Mickey Mouse Gingerbread Men

Where can I find the original treat?

• This holiday time treat can be found throughout the Disneyland resort.

Of all the treats this holiday season, the Mickey Mouse Gingerbread Man cookie was THE COOKIE to have. In fact, it was probably one of the most sought after TREATS in general at the parks. These last few weeks I’ve gone looking for the cookie inside the parks only to have it sell out before I could buy it by 11am (it may have even sold out sooner!). Of course, I could always wander into the Grand Californian and get it there too, but the premium price tag just meant I’d try again another day at the parks. Or, of course, make it at home! Which is what I did and now you can too!

Let me preface this post with this one caveat, if you turned over the back of the packaging the gingerbread cookies came in, you would see that, well, there’s a lot of ingredients listed there, probably because they’re trying to preserve the cookies a bit before they can be sold (although, come on, I watched a guy buy all the cookies from the tray that were being brought to replenish the cookie cart—at the Grand Californian no less!). I don’t have a cabinet of preservatives; I have eggs, flour, sugar, and the like. So, this cookie will not taste exactly like THAT cookie—but I think it comes close!

The original cookie has some rather unique characteristics for a gingerbread cookie. For one, it’s thick and soft. Not the usual thin and crisp cookies you find for decorating houses. It is heavily spiced of cloves (clove is actually listed first before ginger), and the design work on it is done with chocolate, not the royal icing that you might get on any other holiday cookie. It’s also big, coming in around 7 inches.

Now, you don’t need a Mickey Mouse gingerbread man cutter if you don’t already own one. If you have a gingerbread man cutter and a circle cutter, you could easily Frankenstein the design together once the shapes are on the sheet pan. However, this will work only if you’re pre-cutting the shapes and then baking them, which is definitely the more routine way to go, although, with this recipe, I found more luck in getting sharp outlines if I baked squares of the cookie dough first, and then used a cutter on the baked dough. And that’s because this dough is really soft.

With the pre-baking method you’re going to have more scraps (which you can keep in an airtight container and eat when all the gingerbread men are gone). However, a little pre-planning will mean less of them. I would suggest measuring out the shapes of your cutter and trying to roll out smaller sections of the dough so that you’re only going to have small sections around the cookies that will become scraps. If this seems like a lot of work just keep in mind you’ll be chilling dough with the pre-cut shapes several times. It’s the nature of these soft cookies!

Once you have your cookies baked and cooled, the fun part of decorating can begin (and kids can help here!). The cookies at Disneyland had a sugar glaze over the center. Personally, I think that glaze helped keep this super soft cookies from falling apart (take a close look at anyone holding up a cookie on IG and you will probably see a few cracks from handling them). I also included a glaze here, but that can be optional for you. The colorful decorations here are done with candy melts, which you can get in the colors needed, so for convenience you won’t have to buy additional food coloring. Only melt one bag of the candy melts at a time for decorating! It hardens quickly so you only want to handle a single bag at a time. To smooth out bumps in the chocolate, or to round out and smooth shapes, a scribe or a toothpick will be handy. But even here you’ll want to move quickly as the small amount of the candy melts will start to harden upon contact with the cookie.

Even though so far I may seem a bit cautious with this recipe, you should make this cookie. It’s soft, slightly chewy, with all the deliciously warm baking spices you want in a gingerbread cookie. And if you spend the time cutting these out and decorating them for a loved one, it really shows and makes a great present.

I’ve covered lots of tips in the post above today, but I’ve summed them all up in the notes below. Happy baking and happy holidays everyone!

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