Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
By Ben Adams
Spicy, chewy, and dark as night, these cookies make perfect houses—if you can resist eating them right away.
The holidays officially kick off this week, and we're pretty sure the only thing consistent across all reasons to celebrate—faith, tradition, amazing veg food—is cookies. Everyone loves cookies. As you might already be aware, VegNews just released our first-ever cookbook, the Holiday Cookie Collection. We are pretty danged thrilled with it, not to mention sure that you'll make the recipes in there every year from here on out. All the cookies in the collection come from top-notch vegan bakers, and we had ourselves a time trying all of them out. While all the recipes are fantastic, there's only one that you can make into a house. Yes, the perfect recipe for vegan gingerbread has finally been nailed, thanks to our man Ben Adams and the team over at Sticky Fingers Bakery in DC. Whether you roll it out thin and make yourself an edible dream home, or leave your dough a little thicker for soft, chewy gingerbread men, there's something delicious in store when you make these cookies.
Perfect Gingerbread Cookies
Makes 24 Cookies
What You Need:
- 2-3/4 cups pastry flour
- 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup non-hydrogenated margarine, softened
- 3/4 cup molasses
- 1-1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
- 2 tablespoons soymilk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
What You Do:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease a cookie sheet.
- In a bowl, combine pastry flour, baking powder, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together margarine, molasses, and brown sugar together until smooth. Add soymilk and vanilla and whisk thoroughly.
- Add dry ingredients to wet and mix with spatula to form a dough. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours.
- Roll out dough onto a floured board, 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick, depending on desired texture (thinner cookies will be crispier, thicker cookies will be chewier). Cut into shapes with cookie cutters and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, depending on thickness. Go crazy with frosting and decorations!
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Posted: Nov 27 2009 00:28AM By M.
I've wanted to make a gingerbread house for so long now! What kind of molasses does it use? I have both blackstrap and fancy molasses.
Posted: Dec 03 2009 15:45PM By Fairly Odd Tofu Mom
Nice recipe but the biggest problem perplexing most gingerbread fans is a REALLY good Royal Icing that actually works and cements pieces together (like for the house you have pictured...) In my experience, I haven't found anything egg-white-free that will actually hold gingerbread houses together long term. Frustrating.
Posted: Dec 03 2009 22:39PM By Liz
TofuMom, Thanks for the heads up about the icing! Was wondering if there was a suitable/effective vegan version of Royal Icing. Good to know there isn't before I embark on building a house.
Posted: Dec 04 2009 06:27AM By shannonmarie
Very cute. We make them at my mom's house every year. Sometimes I make a raw version. I posted one on my blog two years ago. Check it out: http://rawdorable.blogspot.com/2007/12/building-house-of-raw.html
Posted: Dec 04 2009 11:13AM By Caroljean
Vegan Vistor has a good royal icing recipe you might want to try.
Posted: Dec 04 2009 12:32PM By Carmen
the Joy of Vegan Baking has a royal icing recipe, too. I made up a recipe a few years ago with powdered sugar, cream of tartar, Ener-G egg replacer and water or soymilk beat really well, and it seemed to work. Sorry I don't remember the proportions!
Posted: Dec 06 2009 09:57AM By Liz
Last fall veg news published a recipe called pecan pie truffles. I am trying to find it, could anyone pass it along to me? thanks so much.
Posted: Dec 06 2009 14:54PM By Laurel
They look yummy. Well, except for the margarine. I'd sure like to see more cookie recipes without it as I cannot abide the taste of Earth Balance. I even bought the cookie e-book and was really disappointed as I can make about zero of the recipes without having to figure out how to get the same consistency with oil. Drat. I know the vegan authors out there have more imagination. Look at Isa!
Posted: Dec 10 2009 08:27AM By Jenna
Laurel, I also cannot stand the taste of Earth Balance, so I use Smart Balance Light (you should be able to get it in the supermarket's butter section). It tastes just like regular tub butter. The only difference that I notice is that when melted it separates and is slightly watery. But other than that, it's awesome. But make sure to get the Light version, as it is the only vegan one.
Posted: Dec 10 2009 14:16PM By Cathy
preheat oven, then chill dough for 2 hours? the steps need to be rearranged here :-P
Posted: Dec 10 2009 19:18PM By Fairly Odd Tofu Mom
Jenna, and Laurel, have you tried "Nucoa"? It's accidentally vegan and cooks up in baked goods beautifully. You find it at cheaper mainstream supermarkets (not While Foods or TJ's). The tub style does not have any transfats, the cube style has a trace amount, but sometimes for holiday baking I go ahead and use it... Smart Balance Light is vegan (personally I think it tastes NASTY - far worse that EB) but it has water added so the texture of crusts, lighter cookies and some pastry will be different and can end up much tougher. Coconut oil also works beautifully instead of margarine I use about 20% less coconut oil than the called-for amount of margarine and it's usually just right. (I sorta have to eyeball the amount, my math isn't THAT good...) RE: Vegan Royal Icing - I have tried Joy of Veg. Baking's Royal Icing, and it "sorta" worked. It took about three times as long to harden and "hold" the pieces together. It held smaller pieces OK but larger ones it was too soft for and crumbled. Long term, (we like to keep our houses around for the whole season) it crumbled and absorbed humidity and got gunky and soft... I'll keep experimenting though, as we make a BUNCH of houses every year...
Posted: Dec 10 2009 20:50PM By Cynder
If you don't plan on eating these delightful creations, try using hot glue to put them together and then decorate with the powdered sugar and cream of tartar recipe. It's not for one, but we tend to spend too much time on them and never want to consume them. It's just a thought.
Posted: Jan 04 2010 09:07AM By labgirl
liz, the pecan pie truffles are in the novdec 2008 issue. post again if you want the recipe.
Posted: Jan 06 2010 22:30PM By Trish
We used melted sugar to mortar our house together. Just melted it in a pan on the stove and dipped in the edges we wanted to join. Works amazingly well. The sugar cools quickly and rock hard. As a matter of fact, we could toss the house in the air the bond was so strong. No help on the royal icing - we used crisco and powdered sugar.
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