It's Christmas cookie time!  

On Sunday, the first of December, I was in a baking mood. Of course it had to be a Christmas baking mood and we even had the Christmas music playing in the background... that was down to my mum!  

Though I will admit that I've now put the Christmas tunes on my laptop as I write this post- a 15 minute indulgence of Christmas tunes is a great start to the day, right?

I've been trying to figure out an inventive 'healthified' gingerbread man recipe for ages.

I've made these gingerbread parcels in the past which were yummy but used wheat and were not of the crisp cookie variety.  I know when live made gingerbread men in the past (the first year i became vegan) i used non-healthy sugar and they were a perfect consistency, so i think this may have a large part to play (see also note* below).

y idea for this version was in large part inspired by Deliciously Ella's Gingerbread men, and true to style i simply mixed it up a bit (but I really loved the goji touch!)

I imagine these would also make great tree decorations, if you go that route i would bake them at a low heat for a lot longer to dry them our more. Plus if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that yesterday I came cross another cool Christmas cookie idea that I will most definitely attempt in the next couple of weeks!

I have lots of other 'ginger' inspired recipes in my blog archives... i think this hot pear with gingerbread sauce may well be my favourite- and it only takes 5 minutes to whip up!  Oh and not forgetting my Wholeplus festive gingerbread balls (shame plus plug- ha ha!) I have a huge batch of those to make later for delivery to Saviour Snacks, plenty of lucky people will be getting those in their Christmas boxes ;-)

Tell me, what do you do to get in the festive mood? Oh and what is your favourite Christmas tune?

Recipe: Gingerbread Men 

Makes approx 20 smallish gingerbread men

• ingredients: 
• 1 cup buckwheat flour (oat flour and brown rice flour should also work)
• 1 cup ground almonds
• 2 tbs ground ginger
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• 2 tbs oil
• 2 tsp molasses
• ½ cup date puree* plus stevia to taste (I used approx ¼ tsp vanilla stevia drops)
• 2 tbs arrowroot
• approx. ¼ cup fruit juice or no-dairy milk (to mix- add last)

Method:

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Mix the wet ingredients together in a separate small bowl.

Add the wet to the dry, adding the liquid last to form a soft dough using your hands. Add the arrowroot with your hands to take the edge of the stickiness of the dough and help it bind together well, i find this makes a big difference. I also use it dust over the rolling surface.

Roll out the dough to approx. 3-4mm thick and cut into shapes of choice.  Bake for approx 15 mins at 180C keeping a close eye after 10 minutes to ensure they don’t burn. The exact length of time will depend how soft you lie your ginrgerbread- take out at closer to 10 minutes for softer.

Note: I added the decoration prior to baking BUT the goji’s burnt so I picked them off and re-positioned fresh ones using melted coconut butter to stick them in place. You could also decorate with piped melted cacoa liquor or dark chocolate if you fancied.

*I used date paste, however if believe that using a granular sugar (such as coconut sugar, rapadura/sucanat) would produce a crisper bite than these cookies. It depends on your cookie preference.

I always suggest you taste the dough as you go and add extra ginger, sweetness etc as you desire prior to rolling and baking.