Easter Gingerbread Egg With Free Template

I made a Gingerbread House last year for Easter, so this year when I was trying to decide what kind of Gingerbread project I would do, I kept thinking about a giant Easter Egg cookie. But I wanted it to have a design.

For me, as a lover of Jesus, I wanted to do something that would point to Him. After all, there is no Easter without Him!

I Wanted To Add The Empty Tomb

That’s when I had the idea to incorporate the empty tomb into the design, and to also include all of the things that “say” Easter, but that all of those things would point to the empty tomb. I hope that make’s sense! I was at the hair salon under the dryer when I sketched out my design. Lol!

Usually for me, the design kind of evolves as I get started, and that’s definitely what happened with this Easter Egg. I had actually wanted to have an old white church cookie in the design, but as I went, I decided not to. I thought that the cute animals, and the beautiful spring flowers would surround the tomb with beauty, so that’s what I did.

The Dogwood Legend

I KNEW without a doubt that I had to have Dogwood flowers on it. They are so beautiful, and I love the Dogwood Story/Legend! If you’ve never read about it, you can read the whole thing on Always the Holidays website.

The leaves are actually 2 longer petals with two shorter ones. (The article says the dogwood petals are actually leaves, but I am calling them petals because that’s what most would think they are). The story says that this shape creates a cross.

Then on the end of each petal or what are actually called bracts, there are indentions that look like nail holes. Not only that, but there is a reddish color in the indentions, symbolizing Christ’s blood.

The story says that before Jesus was crucified, the flowers did not look like this, and that they are like this now because Jesus blessed the flowers to be beautiful.

I know it may just be a story, but all I know is that when I see the dogwood flower, I think of the beauty of the great and loving sacrifice Jesus made for all of humanity.

I Sketched Out My Design

I went ahead and sketched out the pieces I would need that day in the salon. The big easter egg, with a tomb on the lower part, the sun coming up, to show the morning that the empty tomb was found.

Elements To Incorporate

The burial garments Jesus left behind on the tomb bench, and then the animals, symbolizing creation giving The Lord worship, as well as the flowers and butterflies. To me the butterflies are a picture of the new creation we are in Jesus and the daffodils symbolize the trumpet and the announcing of the good news.

So now that my design was in my head and I had written and drawn out a rough sketch, it was time to get baking!

Teri’s Recipe For Gingerbread

When I’ve made Gingerbread projects in the past, I’ve used Teri Pringle Butler Woods recipe for Gingerbread. (I will have the link below). I really love her recipe and it’s great for having the stoutness for a project like this, so again, that’s the recipe I went with. Thank’s Teri! I LOVE your recipe!

I make the dough, then let it chill overnight in the fridge. Then I roll it out and cut out all of my gingerbread pieces using my template. A link to the free template is available below. It is in my store, just scroll to the lower part of the page!

Baking My Gingerbread Egg Pieces

Once the pieces are cut out, I always chill them for at least 20 minutes, sometimes longer before baking. This helps the pieces keep their shape when baked. They are going to swell a bit, but that’s normal.

I actually overcook my larger pieces a bit, especially if I know it’s going to be a project that I’m not going to eat. That part is totally up to you. I just want to firm them up a bit for all of the handling they are about to go through! Lol!

Be sure when baking to bake similar sized pieces together. You don’t want to bake very large pieces with tiny ones. The tiny will definitely over-bake or burn, as it takes the larger pieces a bit longer to bake.

Be Sure To Double-Check Your Template Measurements

The template has the approximate measurements on it. I put those on because sometimes different printers will print out differently, depending on their settings. If you want to make sure the Egg is the same size as the one I made, you might just take a ruler once you print your template out, and make sure that it has printed in the same size. If they are all off, then you may want to adjust your printer settings. I set mine to “Do Not Scale”.

Brush On Egg-Wash Right Out Of The Oven

After I bake mine, I brush on an egg-wash pretty much right out of the oven. This gives the exposed Gingerbread a beautiful sheen.

Once all of your pieces are baked, you might let the larger ones sit out and really cool and harden before you start handling and decorating, especially the main piece; the big egg with the tomb.

Now it’s time to start flooding!

Time To Flood Your Pieces

On my egg, I actually cracked my flood, because after I flooded it, I picked it up to move it to the dehydrator, and I cracked the crust that had formed on it, which in turn made it weak and lead to a larger crack in my Royal Icing. I think it is because the tomb and the inside is cut out of it, and it makes it less stable when handling.

If I were to do it again, I would put it on my dehydrator shelf first, or if you don’t have one, on a cookie sheet, then decorate it. That way it has good support when moving.

I knew I was going to be adding a lot of decoration to my egg, so I wasn’t too worried about the amount of cracking I had. Was I bummed? Yes! But I wasn’t bummed enough to make the whole thing all over again, and it worked out ok!

I went ahead and flooded all of my pieces, except the Tomb Bench, and the Tomb Walls. On the Tomb Bench, I knew I was going to need to trim this, and so I waited.

On the Tomb Walls, this was totally experimental, so I really wasn’t sure how I was going to flood them yet, so I waited on those as well. I went ahead and flooded the Back of Tomb Wall a gray color.

I Wanted A Subtle Pattern On My Egg

On the egg, I decided I wanted to add some kind of muted pattern, to make sure it looked like an Easter Egg. My design that I was going for was elegant, so I really wanted something that would compliment the dogwood flowers, butterflies and daffodils.

I went through my stencils I had and found one that reminded me of leaves. I thought it was perfect! I just wound up dabbing it with a very dry brush in a light green, faintly in some spots and more in others. I wanted it to barely be noticeable.

From there I decided to go ahead and get a fair amount of decorating done to the egg, but I thought it would be a mistake to decorate the whole thing, because I didn’t want to damage it when I attached it to the tomb.

So I added the rocks to the tomb, and added the vines, then painted the grass and tomb area. I just used food gel mixed with water at this point.

I Made My Royal Icing Transfers

Once I had that done, I made a lot of my Royal Icing pieces (RI Transfers). I made the flowers, leaves, grass clusters on the top of the tomb, branches and the burial clothes all in RI Transfers. If you’ve never made these, I will have a video up on my blog soon.

You can also look up Royal Icing Transfers on Youtube, which are RI pieces that you make separately from your cookie, like on parchment paper, acetate or mylar. It needs to be something that when they dry, they will slide right off of. They usually need to be dried overnight, THEN added to the cookie.

Julia Ushers Dogwood Video Is Amazing!

For the Dogwood Flowers, I watched Julia Usher’s YouTube Video on how to make them. I had never tried it before, and let me tell you, I was SO excited with how these came out! Thank you Julia for this amazing tutorial! If you would like to watch you can see Julia’s Dogwood Video Tut here!

The advantage of this is you pick the best ones to use and you are able to put them on right where you want them without messing them up since they are already dry. You can even paint them, like I did some of mine.

I Was On A Roll Now!

I went back and forth from working on pieces, to making RI Transfers. When something was drying, I would work on the other. Once my RI Transfers were made and painted, and the base and egg were done up to the point where I needed to attach the tomb, I knew I had to figure out how to flood the tomb.

I flooded the top of the 3 pieces with a gray, forgetting that I was going to flood the whole thing in green to resemble a grassy hill. So that step was not needed! Lol!

I had some thick light brown RI that I had used for the branches, so I decided it was the perfect RI to use to glue the tomb together. So I glued the three pieces together; the 2 tomb walls and the tomb back wall.

Once that dried a bit, I filled the exterior cracks with RI and rubbed it in with my finger.

Once that dried overnight, I flooded the whole exterior with a thick green flood. I left a few of the brown spots so it would resemble dirt showing through the grass.

Time To Attach The Tomb To The Egg! Yay!

Once that dried overnight, I attached the tomb to the egg. I was so excited! To see the whole thing sitting like I pictured in my mind was exciting, and I was so happy to reach this point! I used the same light brown RI, and it worked perfect!

I then filled in the green RI on top of the egg, between the tomb and the vine. I really wish I had done something about the line of green RI, but I’ll know better next time.

Attaching The Egg To The Base Was So Satisfying!

Now I sat the whole thing on the base. I played with the design and placement of the tomb stone, and the animals a bit, then went ahead and attached the whole egg and tomb to the base! EEEK! How exciting! It’s been a lot of work up to this point! My vision is coming to life!

At this point I just started adding everything else.

Adding Shimmery Paint Just Makes Everything Pop!

Once I got everything on, I started painting some of the elements with my Mini Paint Palettes, like the border on the base and egg, and the vines and the flowers, etc. This is what makes everything pop, and it gives it a more elegant look. I LOVE my Mini Paint Palettes! You can get them in my sweet friend Andrea’s store here.

My Smolik Czech Cookie Cutters Were PERFECT For This!

A lot of the little cookie cutters that I used, such as the animals, flowers and butterflies, you can find in my store also. I import these wonderful cutters from the Czech Republic from the Smolik Family. As far as I know, I am the only one that carries them in the U.S! I just LOVE Smolik Cookie Cutters!

The whole reason I sell them is because when I first started decorating cookies, I was hunting for some of the Czech Cutters online, and could not find them anywhere here in the U.S to purchase, so I contacted Smolik and we partnered together to bring them here! You can check them out in my Etsy Store here.

It Really Came Out Better Than I Expected! Thank You Lord!

Well that’s about it! I actually have a couple of things that happened during the making of this that really warmed my heart. I’m hoping to come back soon and add those. I hope you enjoy the template. Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try and answer them in a timely manner!

If you enjoy Gingerbread, check out some of my other Gingerbread Bakes! My Gingerbread Shadow Box with Free Template is below. I made it last year for my mom! Since she has a green thumb and loves her flowers, it was perfect for her for Mother’s Day!

Below is my Easter Gingerbread House With Free Template. As you can tell, I LOVE pretty gingerbread!

That’s about it! Thank you for spending some time with me! I hope you enjoy!

God Bless You and Happy Baking & Decorating!

Teesa