a centerpiece, consider placing a pillar candle in the middle, perhaps surrounded by a bit of complementary ribbon or fresh greenery.
Double the Joy: Our Wreaths and a Day of Festive Fun
Our Christmas Baking Day was filled with immense fun, creativity, and the delicious aroma of gingerbread! It was truly a joy to spend time with friends, sharing techniques and celebrating the festive season through baking. Don’t forget to visit Nicoletta and Loreto’s wonderful blog, SugarLoveSpices, where you can find their unique recipe for an enchanting Angel Cookie Wreath. They utilized a different recipe and a slightly varied technique, offering another fantastic approach to this edible holiday craft. Be sure to check out their site for more beautiful photos of our collaborative project and to see their angelic creation!
We were incredibly chuffed with our finished wreaths – the results truly speak for themselves. The intricate designs, sparkling icing, and aromatic gingerbread create a visual and sensory delight that perfectly embodies the spirit of the holidays. Our hope is that these beautiful wreaths will last throughout the festive season, standing proudly as charming decorations, untouched by any mischievous cookie elves! This project is a wonderful way to add a personal, homemade touch to your holiday decorations and create cherished memories with loved ones.
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Guten Appetit!
Gingerbread Cookie Wreath
Margaret Bose Johnson
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1 hour
30 minutes
1 hour
2 hours
30 minutes
Baking
American, Canadian
12
Ingredients
Gingerbread Cookies
- ¾ cup (170 g/1½ sticks) salted butter
- 1 cup (200 g) brown sugar, firmly packed
- ¾ cup (245 g) fancy molasses (or half blackstrap molasses and half maple syrup, corn syrup, or honey)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons powdered ginger
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom optional
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves optional
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 5-5¼ cups (650-680 g) gluten-free flour blend (or regular flour for non gluten-free)
Royal Icing
- 1 large egg white (or the equivalent in pasteurized liquid egg whites or powdered egg albumen + water)
- 1½ cups (200 g) icing sugar (powdered sugar/confectioner’s sugar)
- 1-2 teaspoons lemon juice
For the Cookie Wreath:
- optional: sprinkles, edible glitter, candy beads, sanding sugar, or crushed candy canes
- a decorative ribbon if you plan to hang the wreath
Instructions
- Beat the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth and fluffy.
- Add the molasses, eggs, and spices and beat until smooth.
- Beat in 5 cups (650 g) of the flour. Scrape the dough onto the counter and knead it lightly by hand, adding in the last ¼ cup (30 g) of flour, if needed, to make a soft dough that comes together in a ball, with the consistency of playdough.
- Divide the dough into two balls, flatten them to discs about 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick. Wrap each disc in plastic food wrap or parchment paper and chill them for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours.
To Bake the Cookies:
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃).
- Roll out one dough disc between parchment paper sheets to ¼-inch (.6 cm) thick (or roll it on the counter and then transfer it to a sheet of parchment paper). Remove the top layer of parchment paper, if you used it.
- Use a bowl or round platter 11-12 inches (28-30 cm) in diameter. Invert it onto the dough and cut around it to make the outside edge of the cookie wreath base. Find another bowl or plate that is 6-7 inches (15-18 cm) in diameter and use it to cut around to make the inside edge of the wreath. Aim for the wreath to be 4-5 inches (10-12 cm) wide.
- Slide the cookie wreath, with the parchment paper underneath it, onto a rimless baking sheet or onto the back of an upturned cookie sheet and bake it for about 14 minutes, or until it is very lightly browned at the edges.
Remove the cookie wreath base from the oven and allow it to cool in the pan. Then gently move it to a large baking sheet or tray.
- Roll out the second disc of dough and cut out as many cookies as you can, in whatever shapes you choose for your wreath. You will also have a few extra cookies to enjoy. Reroll the scraps from both discs and keep cutting until you’ve used up all the dough. Lay the cookies onto ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheets ½-1-inch (1-2 cm) apart. Try to keep cookies of the same size on each baking sheet, so the baking time is the same for all cookies on that pan.
- Bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on their size, until they are very lightly browned at the edges. Remove to wire racks and allow them to cool completely.
Make the Royal Icing:
- Stir together the icing sugar and egg white until smooth. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, stir again. Keep adding more lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon at a time, until the consistency of the icing is thin enough to flow out through a piping bag nozzle but thick enough to hold its shape and not spread when piped. If you’ve never worked with royal icing, this may take a bit of juggling until you get the feel of how you need it to be, and you may have to make a few practice lines on parchment paper or a plate. If the icing needs adjusting, scrape it back into the bowl and add more lemon juice or more icing sugar, small amounts at a time.
- Scrape the royal icing into a piping bag fitted with a small round-hole tip or into a squeeze bottle with a fine tip. If you have none of these, you can scoop the icing into a heavy-duty zip-top bag, cut a very tiny tip off one corner, and use that as a piping bag.
Assemble the Cookie Wreath:
- If you plan to hang your cookie wreath and are not sure it’s stable enough, you can cut out a cardboard circle slightly smaller than the large cookie circle and ‘glue’ it to the back of the wreath with dabs of royal icing. This will reinforce it enough to hang, but when you want to consume the wreath, the cardboard can still be easily popped off by sliding a butter knife between the cardboard and the cookie.
- Decorate the cookies by piping the royal icing in fine lines, dots, and squiggles onto the cookies. Add sprinkles, edible glitter, candy beads, sanding sugar, or crushed candy canes. Leave them lying flat until the icing has hardened and dried.
- If using a decorative ribbon, add it first and attach it to the cookie wreath with dabs of royal icing. Then place a few of the larger cookies onto the wreath. When you are happy with their placement, ‘glue’ them in place with royal icing.
- Play with the remaining cookies, moving them to different places on the wreath to see where they fit best. Once it looks good, lift the cookies and dab the backs with royal icing and place them back into their spots. Leave the cookie wreath flat until the icing is completely hard and dry – overnight is best – before hanging it.
Notes
*You can hang your wreath or set it out as a table centerpiece (a pillar candle set in the center with a bit of ribbon or greenery around its base makes it look extra special).
*This recipe makes more than enough cookies to fill the cookie wreath base. Decorate the extras to enjoy separately. To turn some of them into tree ornaments, use a drinking straw to punch out a small hole at the top of the cookies before they are baked. Then bake them, decorate them with royal icing, and thread a thin ribbon or string through the hole to hang them.
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