Santa’s Sleigh Gingerbread Centerpiece Step-by-Step

Cookie Craft gingerbread sleigh finished Advent Calendar — The finished “draft” of our *Cookie Craft* Santa’s Sleigh Gingerbread Centerpiece.

Cookie decorators and would-be cookbook authors, here’s a twofer from the Cookie Craft files — both a behind-the-scenes peek at how the real live “draft” of Janice Fryer’s and my show-stopping cookie centerpiece was developed AND a step-by-step procedure of the actual Santa’s Sleigh Gingerbread Centerpiece (or Advent Calendar) can be made at home.

For the book, the publisher commissioned the sleigh (all the cookies, actually) to be recreated in the photography studio by food stylists, as well as a few of the gingerbread how-to steps to be rendered by Alison Kolesar, one of the books two extremely talented illustrators.

For your cookie decorating and cookbook author edification, here the precursors to the submitted sketches and the actual photos that were used by the publishing team as “templates,” along with an explanation of each.

If you’re planning on creating Santa’s Sleigh Gingerbread Centerpiece, allow several days because of in-between icing drying times. If you’re using this for your cookbook planning, note that there are some extreme hours of recipe testing, writing down and editing all the steps — not including the recreating the cookies, styling and photography.

Preliminary, rough sketch of the side of what will become Santa's Sleigh Gingerbread centerpiece or Advent Calendar. — Here’s a preliminary sketch of the Cookie Craft Santa’s sleigh template… the authors’ minds at work!

The gingerbread sleigh’s sides, front and back are measured. These were refined for the templates in the book.

Peeling the excess dough away from the cut-out template. — The rolled gingerbread dough is laid on the parchment. The refined, draft template is laid on the rolled out dough and the shape is cut with a sharp knife (being careful not to cut through the parchment). The excess is peeled away and rerolled. The tempate is flipped to cut side #2.

Raw gingerbread dough on cookie sheet cut to form "box" inside of Santa's Sleigh decoration. — The “box” seat pieces of the cookie sleigh are cut out using the same method. Also – the scraps from the recipe are great for cutting out mini-gingerbread cookies for the Advent calendar. If you’re making Advent calendar cookies, cut 24 or more of those.

The baked side of a gingerbread sleigh getting iced - there is a piped icing border and it is being filled with "flood" icing. — The sleigh sides and front and back of the “box” are piped and flooded. While the icing is wet, the sides will get the sugaring treatment.

A picture of the front and the back of Santa's Sleigh "box" while the sugar is being sprinkled over the wet flood icing. — The front and back of the sleigh box has been fully flooded with icing… and is now being sugared while wet.

Sugar snowflakes being added with a tweezer to the still-wet, flooded and sugared box panels. — The sugar snowflakes are added when the icing is still wet. We used a long tweezer to place the flakes precisely and press in firmly. This snowflakes are also added to the sides of the sleigh.

Cookie Craft gingerbread sleigh illustration by Alison Kolesar

Picture of the top of the iced sleigh being given an additional layer of piped icing.

All the unassembled pieces of the sleigh - iced and un-iced - two sides, four "box" pieces laid out on racks to dry. — Drying sleigh pieces — they need to dry completely before assembly.

Royal icing piped along cookie edge as "glue" for sides of sleigh "box" — Apply royal piping icing to the sides of the sleigh “box,” then put the sides together and prop them up to dry with cans or other heavy objects, as in the next photos. And you’re right – this isn’t gingerbread – but I didn’t have a good photo of this process so rather than deprive you, I took this from another cookie 😉

The sides of the sleigh “box” are “glued” together with royal piping icing. Cans help keep them stable while they dry.
Aerial view of the drying box sides. When the sides of the box are dry, the bottom is glued on.

Using the stiff piping icing to "glue" the structure — After the bottom of the box has dried securely, apply the stiff piping royal icing to thickly “glue” the sides of the interior gingerbread “box” of the sleigh – cover this entire side with icing; you’ll need a lot to hold the box up when it dries.

Tuna cans underneath the gingerbread sleigh support the bottom.
Again, large cans keep the structure stable when drying.

We filled our sleigh with mini cookies… these are sugar, but the gingerbread recipe allows enough dough to make 24.
For an Advent “calendar” we numbered and individually wrapped the mini cookies (a bit hidden by the caption). You can also use small wrapped, numbered gifts.

Cookie Craft gingerbread sleigh styled — And here’s the stylist’s version of the sleigh, as it was created and photographed for the book.

FYI for would-be cookbook authors and geeks… it should be noted that while Janice and I spent months developing the contents of the book and the draft cookies, due to the high costs food styling and photography, the stylists and photographer only get a few days to prep and shoot the whole book.

Learn more about cookbook publishing from these posts I wrote: about my working with Julia Child; and about book marketing tips gleaned from Julia Child’s cookbook writing career.

For more information and options to buy the book, check out the full Cookie Craft page on this site. You can view customer ratings for the full-color, value-packed book here.

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Finalist CBS TV Writers Mentoring Program • Semi-finalist WGAE “Made In NY” TV Writers Room Fellowship