Gingerbread men (or gingerbread women) are staples of the holiday baking season, right up there with classic sugar cookies as a treat that most bakers love to make. Gingerbread cakes are also popular around the holidays, although they don’t usually get decorated to the extent that smaller gingerbread cookies do. Nordic Ware’s seasonal Gingerbread Man Pan puts a little more fun into gingerbread cake with a pan that is shaped like a giant gingerbread man.
The cast aluminum pan has a classic gingerbread man shape, complete with a face, buttons and cuffs that will transfer from the pan to whatever you’re baking in it. It has a nonstick finish, so cakes should slide out quite easily and still keep their shape. The details on the face are clear enough that they won’t get lost during baking. You get a lot of personality from a pan like this – after all, its shape is instantly recognizable even if the smell of molasses and spices doesn’t drift out of it while looking at a picture online – so while it doesn’t necessarily have to be decorated, it is a lot more fun if you use a little bit of icing to dress the big man up as you would some of his smaller counterparts and give his face a little more expression before putting him on the holiday dessert table.
What do you think?