A gingerbread man in a Santa hat is the easiest character on the cookie tray, because the hat is only three parts: a red cap, a white brim and a pompom. Get those right and he reads as Christmas from across the room. This guide covers four ways to add the hat, from a five minute version to a full Santa suit, plus how to draw one and where to buy the hats people wear.
The icing waits come from published royal icing guidance and the drying times in our cookie icing guide, and the red color advice comes from Wilton’s decorating team. It is written for parents with a party on the calendar, anyone decorating a big batch for work and kids who would rather draw.
Start with the one decision that changes everything else: is the cookie already baked?
One-Pass Santa Hat Gingerbread Men: At a Glance
- Difficulty: Easy. One bag of red icing, no waiting between colors.
- Active time: about 2 minutes a cookie once you have a rhythm, so roughly 25 minutes for a dozen. That is an estimate from the steps, not a timed batch.
- Setting time: about 2 hours before the hats are dry to the touch, and overnight before you stack or bag them.
- Makes: as many as you baked. Plan one mini marshmallow per cookie, plus a few spares.
- You need: baked and completely cooled gingerbread men, stiff red royal icing, white nonpareils, sanding sugar or sweetened shredded coconut, mini marshmallows, a little stiff white or dark icing for the face, and a piping bag or zip bag.
Steps
- Mix the red icing the day before.
- Stiffen it until it holds a peak.
- Pipe the hat on the head and fill it in.
- Press the brim into the wet icing.
- Press a mini marshmallow on the tip.
- Pipe the face under the brim.
- Leave the cookies flat to set.
Notes: this decorates our gingerbread man cookie, which has its own recipe card. Ovens and kitchens vary, so touch-test one spare cookie before you stack the rest.
Four Ways to Put a Santa Hat on a Gingerbread Man
You can put a Santa hat on a gingerbread man four ways: press sprinkles and a marshmallow into a piped red hat, pipe a classic red and white hat in two stages, bake the hat into the cookie from a hat-shaped outline, or go all the way and dress him as Santa. The first two work on cookies you have already baked. The third has to be decided before the dough is cut.
| Hat | How it works | Time | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-Pass Santa Hat | Red icing hat with the brim and pompom pressed in while it is wet | One sitting, then about 2 hours to set | A party today, a big batch, or young decorators |
| Classic piped hat | Red hat first, white brim and pompom piped once the red is dry | At least 4 hours between colors, safest overnight | You want the smooth, all-icing look |
| Baked-in hat | The hat is part of the cookie shape, cut from a hat outline or a hat cutter | Same as the classic once baked | You have not cut the dough yet |
| Full Santa suit | Hat, white beard, red suit and a black belt | About a day, mostly drying | You want Santa himself, not a gingerbread man in his hat |
If the cookies are already baked and cooling, choose between the first two by the clock: less than a day, make the one-pass hat; a day or more, either one works. If you are still holding a ball of dough, consider the baked-in hat, because the outline gives every cookie the same hat without any freehand piping. Try the hat shape below before you pipe a single one.
Santa Hat Designer
Try the hat on before you pipe it. Change the tilt, size, brim and pompom, and the gingerbread man updates with a tip for each choice.
A drawing aid only: real icing spreads a little, so pipe the hat slightly smaller than you want it. Not professional baking advice. Your choices stay in this page and are not saved or sent anywhere.
Whichever way you go, the hat reads best tilted. A cap sitting straight up looks like a party cone. Tip it to one side so the point flops past the edge of the head, and put the pompom down near the cheek or just off the head, the floppy shape every Santa hat drawing uses.
How to Make the One-Pass Santa Hat Step by Step
The One-Pass Santa Hat solves the problem that ruins most Santa hat cookies: white icing piped next to wet red turns pink at the edge. Here nothing white is ever wet beside the red. The brim is white sprinkles or coconut and the pompom is a mini marshmallow, both pressed into the red while it is still soft, so the whole hat goes on in one sitting. The idea comes from Pillsbury's Santa Hat Cookies, which top a frosting hat with a mini marshmallow and press sprinkles around the bottom edge, and suggest shredded coconut or shaved white chocolate as swaps. Here it moves onto a gingerbread man and a royal icing hat.
1. Mix the red icing the day before
Tint a small bowl of royal icing deep red, cover it and leave it overnight. Why this matters: red deepens as it sits, so a day ahead lets you stop adding coloring sooner and keeps the icing from tasting bitter.
2. Stiffen it until it holds a peak
Stir in powdered sugar a spoonful at a time until a peak pulled up with a spoon stands without folding over. Why this matters: stiff icing stays where you pipe it. Runny icing slides down the face and lets color seep.
3. Pipe the hat on the head and fill it in
Snip a small tip, pipe a curved triangle across the top of the head with the point tipped to one side, then fill it in with tight zigzags. Why this matters: a solid, slightly raised hat gives the sprinkles and marshmallow something to sink into.
4. Press the brim into the wet icing
Pipe a thicker band of red along the bottom edge of the hat, then pinch white nonpareils, sanding sugar or coconut onto it and press lightly with a fingertip. Why this matters: royal icing starts to crust within 15 to 30 minutes, and a crusted surface will not hold sprinkles, so decorate about six cookies at a time and finish each one before you start the next.
5. Press a mini marshmallow on the tip
Set one mini marshmallow at the point of the hat and press until it sits in the icing. Why this matters: the marshmallow is the pompom and the glue is the wet red, so there is nothing extra to pipe or wait for.
6. Pipe the face under the brim
With stiff white or dark icing, add two dot eyes and a smile below the brim, or keep the face bare. Why this matters: keep the face clear of the red so no second color touches it while it is wet.
7. Leave the cookies flat to set
Leave them uncovered on a flat tray. Thin royal icing is dry to the touch in about two hours, and thicker icing needs overnight, 8 to 12 hours, before anything sits on it. Why this matters: the hat feels dry long before the middle is, and a stacked cookie dents the hat below it. A marshmallow slowly dries out in the open air, so for cookies made more than a day or two ahead, pipe a white icing pompom instead.
Picture someone who baked 200 gingerbread men for the office party and now wants hats on every one. Piping the classic hat means two rounds, red today and white tomorrow, across 200 cookies. The one-pass hat is a single round: one person pipes red on six cookies, a second follows with the sprinkles and marshmallows, and the trays are set by the afternoon. With no white icing to mix, there is one less bag to fill.
The Other Three Santa Hats, From Classic to Full Santa
The one-pass hat is the quick one. These three take longer and each earns it differently: a smooth all-icing finish, a hat that is part of the cookie, or a complete Santa.
1. The Classic Piped Hat
This is the hat in most cookie photos: a red cap on one side of the head, then white trim and a white pompom piped on top once the red is dry.
- Outline and fill a red hat across the top of the head, tilted to one side. Leave a little bare cookie between the hat and where the eyes will go.
- Let the red dry at least 4 hours, and up to 12 to 24 hours if you want to be safe, before any white touches it. Sweetopia's guidance on bleeding names 12 to 24 hours as the safe wait for a first layer and 4 to 5 hours as the riskier one, especially with a dark color next to a light one.
- Pipe the white brim across the bottom of the hat in stiff icing, then a round white pompom at the tip.
- Pipe the eyes and smile, and buttons if you like.
- Let the white dry about two hours before you handle the cookies, and overnight before stacking.
Say the party is Saturday at 2 p.m. Pipe the red hats Friday after dinner, around 7. By Saturday morning they have had more than 12 hours, so the white brims go on at 10 a.m. with no pink edge, and the cookies are dry enough to set out on a tray by noon. The planner below works out your times from the moment you need the cookies.
Santa Hat Cookie Planner
Pick a hat, how many cookies and when you need them. The planner tells you how much icing to mix in each color and counts back through every drying time.
For planning only: icing amounts are estimates scaled from a 24 cookie batch, and the share of each cookie a hat covers is our estimate. Drying times change with the weather, so treat each wait as a minimum and touch-test a spare cookie before moving on. Not professional baking advice. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
2. The Baked-In Hat From a Template
For the baked-in hat, the hat is part of the cookie itself. Print the Santa hat gingerbread man template, number 10 on our template page, which stands 8 inches tall from the pompom to the feet, cut it out, lay it on rolled dough and trace around it with a small sharp knife.
- Roll the dough a quarter inch thick, the thickness our sturdy gingerbread man cookie recipe uses, so the arms and the hat tip survive.
- Trace the outline, then lift the scraps away rather than lifting the cookie. The tip of the hat is the narrowest part, so slide a thin spatula under that end first.
- Bake and cool the cookies completely.
- Flood the hat red, let it dry as for the classic hat, then pipe the white brim and pompom.
A smaller option is a Santa hat gingerbread cutter. Several sellers on Etsy listed them for about $3.50 to $6 when we checked on November 8, 2026. The template earns its place when you want one big showpiece cookie or a craft version. The cutter is the better buy if you bake a tray of hats every year.
3. The Full Santa Suit
The full Santa suit turns the gingerbread man into Santa himself. The cookie keeps its brown face, and the icing adds the hat, a white beard, a red suit and a black belt.
- Pipe and fill the hat, then the red suit over the body, arms and legs, leaving the face and hands bare.
- Let the red dry overnight. With white going right on top of a large red area, the safe wait is the one to use.
- Pipe the white brim, pompom and a fluffy beard below the mouth. Press shredded coconut into the wet beard for texture.
- Add white cuffs at the wrists and ankles, a black belt across the middle and a tiny yellow or white buckle.
- Pipe the eyes last, just above the beard.
For the paper version, our paper Santa disguise uses a red paper suit and a cotton beard. Give the face green icing and a sly grin and the same hat becomes the Grinch version of the Santa hat cookie.
Which Colors to Use, and How to Get Red That Is Not Pink
A Santa hat gingerbread man needs only two icing colors: red for the hat and white for the brim and pompom. The brown cookie is the skin, so there is nothing to flood on the face. Add black or dark brown for eyes, and green only if you want a sprig of holly on the brim.
Red is the hard one. Wilton's guide to getting red icing says a deep red takes a large amount of icing color, that mixing a day or two ahead helps because the color deepens as it sets, and that the icing has to look red when you mix it, not pink. Their decorating room mixes Red-Red and Christmas Red in equal parts. A lot of coloring can make icing taste a little bitter, and Wilton suggests a little extra flavoring to balance it. Their No Taste Red is gentler on flavor, though a bit more muted. Wilton writes about buttercream, but the same deepening shows up in royal icing.
Sweetopia reports better results from AmeriColor soft gel paste with intense colors such as red, black and brown, and the brown cookie helps too, since red against gingerbread looks deeper than red on a pale sugar cookie. If you are coloring a batch for a class, our royal icing you can tint red splits easily into a small red bowl and a large white one.
Adding Santa Hats to Cookies You Already Baked
You do not need a new cutter to put Santa hats on gingerbread men you have already baked. Any standard gingerbread man has a round head with room for a hat, and both the one-pass hat and the classic piped hat go straight on top.
The question bakers ask most is whether to pipe hats by hand or buy a hat cutter. Go by the batch:
- Already baked, any number: pipe the hats. The one-pass hat is fastest for a big batch.
- Not baked yet, a dozen or fewer: trace the template for a baked-in hat, or pipe by hand.
- Not baked yet, several dozen, every year: a hat cutter is worth the few dollars.
To keep 50 hand-piped hats looking alike, cut a small paper triangle the size of the head, lay it on each cookie and pipe around it. One shape, every hat, no measuring. Imagine a parent with three dozen plain gingerbread men left over from a school bake sale and a family party the next night. Instead of baking again, she mixes one bowl of red, tilts every hat the same way with the paper triangle and presses on coconut brims. The leftovers become the party tray by bedtime.
How to Draw a Gingerbread Man With a Santa Hat
To draw a gingerbread man with a Santa hat, draw the gingerbread man first, then add a curved triangle over the head, a band for the brim and a circle at the tip. Kids can follow it in six steps:
- Draw a circle for the head and a rounded body below it, with two short arms and two short legs, all with rounded ends. Our basic gingerbread man drawing walks through this part.
- Draw a long, curved triangle that starts at the top of the head and bends over to one side.
- Draw a fat band across the bottom of the triangle, covering the top of the head. That is the brim.
- Add a circle at the tip of the triangle for the pompom.
- Draw two dot eyes and a smile below the brim, three buttons down the middle and wavy icing lines on the arms and legs.
- Color the hat red and the cookie brown, and leave the brim, pompom and icing lines white.
For something ready to color, print the template above, or browse our funny gingerbread man faces to put under the hat.
When Your Santa Hat Cookies Go Wrong
Most Santa hat problems come from white touching wet red, icing that is too thin, or a hat tip that is too skinny. Find the symptom, then the fix.
| What went wrong | Why it happens | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Pink edge on the white brim | White piped next to red that was still wet | Wait at least 4 hours, longer if it is humid, or use the one-pass hat |
| Red came out pink | Not enough coloring, or mixed right before use | Mix a day ahead and keep adding color until it reads red in the bowl |
| Red tastes bitter | A large dose of red coloring | Use a no-taste red, or add a little extra flavoring |
| Hat slid down the face | Icing too thin | Stiffen with powdered sugar until a peak stands up |
| Sprinkles will not stick | The red crusted before you pressed them in | Work six cookies at a time, or add a fresh line of red along the brim |
| Marshmallow fell off | Set on dry icing, or too little icing at the tip | Dab on fresh red icing and press it back |
| Baked-in hat tip snapped | Thin dough, or the cookie lifted by the hat | Roll a quarter inch thick and lift with a spatula from the tip end |
| Face hidden under the brim | Hat piped too low on the head | Keep the brim across the top third of the head |
| Colors bled in the tin | Stacked before the icing was dry inside | Wait overnight before stacking, with parchment between layers |
Humidity slows all of this down. In a damp kitchen, give every wait longer; Sweetopia notes a fan helps the icing dry.
Gingerbread Man Santa Hats You Can Buy or Wear
Plenty of people searching for a gingerbread man Santa hat want one to wear or hang, not one to bake. These were listed in Google's shopping results when we checked on November 8, 2026:
- A gingerbread Santa hat to wear: Walmart's Holiday Time Faux Suede Gingerbread Santa Hat, $7.98, a brown hat with white icing-style swirls, peppermints, holly and a pompom. Novelty versions with gingerbread prints run from about $6 to $22 at Walmart and on eBay.
- Decor: Hobby Lobby's Santa Hat Jumbo Gingerbread Man Wood Decor, $14.49, a wooden gingerbread character in a striped scarf and patterned Santa hat topped with holly.
- Ornaments: a 14 inch foam gingerbread man with a red Santa hat and peppermint buttons, $8.50 at CraftOutlet.
- Make your own hat: the free crochet gingerbread Santa hat pattern from Repeat Crafter Me works up in double crochet with Bernat Super Value yarn in Topaz, Berry Red and White and a size H hook.
Prices and stock change daily through the holidays, so check the listing before you drive. If the wearable hat is for a cookie-decorating party, it makes a good prize for the best-decorated gingerbread man.
Storage Instructions
Once the icing is fully dry, store Santa hat cookies in a single layer, or with parchment between layers, in an airtight container at room temperature. Keep them out of the fridge, where damp air can make the red bleed into the white. Our guide to how long iced gingerbread men stay fresh covers how long they stay good to eat. Marshmallow pompoms firm up as they sit, so serve those trays within a couple of days.
Gingerbread Man Santa Hat Questions
What colors do you need for gingerbread men with Santa hats?
Red for the hat and white for the brim and pompom, plus black or brown for the eyes. The brown cookie is the face, so it needs no icing.
Do I need a Santa hat cookie cutter?
No. A plain gingerbread man cutter works, and the hat is piped on after baking. A hat cutter or the printable template only matters if you want the hat to be part of the cookie shape.
What can I use for the pompom on a Santa hat cookie?
A mini marshmallow pressed into wet icing, a dot of stiff white royal icing, a white candy pearl, or a pinch of shredded coconut.
How far ahead can I make Santa hat gingerbread men?
Mix the red the day before and decorate up to a day or two before the party. Use piped white pompoms rather than marshmallows if you are working further ahead.
Is there a gingerbread man with Santa hat template?
Yes. Template 10 on our template page is an 8 inch gingerbread man wearing a floppy Santa hat, free as a US Letter or A4 PDF, for coloring, felt crafts or tracing onto dough.
More Gingerbread Man Ideas for the Same Tray
The same dough and the same two bags of icing make a whole cast of characters. Put a Spiderman gingerbread man beside the Santas for the superhero fan, and browse more gingerbread cookie recipes for softer and spicier doughs. For pompoms and buttons beyond marshmallows, our guide to candy that sticks to royal icing lists what holds.
Give Your Santas a House With Best Gingerbread Houses
A tray of Santa hat gingerbread men looks even better standing in front of a gingerbread house. The same red and white icing that dresses the cookies trims a roof, and a good kit takes the baking off your plate. When you want a head start, begin with our gingerbread house kits for the whole family, sorted from the sturdiest boxes to the ones that wobble.