How to Make Gingerbread Pizza Cookies with Video

Do you ever get a craving for pizza? My hubby loves pizza and he eats it at least once a week. Pizza is good, but sometimes I get really tired of them. I need variety and with my love of cookies, Christmas, and gingerbread combined with my hubby’s love of pizza, these Gingerbread Pizza Cookies were born.

I could eat this kind of pizza from now until the end of time! Making gingerbread pizza cookies are more fun than eating them. If you want to throw a gingerbread cookie decorating party why not make gingerbread pizza cookies instead of traditional gingerbread houses. It’s perfect for smaller children because you don’t have to help them with the construction. Give them a decorating bag filled with white royal icing, a few different cookies you have already decorated, and watch them create the cutest pizzas you’ve ever seen.

I think kids of all ages will have fun making Gingerbread Pizza Cookies. I decorate all the time and this was one of my favorite cookie projects to date. The design is endless. If you have mini cookie cutters, you can make a cookie pizza. Don’t wait…let’s create a few right now!

Supplies for Gingerbread Pizza Cookies:
(may contain affiliate links)

Recipes:
Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
Royal Icing Recipe

Mini Cookie Cutters:
A Mini Gingerbread Man Cutter
Mini Christmas Tree Cutter
A Mini Snowflake Cutter
Mini Stocking Cutter

Royal Icing Colors:
AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste Food Colors-Icing Colors-Sky Blue, Red, Electric Green, Chocolate Brown
Gingerbread Color was made with Chocolate Brown and a small amount of Super Red
White Royal Icing

Tools:
White Sprinkles
Turkey Lacer
Food Tongs
Decorating Bags
Bag Ties
Couplers
#2 PME Decorating Tips
#6 piping tip for the “cheese” on the pizza. A large tip will make bubbles in your icing but that’s okay. Just pop them with the turkey lacer.
Rainbow Nonpareils
4mm  Black Pearl Dragees

It might just be me and my childlike excitement, but I think these cookies would be great to take to an office party. Can you see the looks of your co-worker’s faces when you show up to the office party carrying a few pizza boxes and putting them on the dessert table? They’ll be looking at you all weird and then, to their surprise, you open the boxes and they see the gingerbread pizza cookies and realize you aren’t trying to force them to eat pizza. No! you’re giving them Gingerbread Pizza Cookies! Aren’t they lucky!

What about the office workers and cafeteria crew at your kid’s school? I’d bet they’d love a box of these. Okay, now the pressure is on. How many pizza cookies can we make and share before Christmas! Game ON!

• Begin by picking your favorite mini cookie cutters. For these pizza cookies, I used mini gingerbread men, trees, stocking, and snowflake cutters. I found a mini-set with a gingerbread man, tree, and a star at Target for less than $1.50. Okay, it was $1.49, but that is less than $1.50. I didn’t use the star, but you can bet your bottom dollar I will use it to make another pizza.
• For the tree cookies, use the brown royal icing to make the tree trunk and let it dry for at least 10 minutes. If you have high humidity where you live you may need to let it dry longer so the icing colors won’t bleed together as the icing dries.
• Next, pipe the top of the tree with electric green royal icing. While the green icing is wet, add the rainbow nonpareils. Be careful! Those little suckers bounce better than basketballs. 😉
• Let them dry completely.

• With the red royal icing, pipe the bottom of the stocking and let it dry completely.
• Pipe the ‘fur’ with the white royal icing.
• While the white royal icing is wet, add white sprinkles.
• Let the cookies dry completely.

• To make the gingerbread color I mixed AmeriColor Chocolate Brown with a tiny bit of Super Red (or you can use Tulip Red if you don’t like the bitterness of Super Red) and mixed until I got the color I was looking for.
• Pipe a circle for the head.
• Next, pipe the arms by making a dot for the hands and drag them to the center of the cookie where the chest will be.
• Next, pipe a foot and drag the leg to the chest where the arms meet.
• Now fill it in and make him as heavy or thin as you want. Make sure not to add too much icing so it doesn’t flow off the side of your cookies.
• Once your gingerbread man or woman has a nice shape, add the 4mm black Pearl Drangees for the eyes, nonpareil buttons, and cheeks and let it dry completely. We will add the rest of the details later.

• Now for the actual gingerbread pizza cookie, you need to get a little creative. I rolled out a large piece of dough on these handy dandy little mats and froze the dough for about 30 minutes. Then, I used a lid from one of my big soup pots to make a large circle. Mine measures about 10″ but please don’t get hung up on the size. Find something round in your kitchen like a big bowl and trace it onto a piece of paper. Lay some of your mini cutters on the round pattern and see if the size will work. If you want to do a decorating party, it won’t hurt to offer small, medium, large and individual-sized pizzas. You know, like the pizza restaurants do.
• Next, outline the pizza with the white icing. You will need to use a bigger tip to decorate or a tipless piping bag. A #6 tip worked well on these.
• While the icing is wet, add a few white sprinkles. Pour some into your hand and pretend you’re a famous chef on one of those food shows. Just pinch some out of your hand and sprinkle it on the top of the pizza.
• Let it dry for about 30 minutes.
• Add another cheesy later but this time make it look like spattered paint drop shapes. Don’t forget to add the sprinkles you famous chef, you.
• Let it dry for another 10-20 minutes and repeat with the final layer of cheese and sprinkles.
• Let the cookies dry for about an hour or so. You don’t want the icing to sink when you add the mini cookies. If you’re throwing a kids party, this would be a good time to play games or feed them “real pizza” so they don’t get bored. Just a thought.

It was raining hard the day I made these so I decided to wait until the last minute to add the details to the gingerbread man. You don’t have to wait if you don’t have humidity issues, but for the rest of us waiting is best so the icing on our cute little man doesn’t turn brown.

• Use a food-safe marker to make the little mouth.
• Next, pipe the hair and the icing lines on the arms and legs.
• Let them dry completely.

Tips that will help:

• We aren’t done yet. Here are a few good tips that will make things easier.
• Don’t glue the mini cookies on the pizza until you cut the slices. You can do it but it won’t be very pretty. If you look at the first or last picture in this post, check out the pizza in the top right corner. The mini cookies have been cut because I glued them down with the royal icing. It’s kinda cute but not my favorite.
• If you want to glue the mini cookies in place, space them on the large circle cookie so you will have room in between them to make a nice clean cut.
• If you don’t want to glue them into place, don’t. They may slide around a bit when they are transferred but you can move them into place before you give them away.
• My icing was still a bit dampish when I cut the large cookie into the pizza shapes. I used a sharp knife and cut slowly so I wouldn’t break the cookies. It worked like a dream. If you’re worried about cutting the cookie with dry icing, you can score the lines in the cookie when it comes out of the oven. Just don’t cut very deep or the cookie may break when you move it around while decorating. The scored lines will help make a clean cut, but don’t get upset if a piece or two breaks. No pizza is perfect and broken pieces taste just as good as one that isn’t broke.

• By letting the cheesy layer of icing dry a bit before you add the mini’s, it will allow you to play with the design.
• This will allow you to have a good idea of how many mini cookies you will need for each pizza.
• The most important thing is to have fun with it!

Gingerbread Pizza Cookies Video:

Want to see how to make these Gingerbread Pizza Cookies? Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn. The video is short, but it’s a good excuse to eat a little popcorn while watching a “mini” movie.

Box the pizzas up and send them home with the kids or take them to your co-workers, kids school, or your Sunday School Class. Everyone will love you more than they already do.

I don’t have time this year to order pizza boxes to deliver these, but I’m ordering them right now for future pizza cookie creations. I found 50 – 10″ x 10″ x 1 3/4″ boxes at WebstaurantStore for $10.49. The boxes are white on the top so you can get creative or make it part of the gingerbread pizza cookies party. Your guests can decorate the top of the boxes to make it more personal.

Bear hugs,