How to Make a Gingerbread Man & Hot Cocoa Cookie Platter

After posting the new gingerbread cookie recipe last week, it only made sense to follow it up with a gingerbread-themed cookie design.

This new gingerbread & hot cocoa cookie platter set combines two of my favorite things I love around Christmas-- gingerbread cookies and cups of hot cocoa. When paired together, these two designs make an adorable cookie platter that your guests will surely gush over. Here are the steps on how to recreate this platter for your own holiday party.

Gingerbread Man and Hot Cocoa Platter Cookie Cutters

The cookie cutters used for this tutorial are the gingerbread man, the hot cocoa mug, and a center circle cutter.

You can purchase cookie cutters together as a set of three, or as individual pieces if you would like to mix and match your own combinations.

(This is the same circle cutter used in all my platter sets, like this Snowflake set, Spiral Platter, and Floral Wreath, etc.)

There are two sizes available. When arranged as a platter, as shown in the example picture, the platter measures:

LARGE- 12 inches in diameter.

SMALL- 9 inches in diameter.

For this tutorial, I'll be decorating the large size.

Template for the Gingerbread Man & Hot Cocoa Platter Cookie Set

To make the decorating process a little easier, I made a PDF template of the new Christmas platter designs as a guideline.

You can download PDF cookie design templates HERE.

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are good to go. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Decorating Process

To decorate these gingerbread men and hot cocoa cookies, you will need the following suggested colors:

• Light Brown Color royal icing (I used this caramel color from LilaLoa.)
• Darker Brown Color icing (I used the same caramel color from above, just with a little more coloring added.)
• Holiday Red piping icing. (I used Americolor Tulip Red.)
• White icing (I used Americolor Bright White.)
• Light Blue icing (I used just a tiny touch of Americolor Wedgewood.)
• Black icing (I used Americolor Super Black.)

Step 1

For the gingerbread man cookies, begin by outlining the body section with darker brown icing with a #2 tip. Give it time to set up (about 5 minutes).

Then flood the body section with the lighter brown icing. Let this icing dry for about 20 minutes.

Step 2

Next, fill in the top section with white icing and add the white accents on the body, as shown.

Then add the face details with black and red icing, outline the icing top with light blue icing, and then add a bow tie.

For the bow ties, I wanted to save time by using a fondant mold instead of piping a bow with icing. It's quick, easy, and adds nice dimension. You can find the fondant mold I used here.

Step 3

For the hot cocoa mug, start by outlining the cinnamon sticks with dark brown icing.

Also, fill in the lower mug section in red icing and then fill in the cinnamon sticks with light brown icing. Let this icing set for about 15 minutes.

Step 4

Next, fill in the remaining white whipped cream section. Let this icing set for 15 minutes.

Add the final details like the mug handle, the snowflake, and the whipped cream outline.

Step 5

For the center circle cookie, I flooded the cookie with red icing and let it dry completely.

Then I airbrushed this gingerbread hot cocoa stencil pattern on top with red airbrush color.

Step 6

Once the red airbrush color had time to dry, I stenciled Warm Winter Wishes on top with white icing.

Video Tutorial

The steps above are summarized in this time-lapsed video I put together below.

Here's the final Christmas cookie platter all assembled. To create this entire platter requires 11 cookies-- 5 gingerbread men, 5 hot cocoa mugs, and 1 center circle cookie.

This is the large, 12" version. For the tray it's on, I like to use the 12" pizza pans from Dollar Tree. They are cheap and sturdy for transporting around.

This is my most favorite time of year and I can't wait to show you more holiday cookie ideas coming up in the next few weeks!