Tutorial - Cute Gingerbread Cupcake toppers for Christmas

Today we have the final installment of Christmas cupcake toppers - the gingerbread man. From Lisa at the Whole Cake and Caboodle.

Roll stiffened fondant (with tylo) or gumpaste  out to a depth of around 4-5 mm thick. Overlay with a piece of gladwrap and stamp out required amount of heads using an approx. 4-5 cm round cutter. The gladwrap softens and rounds the edges. You don’t need to do this, its just a nice effect.

Mark mouth low on the face using the end of a scallop/arc/similar tool  and dot the ends of the smiles with a pointed tool to accentuate them.

Dust a circle on the cheeks using a small amount of Rainbow Dust Rose (or pearl blush pink for a lustre effect)

Dot eyes in the centre of the face using some black gel-paste and a toothpick. The toothpick dipped into the gel-paste then poked gently into the face gives even and controlled dots. (see earlier snowman tutorial for picture) Make some royal icing to your own recipe or by beating 1 size 6 egg white and approx. 1-1.25 cups of icing sugar together. I beat the egg white until foamy then add the icing sugar in two lots. This used about 1 cup but if you wish to have a stiffer mix to hold piped ruffled shapes you will need to add a little more. Pipe squiggly lines as shown - I have used a disposable bag with a tiny hole cut at the end. Cut some holly using the smaller of the threeleaf holly ejector plunger cutter set and glue to the face.

Indent the holly with a ball tool or the end of a paintbrush/whatever is handy, this is to help stop the berries rolling off the leaves when it comes to placing them Put a small amount of edible glue in the indent  and drop in a few red non-pareils between pinched fingers. Alternatively roll small balls of fondant for berries and place instead of the sprinkles. Another option is to pipe small red royal icing balls and in this case you don’t need to indent the leaf. If you have placed too many sprinkles use a dry brush to flick off excess or push into better positions.

NOTE : You can use normal fondant for all but fondant stiffened with tylo will make your work so much easier as it will easily keep its shape while working and dry quickly. You need to use enough tylo to get a bluetack feel to the icing.