Gingerbread Cookie Choo Choo Train

Here is a gingerbread cookie choo choo train that’s on its way to deliver candy to a gingerbread village. It’s carrying a freight of jelly beans, red hots, chewing gum, and sour gummy candies.

I made the wheels out of gingerbread house dough, but you could also use swirly hard candies instead. They are just the right size for this template.

I attached the wheels with royal icing while the cars were sideways (the cars were assembled the day before, then allowed to dry).

After attaching the wheels, I didn’t stand the cars upright for another day. It’s important that the wheels are fully secure before adding candy to the inside of the cargo cars. When in doubt, slide a piece of candy or scrap of cookie under the cars to help keep them propped up, so that none of the wheels snap off under the weight of a full load.

I piped all of the trim for this gingerbread choo choo train in chocolate royal icing. I made the nose of the train out of different sized round gingerbread cookies (the shapes are included in the template) but you could use macarons or sandwich cookies to achieve the same effect. Tip: attach the nose of the engine after adding the wheels.

My recipes for royal icing + tricks for assembly are in the following FREE kit:
Gingerbread House Decoration & Construction

Note: If you are working with kids, you can make the cookie train template easier by trimming off the rounded connector parts so that the bottom of each train car is simply rectangular.