Gingerbread Cookies: Paleo style
My 5 y.o daughter and I had a Sunday morning to ourselves and went out for breakfast. In a café window, she spotted a gingerbread house that was quite spectacular.
She said ‘Mummy, I wish we could make that and eat it all up!’ to which I said,
‘Hmm, yes, that would be yummy, but do you think all that sugar, icing and fake colours would make your body feel good?’
To which she answered: ‘No, but I want to make a healthy one of those!’. So I had to say “Ok!”.
Now my baking talents do not extend to gingerbread houses, but we agreed that gingerbread boy and girl cookies were definitely within our reach! So here is what we made, and I must say I had more than one as they are totally divine:)
cookie dough
cashew icing
Grain/Gluten/Dairy and Sugar Free Gingerbread Cookies
You will need some gingerbread boy/girl cookie cutters or use any shapes you like. A piping bag also helps with the icing.
I liked using molasses as the sweetener because it’s a very mineral rich sweetener, a little bit goes a long way and because it’s brown it makes everything look like chocolate! So these are actually kind of chocolate gingerbread cookies without any cacao/actual chocolate. For more info on different sweeteners, click my earlier post here.
Ingredients:
-2 and 1/2 cups of almond meal
-1 tbsp. cinnamon powder
-1 tsp. ginger powder
-2 tbsp. organic sultanas (you can also use dates or dried apricots)- soaked for 5 mins in boiled water and drained
-2 tbsp. coconut oil (or olive oil)
-2 tbsp. molasses (or maple syrup/raw honey)
-1 egg white (save the yolk for the icing)
Icing:
– 1 egg yolk
– 1/3 cup soaked cashews
– 2 tbsp. coconut oil
– 2 tbsp. coconut cream or milk
tray of gingerbreads
How to:
-Preheat the oven at 150C
-For the icing: combine all ingredients and pulse with hand blender until a smooth paste forms (or blend in food processor). Set aside and get the piping bag ready.
-In your food processor, blend: almond meal, cinnamon, ginger and sultanas.
-Add coconut oil, molasses and egg white. Blend again until the mass comes together into a big ‘ball’ of dough.
-Take out the dough ball and place between 2 pieces of baking paper. Using a rolling pin, roll in out into a flat surface about 1/2 a centimetre thick. Put in freezer for 15 mins to firm up.
-Use the cookie cutters to cut out shapes and place on a baking paper lined oven tray. You will have leftover bits around the shapes. Re-make these into a new smaller ball of dough, roll out again and cut out some more shapes.
-Place the icing mixture into the piping bag and push down gently to decorate your cookies as per the photo- or just decorate however you fancy!
-Bake in oven for about 35 mins until cookies are firm and golden.
This batch made about 15 medium sized boy and girl gingerbreads and a few small star shapes. Give them a go, they are sensational!! Next time I’m going to add turmeric (because I add it to everything as it is the most amazing anti-inflammatory food in the world:)
Let me know how you go!
happy gingerbreads
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