Gluten-Free & Vegan Gingerbread Cookies

These days prior to Christmas are being pretty hectic (and kinda chaotic, to be honest), December is most definitely the busiest month of the year for us food bloggers. But I like to feel so productive, even though my days are longer than I wish and I end up pretty exhausted. Holiday-themed recipes are fun to create and it pushes my creative boundaries. Food photography is a constant journey of learning and I absolutely adore this part of being a food blogger; looking for nice xmas props, setting up the right mood for a photoshoot...every recipe requires a previous research for inspiration and brainstorming but I think Christmas posts are the most challenging to me. Oh and try to take pictures of chocolate truffles while your 7-month kitten jumps on the table and begins to attack all the Christmas props you delicately put together.

So let's talk about these gluten-free and vegan gingerbread cookies, shall we? It's not an easy task to make a good gluten-free and vegan cookie dough that can be rolled out properly without falling apart or cracking. I'm not a big fan of vegan butter or margarine because the ones I find in Spain are pretty much crap, not healthy at all and they always give me bad results. That's when coconut oil comes to the rescue and you finally get pretty cutout cookies that are quite easy to handle.

I love the texture of these gingerbread cookies cause they are delicately crispy on the edges (don't expect that typical cookie crispiness) and tender on the center, I'd say these ones are a mix between marzipan and biscuits. Anyways, you should give this recipe a try and judge by yourself, they are super spiced and delicious, right what Christmas dreams are made of. ;-)

Gluten-Free & Vegan Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups almond flour.

1/4 cup coconut flour.

1/3 cup light coconut syrup.

1/4 cup extra virgin coconut oil, melted.

A pinch of pink Himalayan salt.

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

1/2 teaspoon ginger.

1/4 teaspoon cloves.

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg.

- For the easy royal icing:

1/2 cup organic powdered sugar.

2 teaspoons coconut milk or almond milk.

Directions

If your coconut oil is solid you should melt it until you get 1/4 cup of liquid coconut oil, let it cool a little bit before using.

In a large mixing bowl and using a hand whisk mix all the dry ingredients: almond flour, coconut flour, salt, and spices. Add in the coconut oil and coconut syrup (don't use dark coconut syrup or your cookies will brown up too much), stir with a sturdy silicone spatula or a large wooden spoon until a cohesive dough forms.

Shape dough into a ball, place a big piece of parchment paper on your working surface and shape the dough into a disc. Roll out dough until it is about 1/2 cm thick, if the dough sticks too much to the rolling pin place another sheet of parchment paper covering the dough (alternatively you can also lightly grease your rolling pin with coconut oil).

Transfer the rolled dough to a baking sheet and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. It is very important that the dough is really cold so you can get clean and beautiful shapes and handle the cookies without them breaking apart or look deformed.

Preheat oven to 170 ºC and cut out cookies using your favorite Christmas cookie cutters: gingerbread men, stars, xmas tree, etc. Transfer to a lined baking sheet using a thin metal spatula.

Shape scraps into a ball, roll out again until all dough is used up.

Let the cookies set in the freezer for 5 minutes.

Bake for 10 minutes, until cookies are light golden. Keep an eye on them cause they brown up quickly.

Carefully transfer cookies to a cooling rack, they will be quite tender fresh from the oven but will firm up as they cool.

To make the royal icing, simply whisk sugar and milk in a small bowl until a thick white paste forms. Let it set at room temperature for a few minutes and decorate each cookie using a pastry bag.

Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. They are best consumed within the first two days.