Making these vegan gingerbread cookies signals my first foray into the world of molasses.
And…I found it weird! This is probably no surprise to you if you’re familiar with this ingredient – it is weird right?
Like really weird.
It looks a lot like date syrup, which is a syrup I use a lot, as it’s awesome, and made from dates and nothing but dates. But aside from looks, there is no other similarity. Date syrup is very sweet, whereas molasses…. is not.
It’s not just that it’s not very sweet, it’s that it’s got the weirdest taste to it.
The good thing is that molasses in gingerbread cookie batter does the job amazingly well. Going in as an ingredient molasses is quite weird, but once baked into something, it adds something pretty great to the flavor!
These gingerbread cookies came out fabulously well and were so easy too.
I adapted a recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction in order to make it vegan and I took a few other shortcuts to make sure that I didn’t have to take too much time in making these.
I am always looking for shortcuts. In this case I didn’t want to chill the dough for a couple of hours before baking, I just wanted to mix the dough and then bake the cookies!
So I took some shortcuts and they worked! Yay!
So these gingerbread cookies are super quick. Just 20 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to bake.
Some say you can bake them in 10 minutes, but I’m a fan of the crispier cookie.
If you want yours to be more on the soft side, then you can take them out the oven after 10 minutes.
The main time consuming factor in these cookies is rolling out the dough and cutting out the gingerbread men.
It doesn’t take long, but that’s really the only reason the prep takes 20 minutes rather than 10 or 15.
And then there’s decorating them.
Of course this step is completely optional. This was my first attempt at decorating cookies and I have to admit to not being very successful. I had to hand the job over to Jaye who is much more steady-handed when it comes to the ‘fine arts’ of putting eyes and mouths onto cookies. 
Even so, some of these guys look a bit psycho!
I hope you’ll love these vegan gingerbread cookies! They are:
- Festive and fun
- Perfectly crispy on the outside
- Soft and deliciously chewy on the inside
- Infused with ginger goodness
- Easy to make!
If you have a few kiddos around, make these with them. My niece was not into the flavor too much (I think I probably wasn’t big on ginger either when I was 6), but she LOVED the look of these guys!
So whaddaya think of these vegan gingerbread cookies? Let me know in the comments! Rate the recipe and let me know how it turned out if you made them!
Tag me #lovingitvegan on instagram if you take any photos, I’d love to see them!
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- For the Gingerbread Men:
- ¼ cup (56g) Vegan Butter
- ½ cup (100g) Brown Sugar
- ⅓ cup (100g) Unsulphured Molasses*
- 1 Flax Egg
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 cups (250g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 2 tsp Ground Ginger
- 2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- ¼ tsp Allspice
- ¼ tsp Ground Cloves
- For the Decorating Frosting:
- 1 cup (120g) Powdered (Icing) Sugar
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 Tbsp Soy Milk
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C)
- Add the vegan butter and brown sugar to an electric mixing bowl and cream together.
- Prepare your flax egg by mixing 1 Tbsp Flaxseed Meal with 3 Tbsp Hot Water and allowing to sit for a minute.
- Add the molasses, vanilla and flax egg to the electric mixer and beat together with the vegan butter and brown sugar.
- Sift the flour into a bowl and add the baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice and cloves and mix together.
- Add all the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl containing the wet ingredients and mix into a thick batter.
- Flour a surface and your hands very generously and transfer the cookie dough onto the baking surface. Roll it into a ball, adding flour as needed so it doesn't stick.
- Roll out with a rolling pin to around a ¼ inch thick and cut out some gingerbread men. Dip your cookie cutter in flour each time so it doesn't stick. Move the gingerbread men to a parchment lined baking tray.
- Gather the scraps of dough, form into a ball and roll out again, cutting out more men.
- Don't be shy to add more flour each time, this dough can be quite sticky and you need it not to be as you roll it, so add flour as needed. Any excess flour on the gingerbread cookies will bake off.
- Repeat this process until you have used all the dough.
- Place into the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before decorating.
- When you're ready to decorate, mix the decorating frosting ingredients together. It should be quite thick, but when you stir it into a peak, it should hold it's shape for a bit before melting back down and should be quite sticky.
*Nutritional information is for 1 cookie of 16, without frosting decoration.
*The number of gingerbread men you'll get from this recipe depends largely on the size of your cookie cutter.
*Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction
Such a lovely idea for a gift at Christmas!
I used your beautiful gingerbread cookies to get into the spirit of christmas that’s for sure. They were delightful to look at and delightful to eat. I even sent some to my child’s teacher, who said they were amazing. Thanks for a great recipe!