Easy Gingerbread Angel Cookie Wreath. A delightfully spiced cookie dough with hints of ginger, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. The dough is rolled and cut into big and little angels and baked into a wreath. It can be a great Christmas decoration or a treat that can be savored at the Christmas table. A fun activity for kids and grown-ups. Plus, the gingerbread cookies are delicious!
Song of the day: You Make It Feel Like Christmas - Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton
Gingerbread cookies
It's that time of the year. The house is filled with the fragrance of baked goods. Gingerbread cookies are a must for this festive season. There is nothing like the aroma of ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and a touch of nutmeg to put you into the spirit of Christmas.
All in all, the recipe for these gingerbread cookies is simple and easy to make. There are few common ingredients, not hard to find. You may have them in your fridge and pantry, already.
Ingredients
- 00 flour or all-purpose
- ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg
- salt
- baking powder
- unsalted butter
- coconut sugar or brown sugar
- egg
- milk
Steps to making an Easy Gingerbread Angel Cookie Wreath
In a bowl, sift the flour.
Add the spices, baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Mix.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and the sugar.
Lightly whisk the egg with the milk, and add to the creamed butter while mixing on low.
Lastly, add the flour a little at a time.
Once the dough comes together, take it out of the bowl and shape it into a flat disk. Wrap it in cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour. You could also leave it overnight.
How to Make the Royal Icing
The ingredients for the royal icing are egg white, icing sugar and lemon juice. It keeps for quite a long time in the fridge. Leftovers can be used to decorate other Christmas cookies or a gingerbread house.
Here's how you make it:
In a bowl, lightly whisk the egg white, then add the icing sugar and start mixing.
Add the lemon juice and whisk until you obtain the desired consistency. Keep adding drops of lemon juice if the icing is too thick. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and set aside.
When ready to use, give it a whisk and see if it needs extra lemon juice to make it pourable. Spoon into a piping bag with a small tip or a squeezable bottle.
Pro Tip
A paper template of your design really helps organize the number of cookies, how to decorate them, and the strategy on how to construct the wreath. The design might change a little as you put it together. In the end, we decided to place the little stars behind the head of every angel.
Let's cut out Angel and Star shapes
Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out on a floured surface or in between two sheets of parchment paper to a thickness of 5 mm (¼ inch).
Cut out shapes by using cookie cutters and pressing firmly and evenly into the dough. We used 7 large angels, 4 in x 3 in, and 7 small angels, 2.5 in x 2.25 in. And a total of 14 small stars.
Place a 5 inch round cake ring onto a parchment lined pan. Arrange the angels alternating a large and a small angel making sure to overlap the cookies so that the wreath holds together. Brush the area of overlap with egg white, using a fine tip brush. Place each little star behind the head of the angels.
Cook in the preheated 350F/180C oven for 18-20 minutes. Check it periodically, as every oven is different. Remove from the oven and place on a rack to cool a bit. Then, remove the ring in the center.
Re-roll the dough and cut out more star shapes or what ever shapes you want. Bake the additional cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet for about 12 minutes.
Lastly, place on a rack to cool.
The wreath has finally cooled off, now it's time to use that royal icing and decorate the angels. Use your creativity to put details on the angels such as drops, lines, etc. We used a squeeze bottle with a fine tip to create the designs. You could also use a piping bag with a fine tip.
A little help from a cardboard ring
Because we decided on hanging the wreath, Loreto decided to make a cardboard reinforcement ring. He used the 5 inch cake ring to trace out the inner circle then used an 8 inch cake pan to make the line for the outer circle. The width of the ring is 1 ½ inches and when put on the wreath, it cannot be seen from the front, other than a few spots in between the angels which he filled with the royal icing. To cut it out, Loreto used a pair of sharp nose scissors and glued it on with the royal icing.
Finishing touches
To hang the wreath we took some decorative Christmas string and ran it in and out of the spaces between the angels then at the top wrapped it around the cardboard reinforcement ring and left enough for a hanging loop. More so, tie a festive bow on the hanging loop, and there you have it, a beautiful Easy Gingerbread Angel Cookie Wreath!
A yearly blogger collaboration for Christmas
It's our third year, collaborating with Margaret Kitchenfrau for a showstopper holiday dessert. This has become a tradition and one that we enjoy and look forward to every year. We share her lovely kitchen to make, bake, and decorate our Christmas creations. This year, there was a lot of royal icing decorating, and since this is not in my wheelhouse, Loreto had a lot of fun embellishing the angels on our wreath, while Margaret was prettying up her snowflake cookies.
The previous years, we loved making a Cannoli Christmas Yule Log and a Pandoro Christmas Trifle. Check them out, they both make a stunner centerpiece on a holiday table.
Two different Gingerbread Cookie Wreaths for you to try
In the end, we were all very pleased with ourselves and the effort we put in the decoration process. Here you can see both wreaths in all their glory hanging on the doors of our homes. They have a different gingerbread cookie recipe, a different way of baking and assembling, and they are both indeed beautiful!
If you want to see how Margaret realized her wreath project, read the post on her blog.
Hope you you enjoy making your own edible wreath, too!
Happy holiday baking!
PrintEasy Gingerbread Angel Cookie Wreath
Easy Gingerbread Angel Cookie Wreath. A delightfully spiced cookie dough with hints of ginger, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. The dough is rolled and cut into big and little angels and baked into a wreath. It can be a great Christmas decoration or a treat that can be savored at the Christmas table. A fun activity for kids and grown-ups. Plus, the gingerbread cookies are delicious!
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
Ingredients
- 300 g flour 00 or all-purpose
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- a pinch of nutmeg
- a pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 120 g unsalted butter
- 100 g coconut sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon milk
Royal icing
- 1 egg white
- 1 ½ cups icing sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Instructions
- In a bowl, sift the flour, add the spices, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and the sugar.
- Lightly whisk the egg with the milk, and add to the creamed butter while mixing on low.
- Add the flour a little at a time.
- Once the dough comes together, take out of the bowl and shape it into a flat disk. Wrap it in cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour. You could also leave it overnight.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out on a floured surface or in between two sheets of parchment paper to a thickness of 5 mm (¼ inch).
- Cut out shapes by using cookie cutters and pressing firmly and evenly into the dough. We used 7 large angels, 4 in x 3 in, and 7 small angels, 2.5 in x 2.25 in. And a total of 14 small stars.
- Place a 5 inch round cake ring onto a parchment lined pan. Arrange the angels alternating a large and a small angel making sure to overlap the cookies so that the wreath holds together. Brush the area of overlap with egg white, using a fine tip brush. Place each little star behind the head of the angels.
- Cook in the preheated 350F/180C oven for 18-20 minutes. Check it periodically, as every oven is different. Remove from the oven and place on a rack to cool a bit. Then, remove the ring in the center.
- Re-roll the dough and cut out more star shapes or what ever shapes you want. Bake the additional cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet for about 12 minutes.
- Lastly, place on a rack to cool.
- The wreath has finally cooled off, now it's time to decorate the angels. Use your creativity to put details on the angels such as drops, lines, etc. We placed the royal icing into a squeeze bottle with a fine tip to create the designs. You could also use a piping bag with a fine tip.
- Because we decided on hanging the wreath, we decided to make a cardboard reinforcement ring. We used the 5 inch cake ring to trace out the inner circle then used an 8 inch cake pan to make the line for the outer circle. The width of the ring is 1 ½ inches and when put on the wreath, it cannot be seen from the front, other than a few spots in between the angels which we filled with the royal icing. To cut it out, we used a pair of sharp nose scissors and glued it on with the royal icing.
- To hang the wreath we took some decorative Christmas string and ran it in and out of the spaces between the angels then at the top wrapped it around the cardboard reinforcement ring and left enough for a hanging loop. More so, tie a festive bow on the hanging loop, and there you have it, a beautiful Easy Gingerbread Angel Cookie Wreath!
Royal icing
- In a bowl, lightly whisk the egg white, then add the icing sugar and start mixing.
- Add the lemon juice and whisk until you obtain the desired consistency. Keep adding drops of lemon juice if the icing is too thick. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and set aside.
- When ready to use, give it a whisk and see if it needs extra lemon juice to make it pourable. Spoon into a piping bag with a small tip or a squeezable bottle.
I love baking and kneading dough because it takes me to a happy place in my soul.
Margaret@Kitchen Frau says
This was another fun day! We enjoyed it so much. Spending time together with good friends, creating something delicious, totally fills our hearts with joy. It put us into the Christmas spirit, too.🌲So happy with how the cookie wreaths turned out! We love this new tradition.❤️
We love all the traditions and experiences we have with both of you! Lots of memories are made and always good food and laughter is shared.
Margaret@Kitchen Frau says
I absolutely loved your cookie recipe, too! Great flavour and texture. They worked so well for your adorable angel wreath.