Disposable piping bags or regular piping bags with #2 tip and couplers
Gingerbread man cookie cutter
Wet paper towels
Ingredients
12Gingerbread Cookiescut into gingerbread men, baked and cooled
¼cupbrown royal icing
½cupwhite royal icing
¼cupblack royal icing
¼cupred royal icing
3Tablespoonspink royal icing
Instructions
Bake gingerbread cookies according to directions using boxed cookie mix or homemade gingerbread dough. Allow them to cool before decorating. While the cookies are cooling, you can set up your piping bags with royal icing to have everything ready for decorating.
Once cooled, begin by turning the gingerbread cookie upside-down so the gingerbread man's head is turned towards you. Start by piping a fluffy and thick white circle near one of the arms to create the first eye. Set aside and let it dry for 15 to 20 minutes before icing the other eye.
Once the first eye is dry, pipe the second eye the same way. Making sure not to touch the eyes, you can also pipe on the large red nose with a drop of white for a shine (optional). Allow it to dry for another 15 to 20 minutes. Piping them separately this way will ensure you have two defined eyes on your reindeer cookies.
On the arms, fill in brown sections for the ears. Let them dry for 15 to 20 minutes before piping in the pink centers. In the meantime, draw on the antlers from the tops of the eyes to the tops of the cookie. Add black dots to the centers of the eyes.
Let the cookies dry completely before serving; for best results, 6-8 hours. This can be done at room temperature. Enjoy!
Notes
If you're making a lot of cookies and decorating with kids, you can make royal icing transfers by piping the icing decorations first onto parchment paper and letting them dry. Dry them the day before, then transfer onto the cookies by using dots of icing to "glue" them in place.
Royal icing takes time to dry. If it's humid or raining when you make the cookies, you will need to give them extra time to dry - up to 12 hours.