Gingerbread people dress up cookie party

This year instead of slaving over a gingerbread house we made gingerbread people dress up cookies. It was fun, easy and I could let the kids eat one (or two) straight away without the stress of breaking up the whole house.

I baked up a big batch of gingerbread men and women (Cookie recipe here).

Then I quickly cut out some fondant clothes using the cookie cutter and the kids got to stick them onto the cookies with royal icing like a dress up toy.

I made sure there were stacks of clothes with different colors and accessories for the kids to choose from. Kids are amazing and see the world differently. I think it might be lovely to see the world with flower eyes :)

Oh my goodness my kids truly love this type of cookie decorating, just love it!

The Destroyer (being a creator), Bubble and I, Sweet and Bubble

Plus perfect for Christmas, well actually my kids want me to say it's perfect for any time ;)

The hardest part of all of this was coming up with a ginger cookie recipe that didn't spread too much (otherwise the fondant clothes would be too small for the cookies). But I spent 2 weeks testing my own recipe so y'all don't have to worry about that, just click on the link in the instructions below.

I made some little mini lollipops and candy canes as well, the kids thought they were super cool.

Note - I have in the past made similar dress up cookies for my daughter's birthday party - but these gingerbread ones are way, way, way easier - trust me. You can check out the original 'paper doll dress up cookie' inspiration HERE:

These are the original dress up doll cookies I made CLICK HERE to see details

Gingerbread people dress up cookies
Make the fondant/sugar clothes as per the instructions below. Once the clothes have set and become hard enough to pick up you can let the kids decorate the cookies by squeezing royal icing onto the cookie and sticking the clothes in place. They can also add gingerbread faces and other decorations as they like.

EDIT update: I've recorded an easy to follow youtube video tutorial here as well:


Gingerbread men and women cookies (Click here for Gingerbread cookie recipe)
Gingerbread men and women cookie cutters
Fondant various colours
Cornflour (cornstarch)
small rolling pin
sharp knife
frilling tool (can use toothpick instead)
Royal Icing (for final assembly)

Line a tray with parchment/ baking paper.

Gingerbread men fondant/sugar clothes
Roll out the fondant onto a workbench dusted with cornflour (cornstarch). Use the gingerbread man cutter to cut out shape and then the sharp knife to cut out the top and shorts (see picture below). If you like you can adhere shapes like a star onto the fondant cut outs. Place cut outs onto the tray lined with paper to dry overnight.

For striped shirt, cut out thin strips of fondant and press onto a contrasting color fondant with the rolling pin, then cut out shapes with cutter as described above. I added a thin strip of vertical fondant on the sleeve edge.

Gingerbread women fondant/ sugar clothes

Roll out the fondant onto a workbench dusted with cornflour (cornstarch). Use the gingerbread woman cutter to cut out shape and then the sharp knife to cut out the top and skirts (see picture below). Place clothes on paper lined tray to dry.

If you like you can make the skirts and edge of the top ruffled by using the frilling tool, press down on the fondant and gently roll back and forth. I also added a thin strip of contrasting color fondant to the sleeve edge of some tops before pressing down with the fondant tool.

You can also cut a second strip to make a 'pettiskirt' underneath, just use the frilling tool to roll back and forth and then stick it underneath the top skirt, you might need to add a small amount of water to adhere the 2 skirts together.

 To make a lace pattern on the edge use the sharp edge of the frilling tool (or a toothpick) to dot holes (see picture below for example).

Accessories

To make a lollipop you will need fondant in 4 different colours and a small length of spaghetti. Roll each colour of fondant into a long thin strip and the twist the fondant together. Starting in the middle wrap the twisted fondant around in a spiral to look like a lollipop. Push the spaghetti into the fondant lollipop disk.

 

The example in this picture only uses 2 colours and is bigger but same concept

 Small flowers pressed out of fondant make great accessories, I used a small ejector cutter.

Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author

Original Ideas, photography and recipes by Linda Vandermeer do not reuse without permission.

Pink Paper Doll Princess Party - Sophie's 5th Birthday Party

When I asked Sophie what type of party she wanted this year she told me Barbie......then the next week it was Zhu Zhu pet, and then the next week it was Barbie AND Zhu Zhu pet. I racked my brain which was spinning from all the changes wondering what I was going to be able to come up when I realised that Sophie didn't really want a Barbie party or a Zhu Zhu party, what Sophie wanted was presents....lots and lots of Barbie and Zhu Zhu presents. Really she was kinda relaxed about the whole thing as long as there were friends, presents and cake ;)

Photo of Sophie by Naomi V Photography for Princess Ratbag

Phew, ok with that little issue sorted I still needed a theme. I was looking at some photo's of Sophie where the stylist Candice from Princess Ratbag had pinned up her super long hair and made her look like a little vintage doll and then I remembered a cookie idea that I had floating around for over a year and the theme just worked itself out.

Paper Doll Sugar Cookie

Decorating the Sophie Paper Doll Cookies - see the clothes are stiff and easy to handle

Yup that's right I wanted to make sugar cookies and then fondant clothes that the kids REALLY dressed up the dolls with using royal icing to adhere the edible fondant clothes to the sugar cookie doll. If you follow my blog you might have already seen the photo's of the cookies - the kids had a super time. The tutorial on how to make these super sweet cookies is HERE. Sophie can spend hours dressing up her dolls and I thought it could be a theme we would both love.

Some examples of the cookies the girls made up

I had a custom picture drawn up of the birthday girl made to look like a paper doll by Karen McCubbin. Isn't it the most adorable thing - Sophie LOVED that it was a picture especially of her! By taking a copy of the hand drawn picture I was able to use it as a template for the cookies.

Custom Paper Doll and clothes of the Birthday Girl by Karen McCubbin (details below)

Jordan from Polkadot Prints made up the sweetest pink and white polka dot invitations using the hand drawn picture of Sophie, and then cause she's super talented she made up matching thank you tags and dessert table labels as well!

Invitation by Polkadot Prints

The custom picture was great as I used it for quite a few other things. Each guest received a copy as take home favors and I also used the paper doll clothes to make a DIY bunting garland to top the buttercream pink ombre cake.

Homemade Paper Doll Dress up cake garland

The pink ombre (graduated pink) cake was frosted with Italian Meringue Buttercream. Inside the cake was strawberry butter cake with white chocolate mud cake polka dots which was inspired by an amazing cake on snowy bliss ( click here).... mine needs a little work as the mudcake balls are quite heavy I think they need to be popped in over a layer of batter.

Pink Polka Dot Cake

 I have already posted a tutorial on how  I did the ombre frosting on the outside Click Here

Pink Ombre frosted cake

We also had princess sprinkle macarons and polka dot milk. I tried to come up with fun names for all the party treats to work in with the theme.

The rim around the top of my the polka dot milk was inspired by a picture on pintrest of dark chocolate dipped rim in hundreds and thousands (rainbow non pariels). I just changed the idea to work in with my color theme. Then it was just strawberry milk with floating marshmallows 'polka dots'.

Oh and of course we had lollies (candy)....pink musk sticks, pink and white M&M's and Pink Princess Delight (strawberry bon bons from Sharnel Dollar Designs)

and Ah Tissue made up these Ah-mazing ombre tissue paper pom poms.

Apart from the cookie decorating we also had musical statues, bubble blowing and my kids always ask for pass the parcel. I'm not a huge fan of wrapping up layers and layers of paper 'cause we always stick some kind of prize in each layer and at the end it is huge, then it's just a big 'ole ball of paper to throw away. This time instead of wrapping up layers of paper for pass the parcel, I popped gifts into brown paper bags and wrote a task for each child to perform onto the front of the bag. When the music stopped the child reached into the basket pulled out a bag and had to perform the task to get the gift. I made sure they were age appropriate tasks like singing a song or doing the hokey pokey, the kids thought it was lots of fun.

and a special thank you to my lovely friend Jo who came over earlier in the day to hang all the poms for me as I couldn't reach up due to my recent surgery. Thanks so much Jo Xx

Party Menu

Pink Polka Dot Cake (click here for frosting tutorial)
Princess Sprinkle Macarons
Sophie Doll Cookies (click here for the tutorial)
Fresh Strawberries

Sherbert Icecreams
Musk Sticks
Strawberry Bon Bons
Pink and White M&M's

Fabulous Party Suppliers

The party sweets were made by me Bubble and Sweet  ( http://bubbleandsweet.blogspot.com/ )
Party invitations, thank you cards and dessert labels by Polkadot Prints ( http://www.polkadotprints.com.au/store/pc/home.asp )
Tissue Pom Poms by Ah Tissue ( http://www.ah-tissue.com.au/ )
Cake and bon bon Stands, polka dot straws and strawberry bon bons (princess delights) Sharnel Dollar Designs ( http://www.sharneldollardesigns.com.au/store/pc/home.asp )
Custom Paper Doll drawing by Karen McCubbin ( darkar1(at)optusnet(dot)com(dot)au)
Party Inspiration photo of Sophie by Naomi V Photography ( http://www.naomivphotography.com.au/ ) for Princess Ratbag ( http://www.princessratbag.com/store/pc/home.asp )
Pink and White polka dot treat boxes from Mon Tresor
Flowers from Perrotts florist Brisbane ( http://www.perrotts.com.au/ )
Most of the party pictures are by Terri Vandermeer

Flowers from Perrotts,  bon bon stand from Sharnel Dollar Designs

Just in case you haven't heard I have a book coming out in December called Sweets on a Stick - it's full of fun and easy recipes to make with your kids. Here's a link to Sweets on a Stick on Amazon.

Halloween dress up paper doll cookies

Ghost and Witch Sophie Dolls 

Just a bit of fun I had with the left over doll cookies from Sophie's paper doll party.

Pumpkin Sophie Doll Dress up cookie

I thought it would be cute to dress them up for Halloween...

Oh and this last one is supposed to be Lady Gaga, pretty much I just left the doll in it's underwear and stuck on a ruffle, glove, mask and boots. I'm sure the real costume had a lot more to it (hehe).

Sophie is so totally NOT wearing a costume like this out :) But I'm cool with cookie Sophie wearing it.

See my previous post on how to make the Dress Up Doll cookies. I just hand cut all the Halloween costumes.

Build a Boat - sail boat and pirate ship cookies for Kids to decorate themselves

Build a boat cookies with edible fondant cut outs like a jigsaw that the kids can decorate themselves.They are so simple to make. If you can roll out fondant and use a cookie cutter pretty much you'll have these down pat.

My just turned 3 year old completely decorated this cookie below on his own. OK, granted that's not the normal spot for an anchor or flag, but I'm no ship building engineer so perhaps this design would totally work in real life ;)

Look how serious he is about it. He had already watched the girls make their cookies so he knew exactly what was going on.

and don't even think about trying to help him squeeze out the icing.

Yup all on his own and so proud of it - I think it made the cookie taste even better to him.

These boats were the cookies I made for the boys to decorate at Sophie's birthday party. In case you didn't see the previous post the girls got cookie paper dolls with edible fondant clothing so they could dress up the dolls for real.

Instructions

Make the fondant 'build a boat' pieces a couple of days in advance to allow time to set hard so that it will be easy for the kids to pick up.Roll out the fondant on a workbench dusted with cornflour (cornstarch), until a couple of millimeters (1/8") thick.

 Use the boat cookie cutter to cut out a boat shape and then use a sharp knife to cut out sails and the boat hull so you end up with 3 pieces. I used my knife to draw a couple of shallow lines in the hull to look like wood and then a toothpick to pop in some nail marks.

Once you have the sails and hull sorted you can cut some triangles from the fondant offcuts to make little flags. Place fondant boat pieces on a tray covered with parchment paper to set for at least one day or more if the weather is humid.

I also made some little boat decorations by hand, I shaped some yellow fondant to make little anchors by pinching the fondant into shape and some life buoys by rolling white and red fondant together and shaping it into a little O.

To make the pirate flag I cut out a rectangle and shaped little teensy skull and crossbones.....but while I was doing it I was thinking it might be easier to cut out a white flag and draw a black skull and crossbones on with edible pen.

Once you have the fondant boat pieces ready and they have set for a day or so bake up a batch of boat cookies and allow to cool.

Mix up some royal icing and put into piping bags or ziplock bags with a tiny hole cut from the corner.

and then finally allow kids to squeeze royal icing onto the cookie boat and then stick on boat sections to decorate as they like.

We also added some blue and white sugar confetti to the boat hulls in some to look like little portholes.

- if you haven't already seen the pics you must have a look at the paper doll dress up cookies I created for the girls they were a huge hit. Click Here for the link.

Sophie Doll Cookies - Paper Doll Princess Cookie and Fondant Dress Up Tutorial

Yup these are cookie dolls that you get to dress up with fondant clothes like paper dolls - for Real!

When I was a little girl I used to love paperdoll dress ups, they were so much fun all the incy little paper doll clothes and the pretty little dolls. So when I had my 2 girls I of course bought them some. Suddenly I did not love them so much. All those incredibly cute little paper doll bits of clothing  were all over the house, and as the girls (plus my little destroyer as well) both love craft it was really hard to tell what were bits of scrap and what was precious little bits of doll clothing.

Dessert Table Tag from Polkadot Prints

So I came up with a yummy solution. Edible sugar cookie dolls with hand cut fondant dress ups you can stick on with icing. It's perfect the kids won't be leaving bits and pieces all around the place 'cause it'll all be in their tummy.

Photo by Terri Vandermeer dress by Chicoco

I made these super cute cookies up to look like my daughter Sophie (well kinda) to serve at her Birthday Party, it was part of the party activites, all the kids got to decorate a couple and then take them home as treats.

Photo by Terri Vandermeer

I'm calling it a huge hit.

Photo by Terri Vandermeer

Some of you might be wondering what's going on with the whole Princess titile. I know that there are no actual princess crowns on these dolls, the princess in the cookie name comes from Princess Ratbag a clothing designer/shop who styled a photo shoot that inspired Sophie's party and these cookies. Click here to check out the photo inspiration.

Photo by Terri Vandermeer

If you want to make actual princess paperdoll cookies go ahead and make some little tiara's as well, or you could pipe them directly onto the cookies.

The recipes I used for these cookies and the royal icing are from my book Sweets on a Stick: over 150 kid friendly recipes presently available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The Book Depository (UK- free postage worldwide) and Fishpond (free postage Aust/NZ).....and many other stores.



There are quite a few cookie decorating ideas in the book that you could do with your kids that are way less detailed and way easier than this but just as fun. Remember the book is kid friendly so the stuff in the book will be stuff the kids can actually make themselves not this stylized and difficult.

Square footed bon bon dish available from Sharnel Dollar Designs

Sophie Doll - Paper Doll Dress Up Cookie Tutorial 
The paper doll template was custom designed by Karen McCubbin she'll be popping up an etsy store soon but in the meantime if you need to contact her you can email the Bubble and Sweet hotmail address.

Or you know - you can just make your own :)

Ingredients and equipment

cookie dough (I used the recipe from Sweets on a Stick but I also have another one here)
Doll template
royal icing
Food Color (Wilton Pink (Rose Clair), sky blue, white; Americolor Copper (fleshtone); Sugarflair dark brown)
Dusting Powder pink
Black edible pen
Rolling Pin large wooden
Piping bag and tips (#2)
Sharp Knife
Brushes (4 different)

Make cookie dough and roll out quite thinly on a workbench dusted with cornflour, about 1/2cm. Place the template onto the dough and using a sharpe knife cut around the template carefully. Remove all the excess dough and if necessary smooth the edges of the cookie dough doll. Place the cookie cut out doll onto a parchment/baking paper lined tray. Bake until golden and allow to cool.

Using the doll template cut out the hair and draw around where you will be piping the hairline with an edible pen (or other non toxic drawing implement) as per picture, also draw on the underwear and the shoes.

Mix up a batch of royal icing and color some skin tone, some white (I add white color to the already white icing as it makes a difference) and some brown. Place the royal icing into piping bags ensuring that you keep the tips covered so they do not dry out and clog up. Check out Sweetopia for piping tips.

Pipe the brown hair on each doll and flood and the pipe the underwear and shoes and flood. Allow to dry and then pipe on the skin. Leave dolls to set for at least 24 hours.

Using an edible pen draw on the face outline features. Practice with a normal pen on some paper until you get the hang of it. Once the faces are complete draw in a belly button and lines at the knees.

On a plate place a few drops of white food color, some pink and some sky blue. Mix the pink and blue with some extra white until you have a nice bright color suitable for painting eyes and lips.

 Using 000 or 00 paintbrush carefully fill in the face you have drawn by painting the eyes and lips with the food color.

Allow to dry and store in airtight containers until ready to use.

I made my cookies 1 week before the party which gave me a couple of days to decorate with royal icing. If you make sure everything is really clean they should easily last this long in airtight containers (or even longer).

Fondant Dress Up Clothes

Ingredients and Equipment
ready to roll fondant (I used Bakels)

Food Color(Wilton sky blue, moss green; Americolor electric purple; Sugarflair dusky pink/wine)
Clothing Template
Rolling pin - small plastic
Frilling tool (I used this one click here)
sharpe knife
brush and small bowl water
Piping bag and tips (#2) with a little royal icing

Before I start I wrote down approximately how many of each type of clothing in each color that I wanted to make. This should be a guide to how much fondant in each color you will need.

Color fondant with the colors until you have achieved the desired color. The light pink and darker burgandy are the same food color just using more for the darker color, that is the same for most of the colors.

Use the templates to cut out the clothing and the filling tool to add texture, place on a tray lined with parchment paper and allow to air dry for a day or until stiff.  Here are some examples of the clothing I made.

Simple top, cut out shape and use the large edge of the frilling tool on the sleeves to look like ruffles. Embelish with flowers (see below) or make a necklace of royal icing dots by gently touching the piping bag to the fondant and leaving a really tiny dot of the icing there. My icing was not stiff it was flood consistency, if your icing is stiff and peaky you can moisten your finger with a little water and gently smooth down the point. I always do a couple of practice runs on the bench or some spare parchment/baking paper first.

Pettiskirt, cut out 2 skirt shapes and trim one to make it shorter. Use the thinner edge of the frilling tool to make ruffled skirt by gently rolling it back and forth.

Adhere the shorter skirt to the longer skirt with a tiny amount of water and using the thin edge of the frilling tool to lift the skirt up in sections and make it look fuller.

Shorts cut out shape using template, place a contrast color onto the very edge of the short and then use the large edge of the frilling tool to make 'ruffles' on the short legs. Leggings were made the same way.

Dress cut out the shape using the template and using the thin edge of the ruffle tool roll back and forth to make the skirt look fuller. Cut out a smaller skirt in a contrasting color using the template and ruffle with the ruffling tool. Adhere the shorter skirt to the dress with a little water. Decorate the 'top' of the dress with some flowers or royal icing dots.

'Fabric' flowers - roll the fondant into a very thin log working quickly and use the end of the ruffle tool to start off a coil, continue to wrap the fondant around until you have a small flower shape, quickly press and edible silver ball in the center. If you work quickly you will not need anything else to stick the ball. If necessary use a little royal icing in the center of the flower to adhere the silver ball.

Assembly

Use Royal Icing to adhere the fondant dress-ups to the cookies and have stacks of Fun!