Gingerbread Sleigh Ride!

Today, I am sharing my Gingerbread cookie/cupcake creation with the world.  And what better way to give gingerbread then have Santa and his Reindeer make the delivery?  Sso many visions of Gingerbread danced in my head, then, as soon as this little sleigh ride rode in, I knew it was what I wanted to make. 

Gingerbread Sleigh Ride!
 

Hoping that it would work, I couldn't wait to get started! 

So here's how it began...

 

I took a trip to the cookie cutter room, found a reindeer, Santa and sleigh cookie cutter, looking for ones that would be almost equal in size. 

 

I traced around the cutters and drew a little design on paper.


Then I cut out the reindeer, sleigh and Santa. 

I made another cut under Santa's arms, so he could be holding them out. 

Now, I baked the gingerbread cookies...yum don't you just love the smell of Gingerbread? 

Okay, focus... after they were baked, I placed them on parchment paper to begin to decorate.

 

First I made a belt thingy for the reindeer by cutting a strip of red fondant with a pizza cutter.

 

Made an impression in the fondant to resemble stitching and measured it on the reindeer cookie. 

Then I added the silver bells (Dragees) to the belt and secured it to the reindeer with royal icing.

 Next I cut out small white fondant eyes and green holly.  (Sorry, lost my focus and forgot to take pics of that and the sleigh!) 

I placed the Santa cookie behind the sleigh, so really it was two cookies, one on top of another.

 Added a white fondant strip to the top and a tiny red fondant strip to the bottom for the blade. 

Also, added holly to the sleigh.  Santa needed a hat, beard, mustache, eyes and nose. 

Just enough to bring him to life.  (All of the tools I used are listed below).

So far so good...next I needed to measure the height for the cookie sticks to make it look like they are flying through the sky.

 

As you can see, I decided not to bake the cookie sticks in the cookies, I didn't want to take the chance of getting the cookie stick bump, plus I wanted to make sure they were the right height. 

Using three small lollipop sticks and one longer cookie stick, I placed the cookies on wax paper making sure they were all at the right slant. 

Now, I removed the cookie and piped white candy melts on the top of each stick, then immediately placed the cookie back on the cookie. 

After it had hardened, they were ready to go in the cupcakes. 

(I added candy melts to the bottom part of the Santa cookie, added the stick and then topped it with the sleigh).

 

Of course the gingerbread reindeer and sleigh had to be placed in a gingerbread cupcake! 

After baking the cupcakes and making maple frosting, they were ready to assemble.


You may remember the new impression mat I discovered when I made the neon cupcakes? 

Anyway, I used the same technique for making these cupcakes, instructions HERE. 

You may notice the cupcake papers in the photo are not the ones I used, I found others that I liked better! 

I also cut a hole in the top of the white fondant cupcake topper (by using a round decorating tip) for a place to insert the cookie stick. 

Whew...that was a lot to focus on, right? 

Now is the fun part, getting Santa, his Sleigh and Reindeer ready to fly!

After frosting the cupcake, top with the fondant topper.

Insert each reindeer into the cupcake and they're Ready Santa!

 Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!