I need blue gingerbread men!

[Bluegingerbread]

I make my kids' birthday cakes each year. It's always a surprise theme based on something they've done that year or particularly liked. I'm not artistic so I'm not good at decorations but I generally do pretty well by using Pinterest and finding ways to make decorations out of other foods and although it's always going to look a bit like an 8 year old made it my kids really like it and look forward to the surprise.

This year I need small blue men. I can't make them out of fondant etc as I'm no good at modelling. So I'm thinking mini gingerbread men. I've used gingerbread men before as figures and decorated them with icing to be whatever. Can I colour the gingerbread dough blue before I bake it? Or would I be better off using food paint on plain gingerbread or just icing them blue? My usual rule is that it is all edible.

You might be able to bake them with a tinge of blue if you put serious amounts of blue paste in the dough, but gingerbread dough is fairly dark to start with so I think you’ll struggle to get them a true blue.

What about making regular gingerbread men and covering with a cutout of blue sugar paste cut with the same cutter?

Put blue in the dough- a gel colouring would be best. Then if not blue enough, cover them in a thin blue water icing?

I think you'd need a heck of a lot of food colouring to make the actual dough blue, given that its usually brown. Risking it either tasting a bit bitter because of the colouring or being an odd green-tinged man.

I would go for blue icing, seems far easier. Second icing option you could consider is to roll fondant out and use the same cutter and simply stick the fondant on top? I believe am or sugar syrup would work as "glue".

Just use a gingerbread man shaped cutter to cut out blue fondant Icing?

Just a thought - if you can buy a pack of gingerbread men from say M&S in their biscuit aisle, then you'll have a template that you could use to cut out the shape of the gingerbread man from this:
www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/decorations--toppings---fillings/sainsburys-ready-to-roll-white-icing-1kg
or better yet from this:
www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/decorations--toppings---fillings/sainsburys-ready-to-roll-blue-icing-250g

If you use the first option, you may need some of this:
www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/decorations--toppings---fillings/droetker-ready-to-roll-regalice-colours-500g
or
www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/decorations--toppings---fillings/sainsburys-blue-food-colouring-60ml
to do a bit of a 'wash' on the white icing

Would that work for you do you think???

Does it have to be gingerbread? if you just used a basic sweet biscuit dough it ought to be possible to colour it blue without too much trouble. I made a green Victoria sponge that way one year, when the theme was the wizard of Oz

Wow, thank you for the fast answers.

No, it doesn't have to be gingerbread, any fairly sturdy biscuit would work. I used a different recipe to do Daleks and a Tardis last year for DS, that was a paler biscuit and might be easier to cover. And taste better if less colour used. (I did a red cake when DS was small and the dye made the icing taste disgusting so I've steered clear of red since then).

I have also bought the box of mini gingerbread men from Sainsburys before and just iced them.

I could try using sugar water to glue a layer of blue icing? I can't just use the cutter to cut out icing on its own as I need them to stand upright and I don't think a layer of icing would do that without the biscuit as support.

I could try the wash on white icing idea.

Blue is a tricky colour and in food- can make it look very unpalatable. Think of how few fruit/veg is naturally a blue colour! I think the gingerbread might come out a weird shade- unless an enormous amount of gel colour was used.

I'd make regular gingerbread and as others said- decorate with blue icing or a cut out of blue fondant.

What about dipping them in blue 'chocolate'?
www.thecakedecoratingcompany.co.uk/bank-holiday-sale-c483/wilton-blue-candy-melts-340g-p14796/s27441?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=blue-candy-melts-340g-350338&utm_campaign=product%2Blisting%2Bads&cid=GBP&glCurrency=GBP&glCountry=GB&gclid=Cj0KCQjw7KqZBhCBARIsAI-fTKIfO8t9P9siGeZhPD6V6__zngtSg1px6BKUstsDk3cf35V0ZxiusysaAt_6EALw_wcB

DD does love chocolate, do those candy melts taste ok?

I've never tried them - cooking chocolate taste I suspect. You could also mix a oil-based food colouring with white chocolate?

DD also has a very sweet tooth so while gingerbread men covered in a thick layer of icing makes my teeth try to hide just at the thought of it, she'd eat them all.

If you colour fondant out to about 3mm thick, cut it, and allow the piece to air dry fully, they should stand up without issue. If you need to stand them on the cake, I suggest a thin wire, or at a push, a cocktail stick, pushed part way through the icing before they dry, which you can then stick in thye cake.

Really decent gel food colouring? Not dr Oetker, that stuff is pretty mild.

Or using gingerbread man cutter on blue fondant and stick it to gingerbread men with bit of normal icing?

I do have some good blue dye that I bought online for DS's last cake. It was brilliant, I was really careful and still had blue fingernails for a week!!

Mangobiscuit - that sounds good, do you think normal supermarket icing would work or would it better to get some better stuff online? Does it have to call itself fondant or sugarpaste or just icing?

Use this recipe and knead in blue powdered food colouring, (the dough is very forgiving) if you get it to the colour in the pic, you will see how it comes out when it is baked!

I would just use supermarket fondant. I believe sugar paste is for finer work, like petals for roses.

Halfords do a range of blue paints in spray cans.

(Don't do this!!!)

A basic sugar biscuit dough with a gel based dye baked in would be the easiest.

I'd do a sugar biscuit as a PP suggested. The traditional American sugar cookie would stand up fine. www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/classic-sugar-cookies/90993177-b5fe-4cc7-a6b6-8f58913d36e8

You could either dye that blue or ice it using the icing recipe.

Fondant and sugarpaste are the same thing, they will dry out if cut in advance and left in a cool place out of the sun, especially if on foam so the air can circulate. If they need to stand completely independently you'd need to add Tylo powder to the Icing, or use flowerpaste instead which is the stuff for flowers/items that need to be strong and dry hard.