Gingerbread, Gingerbread, Ginger All the Way

There are many things that only come out around the holidays, like candy canes and egg nog to name a few, but today we are focusing on Gingerbread, because who doesn’t love those little gingerbread men, or their very festive candy coated houses? We’ve gathered some recipes and ideas for you on how to include this seasonal item into your holiday this year. We have desserts, snacks, drinks, ornaments, and even a gift idea, so read on to find out more.

Ice Cream Gingerbread Men Sandwiches
source Taste of Home Perhaps one of the cleverest uses for gingerbread men cookies that I have come across is making them into this frozen dessert. I bet you could even decorate the top cookie too. Fill with any ice cream flavor you want, so gingerbread, egg nog, candy cane, peppermint, vanilla, chocolate, the flavors are endless.
Snowman Gingerbread Men Cookies
source Created by Diane So this one is really just an alternate way of decorating the cookies. If you want your gingerbread men to really stand out from all the other gingerbread men, make him a snow man. You can still add more decorations to make him more festive too, like candy buttons, colored icing mittens and boots.
Gingerbread Cupcakes
source STL Cooks This is a recipe for making gingerbread flavored cupcakes with a gingerbread cream cheese frosting, yum. You’ll need to find a recipe to make your own gingerbread cookies for the little gingerbread men decoration, or buy them. You can frost them how ever you like best, but I think the little gingerbread man cookie really makes the cupcake.
Gingerbread Popcorn
source The 36th Avenue I think popcorn is sort of a seasonal thing too, like popcorn garland. Well this is a recipe for making gingerbread popcorn, its fairly similar to making caramel corn, but with gingerbread spices and its pretty quick to make. It’ll make a great holiday snack, and can even be mixed into the chex mix found below.
Gingerbread Chex Mix
source Unsophisticook Again this is a quick snack to mix up, fairly similar to other Chex Party mix recipes so if you’ve made those before you’ll have no problem making this version. As I mentioned above you can even mix in some gingerbread popcorn, they even have gingerbread flavored M&M’s that you can mix in if you want.
Gingerbread Hot Cocoa
source The Hopeless Housewife So we’ve covered Gingerbread desserts, Gingerbread snacks, it only makes sense to showcase some Gingerbread drinks and we start off with the Gingerbread Hot Cocoa. The recipe is fairy simple, typical cocoa add ins and of course top it off with whipped cream and a tiny gingerbread man. You can add a swirl of caramel if you would like, I think gingerbread and caramel flavors go well with each other.
Gingerbread Coffee
source Kristine’s Kitchen So we did hot cocoa so naturally the next step is coffee. Like in the fall everything is Pumpkin Spice this or that, I think winter can totally be Gingerbread, but we’ll just cover straight gingerbread coffee. So you start with plain ground coffee and add in four spices: cinnamon, ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg, and there you go gingerbread coffee. Then make you coffee the way you usually do, top your cup off with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.
Gingerbread Smoothie
source Peanut Butter & Peppers If hot drinks aren’t really your thing you can try this Gingerbread smoothy, you use your typical gingerbread ingredients, with the addition of milk, ice and a frozen banana so you even get a little fruit too. As with the other gingerbread beverages top it off with some whipped cream a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar and a little gingerbread man cookie.
Preserve Gingerbread Cookies for Decorations
source Decor CharmYou can follow the gingerbread man recipe on the site or use your own. Once you have your baked gingerbread men cookies, let them dry completely for 3 days. Then you can preserve them by applying 3 coats of clear varnish, let each coat dry completely before applying the next. Once the varnish has dried your cookies are now not edible, can be used as ornaments and in garlands like pictured, by using a wide straw to cut out parallel holes in the cookies before baking and then stringing together on a ribbon.
Whipped Gingerbread Sugar Scrub
source Sugar & Soul To wrap up our gingerbread themed post we found something that can be made and given as a gift or stocking stuffer. Its fairly easy to make, you mix together two kinds of sugar, coconut oil, vanilla extract and gingerbread spices, then contain it in a jar of your choice, tie a festive ribbon, attach a tag or a sticker label and you have yourself a sweet smelling gift.