Vegan Gingerbread Cookies

Cookie Ingredients

• Super-Fine Almond Flour – This kind of almond flour is made from blanched almonds. It’s the best to use for baking cookies, cakes and breads or muffins. I haven’t tried “almond meal” with this recipe so I don’t recommend using it here.
• Gingerbread spices – ground ginger, cinnamon, all spice and just a pinch of cloves.
• Tapioca flour – Using tapioca flour will help hold the dough together. I haven’t tested this recipe without it but arrowroot or cornstarch can be subbed. Coconut flour may also work, but I haven’t tried it. If using coconut flour, I’d only use 2 tablespoons here.
• Molasses – the key ingredient for gingerbread flavor. Make sure to use black-strap molasses.
• Vegan butter or ghee – This recipe can be made with a vegan friendly butter or ghee for a paleo option.
• Vanilla – helps enhance the flavor in cookies.
• Coconut sugar – Just 1/4 cup used here. You can also use brown sugar if you’d like. I imagine date or maple sugar could work too but I haven’t tried this.

Equipment

• pastry roller or rolling pin
• parchment paper
• large baking sheet
• gingerbread cookie cutters

How to Make Vegan Gingerbread

Making these healthy gingerbread cookies couldn’t be easier! Everything can be mixed in one bowl and the dough is easy to work with. You just need to make sure you chill the dough for about 1 hour before rolling out and using your cookie cutters.

Here’s a quick rundown of the process:

Mix the wet ingredients

Mix together the melted butter with molasses, sugar and vanilla until smooth.

Add the dry ingredients

Add in almond flour, tapioca flour and gingerbread spices. Mix until well combined, adding 2-3 TBSP milk at the end. This may take a bit, just be patient and use your hands at the end.

Chill the dough

Once the dough has combined, you’ll want to shape it into a round disc (for rolling out later) and place on parchment lined baking sheet. Chill the dough for at least 1 hour, up to 2 days in the refrigerator.

Roll out the dough & cut

Now it’s time to roll the dough. Place the dough on an extra long piece of parchment paper, then fold over the excess parchment paper over top of the dough and use the roller on top of the parchment paper. This gingerbread dough is a little sticky so this part is necessary.

Roll the dough out so it’s about 1/4″ thick. Then use the gingerbread men and women (or other shaped cookie cutters) and cut out your gingerbread people.

To remove the dough from the parchment paper, make sure to use a flat edge spatula.

Bake

Now all that’s left to do is bake the cookies and repeat the rolling out process and cutting out with the remaining dough.

Recipe Yield

I got about 14 gingerbread cookies, using various sized cookie cutters. You can also double this recipe for more cookies.

The amount of cookies will depend on the size of your cookie cutters.

Decorating the Gingerbread

Use a simple “royal icing” recipe or use a coconut sugar icing if you’re looking for a paleo-friendly option.

To make powdered coconut sugar, simply process about 1 1/2 cups of coconut sugar with 1 tablespoon tapioca flour until super fine. Then mix with milk or water to make the icing as you would with traditional confectioners sugar. I add one teaspoon liquid at a time and mix really well until I’ve reached the desired consistency – not too thin but not too thick.

Note: You won’t get the white contrast of confectioner’s sugar if you opt for coconut sugar. Here I used organic powdered sugar.

Baking FAQs

• Can I use a different flour like all-purpose or whole grain? With this particular recipe I don’t recommend it. This recipe was developed specifically for almond flour, so please stick with that for best results.
• Can I use coconut oil? Coconut oil holds up differently when baking compared to butter. Even though the dough is chilled prior to baking, I can’t say with 100% confidence using coconut oil here would work the same.
• Do I have to chill the dough? Yes! Chilling the dough will ensure the gingerbread hold their shape. This dough can be chilled up to 2 days in advance, kept in the refrigerator.

Have fun and enjoy these with your loved ones.

Oh, and Santa, of course.