These gluten free, vegan, soy and refined sugar free gingerbread cookies earn their White Christmas vibes by what I can only describe as
a. My lack of patience and
b. My lack of finesse
when it comes to decorating them all pretty. The way I see it, time spent piping little eyes onto gingerbread men is time that could be spent eating said gingerbread men. SO instead, I went pollock style on these crunchy yet soft cookies and splattered the crap out of them with a little peppermint coconut butter. And honestly I prefer them this way.
No fuss. Rustic to the T.
I used a cute Christmas cookie mould to get these shapes (not a cookie cutter) I find cookie cutters to be a little fiddly when dealing with gluten free and vegan dough. So if you're after the same kind of shapes, invest in a mould or 2, it will make your life a lot easier during the end process. Alternatively if you're not married to the idea of Christmas style cutouts, just use a baking tray, scoop out the dough into small round balls and cook them the OG way.
There are a few ingredients in this recipe which I feel work so well together and contribute to the deep caramel, yet spiced flavor. Almond butter gives you the creaminess, blackstrap molasses gives you the sticky consistency yet rich flavor and coconut sugar as the sweetener brings out some caramel notes. Add in ground ginger and cinnamon and you've got a pretty delicious base for a healthified gingerbread cookie.
If you want to keep the sugar intake minimal, follow my easy peppermint coconut butter recipe. Just a few splatters of that ontop (once the cookies are cool) is all you need as an "icing" element.
Makes 22 cookies:
What you'll need:
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1/3 c almond butter
3 tbsp soft coconut oil
3/4 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp molasses
1 cup trader joes brand gf flour
1/4 tsp pink salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp ground flax seeds mixed with 4 tbsp warm water
For the peppermint coconut butter icing
1 bag unsweetened coconut shreds
1/2 tsp peppermint essence (or oil)
1/2 tsp matcha powder
What to do:
Make your flax egg by mixing the ground flax seeds with warm water in a small dish. Stir thoroughly, ensuring there are no clumps and set aside to get 'eggy'.
Using a head beater, in a medium bowl, beat your molasses, coconut oil, almond butter and coconut sugar together until mixed really well.
Add in all your dry ingredients and mix well with a wooden spoon, towards the end work the mixture into a dough with your hands.
Press into one large ball, cover bowl and place in the fridge to chill for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350F bake.
Once dough has chilled, either press 1 1/2 tbsp worth of mixture into each christmas cookie mould ensuring you have filled in all the corners and left a good amount of room to allow for rising.
If you don’t have a mould, simply spoon out the mixture using an ice-cream/cookie scoop onto a parchment line baking tray.
Bake for 11 minutes
Remove from the oven, let cookies cool slightly before transferring to a cooling rack.
While the cookies are cooling make your coconut butter by placing all your coconut in a high powered blender like a vitamix. On a low speed just let it run for 1 -2 minutes. During this process, the coconut will slowly turn into a butter. You want the butter to be as smooth as possible so the longer you blend the smoother it will be.
Once smooth, transfer the coconut butter into 2 separate dishes.
Sift your matcha powder and a few drops of peppermint oil into one and stir well until you get a nice green color.
Add the remaining peppermint drops to the other dish and stir well.
Once cookies are cool, take a fork and splatter the cookies with both the green and white coconut butter.
Serve and Enjoy!
To store - transfer to a tupperware container, and keep covered. Don’t refrigerate, as the cookies will get quite hard. You can leave them on your bench top for up to 1 week.
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