no bake gingerbread ornaments recipe for christmas gifts

Years ago, I taught with a precious girl who made these yummy smelling no bake gingerbread ornaments with her first graders.  They smelled so good you could seriously smell them all down the hall!  Through the years, I’ve made them as Christmas parent gifts with my first graders and when we had my son, we started making them at home for our kitchen tree.  It’s a tradition I look forward to every Christmas!

Between these gingerbread ornaments and our Christmas scent potpourri, our house smells *chef’s kiss* all Christmas season!

I can smell these ornaments just looking at the pictures!! 🙂

Story time before we hop to the recipe: When my oldest was 11, my no bake gingerbread ornaments recipe flopped. For the first time in over 15 years, something weird happened with my dough and it just didn’t do right. With my mom brain, it could’ve been all kinds of things, but I *think* I doubled the applesauce. Ha!

Anyways, I ended up trashing the ornaments because they never dried and was about to decide to just forget making them for the Christmas season. But my then 11 year old said, “Mom, how can you do that? It’s not Christmas season without making gingerbread ornaments!” So, in honor of the rare sentimental moment from my preteen, we remade our ornaments and they turned out perfectly!

I know once you start making these, they’ll have a permanent place in your classroom Christmas traditions or traditions at home!

Ingredients for No Bake Gingerbread Ornaments

Here’s what you need to make the no bake gingerbread ornaments with your kids (or at your house!) In these ingredients, I’m adding in how much of a spice bottle it will take because that is always so much easier when I’m doubling or tripling recipes and need to buy the correct amount of spices at Walmart!

• 3/4 cup of ground cinnamon (or 1 tall spice bottle if you don’t want to measure!)
• 1 Tbsp of allspice (about 1/3 of a short bottle)
• 2 Tbsp of ground cloves (2/3 short bottle)
• 1 Tbsp of ground nutmeg (1/3 of a short bottle)
• 1 cup of applesauce

steps for making no bake gingerbread ornaments

Mix all of the ingredients listed above together.

Roll out on wax paper. You will want the dough to be 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Obviously the thicker will dry slower, but will also be a little less brittle and less like to break!

Cut. I have these plastic gingerbread cookie cutters that are girl and boy that I use. At home, I’ve also used stars and heart cookie cutters to add some variety to my gingerbread Christmas tree.

Write kids’ names on the wax paper beside their gingerbread ornament.

Continue to roll out new dough and cut more gingerbread ornaments until you’ve used all of the dough.

Let dry on the wax paper…

Make a hole in the top with a tooth pick (when I made these in the classroom, the kids and I used a pencil to make the hole!) It’s important to do this while it’s still wet.

It takes about five to seven days for them to dry completely!  But goodness do they make your classroom and house smell like Christmas!  My first graders always loved the smell!

I added twine to mine this year for my tree, but you can add any yarn or ribbon you like! I love adding this red and white striped twine to them as well.

This recipe makes about about a dozen or so gingerbread ornaments so you will need to double the recipe for your classroom!

(PRO TIP: Make a handful of extra gingerbread ornaments in case you have some that crack!)

Wishing you and your family the happiest of holidays and a blessed Christmas season!