Gingerbread cookies are one of my favorite things to bake for the holidays! The spices go perfectly with the vanilla icing, and they are so much fun to make! Here are the ingredients you will need to make a batch of delicious gingerbread cookies:
Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt to a mixing bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside for now.
Cut the cold butter into 12 chunks. Beat the butter and brown sugar together on medium speed until the butter and sugar are blended together and there are no more obvious chunks of butter left.
Add the molasses, applesauce, milk, and vanilla to the creamed butter mixture.
Beat on medium-low speed just until evenly blended. Scrape down the bowl and the beaters (keep all the scrapings in the bowl). The mixture may look curdled and that’s ok:
Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Repeat, then scrape down the bowl and beaters again, keeping all the scrapings in the bowl. Use a sturdy spatula to fold in the last of the dry ingredients.
Divide your dough in half and flatten each piece into a 1” thick disc. Wrap both pieces in plastic wrap, place them in a ziplock bag, and chill for at least three hours.
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
Roll out one piece of your chilled dough to 1/8” thick between two pieces of waxed paper. Several times as you are rolling, gently peel off the top piece of waxed paper then place it back on the dough and flip the dough over. Gently peel off what is now the top piece of waxed paper then place it back on the dough and keep rolling the dough out. (This extra step prevents wrinkles in the waxed paper and in your dough.)
Once the dough is fully rolled out, slide the dough (still sandwiched between the two pieces of waxed paper) onto a cookie sheet and place in the freezer for 15 minutes.
Use cookie cutters to cut out your dough. You can use any size cutters you like, but be sure to only bake cookies of the same size together on the same baking sheet. Place each cut out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Re-roll the scraps and chill the rolled out dough as directed above. After rolling, chilling, and cutting two times, save the remaining scraps to combine with those from the second piece of dough.
Repeat the above rolling, chilling, and cutting directions with the second piece of dough.
Gather all of the remaining scraps together into a ball, roll out as directed above, chill the rolled out dough, and cut out more cookies. Repeat until all of the dough is used.
Bake cookies of the same size together. Bake tiny 1 1/2” tall cookies for seven minutes and larger 3 1/2” tall cookies for 10 minutes. Adjust the baking time for other sizes accordingly. Ovens vary, so these times are approximate. These cookies should be crisp all the way through once they have cooled. If your first pan of cookies is still soft when cooled, you need to bake the next batch longer. If your edges are too well done, you need a shorter baking time.
Let your cookies cool fully on the pan before decorating them.
Mix all of the icing ingredients together. Transfer the icing to a quart-size ziplock bag. Cut a tiny bit off of one corner of the bag, then pipe the icing onto your cookies as desired. You can serve your cookies as soon as the icing appears dry. However, you will need to let the icing dry for several hours before stacking the cookies.
You can also use this same cookie dough to make a gingerbread house. You can see the directions for how to do that in my gingerbread house post.
Gingerbread Cookies (Vegan & Gluten Free!)
Ingredients
Cookie Ingredients
- 420 g (3 1/2 cups) Freely Vegan All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour
- 3/4 tsp Baking Powder
- 3/4 tsp Baking Soda
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 2 1/2 tsp Ginger
- 2 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Allspice
- 1/4 tsp Black Pepper
- 1/4 tsp Cloves
- 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
- 170 g (12 TBS) Vegan Butter Sticks (I used Country Crock)
- 110 g (1/2 cup packed) Light Brown Sugar
- 170 g (1/2 cup) Molasses (I used Grandma's Original)
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 30 g (2 TBS) Unsweetened Applesauce
- 15 g (1 TBS) Plant Milk
Icing Ingredients
- 360 g (3 cups) Powdered Sugar
- 1/16 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 60 g (1/4 cup) Coconut Milk (or other plant milk)
- 55 g (2 1/2 TBS) Light Corn Syrup
Instructions
Cookie Directions
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt to a mixing bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside for now.
- Cut the cold butter into 12 chunks. Beat the butter and brown sugar together on medium speed until the butter and sugar are blended together and there are no more obvious chunks of butter left.
- Add the molasses, vanilla, applesauce, and milk to the creamed butter mixture. Beat on medium-low speed just until evenly blended. Scrape down the bowl and the beaters, keeping all the scrapings in the bowl. The mixture may look curdled and that’s ok.
- Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Repeat, then scrape down the bowl and beaters again, keeping all the scrapings in the bowl. Use a sturdy spatula to fold in the last of the dry ingredients.
- Divide your dough in half and flatten each piece into a 1” thick disc. Wrap both pieces in plastic wrap, place them in a ziplock bag, and chill for at least three hours. After the chilling time, you can freeze the dough for several months as long as it is tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in a ziplock bag.
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
- Roll out one piece of your chilled dough to 1/8” thick between two pieces of waxed paper. Several times as you are rolling, gently peel off the top piece of waxed paper then place it back on the dough and flip the dough over. Gently peel off what is now the top piece of waxed paper then place it back on the dough and keep rolling the dough out. (This extra step prevents wrinkles in the waxed paper and in your dough.)
- Once the dough is fully rolled out, slide the dough (still sandwiched between the two pieces of waxed paper) onto a cookie sheet and place in the freezer for 15 minutes.
- Use cookie cutters to cut out your dough. You can use any size cutters you like, but be sure to only bake cookies of the same size together on the same baking sheet. Place each cut out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Re-roll the scraps and chill the rolled out dough as directed above. After rolling, chilling, and cutting two times, save the remaining scraps to combine with those from the second piece of dough.
- Repeat the above rolling, chilling, and cutting directions with the second piece of dough. Gather all of the remaining scraps together into a ball, roll out as directed above, chill the rolled out dough, and cut out more cookies. Repeat until all of the dough is used.
- Bake cookies of the same size together. Bake tiny 1 1/2” tall cookies for seven minutes and larger 3 1/2” tall cookies for 10 minutes. Adjust the baking time for other sizes accordingly. Ovens vary, so these times are approximate. These cookies should be crisp all the way through once they have cooled. If your first pan of cookies is still soft when cooled, you need to bake the next batch a little longer. If your edges are too well done, you need a shorter baking time.
- Let your cookies cool fully on the pan before decorating them. Once the icing if fully dry, store the cookies in an airtight container for up to a week. I recommend placing a piece of waxed paper between the layers of cookies.
Icing Directions
- Sift the powdered sugar into a small mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients, then stir gently until the sugar is fully incorporated. You want the icing well mixed, but do not want to introduce air bubbles.
- The icing can be made up to several hours ahead, but cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap until you are ready to ice your cookies.
- Divide your icing into small bowls if you need multiple colors. Tint as desired, adding the color gradually until it is as dark as you want. Add one icing color to a ziplock sandwich bag, press out the air, and seal the bag. Cut a tiny bit off of one corner. Be careful with how much you cut off because this will determine the width of your piping.
- For a light icing, you can either pipe an outline around your cookies and then add additional decorative bits (like eyes, mouth, and buttons on gingerbread people), or you can drizzle icing over your cookies in a zigzag pattern (good for trees and stars). Add any sprinkles immediately after piping one cookie before piping the icing on the next cookie. The top of the icing dries quickly and your topping will not stick to the icing unless it is still wet.
- For fully iced cookies, pipe around the outline of a cookie, then pipe more icing inside the outline. Use the tip of a teaspoon to spread the icing out inside the outline. Add any sprinkles immediately after piping before piping the icing on the next cookie. The top of the icing dries quickly and your topping will not stick to the icing unless it is still wet.
- Allow the icing to fully harden before stacking your cookies. This can take an hour or two for drizzled cookies and three to four hours for fully iced cookies. Once the icing if fully dry, store the cookies in an airtight container for up to a week. I recommend placing a piece of waxed paper between the layers of cookies.
Notes
- Nutritional information is for 1/36 of the cookie recipe without any icing
- This recipe was developed with Freely Vegan flour. Because it works very differently from other gluten free flours, it is unlikely that this recipe will work properly with another flour. The one exception to this is if you are using one of these DIY flours that are also made with The Plant Based Egg and without xanthan or guar gum. (Most of these blends should work, but read the description for each blend as a few do not make good yeast breads.)
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