There’s a special relationship between gingerbread and me – since I changed my way of eating and started this blog I’ve developed a new gluten-free vegan gingerbread recipe each year to cater my evolving needs and understanding of a healthy treat.
In this new vegan gingerbread recipe I substituted quite a few ingredients. I could have stuck to buckwheat and millet like last year, but I wanted to bring the glycemic load of my gingerbread down (both buckwheat and millet have quite high load), which is why I used my recent favourite oat bran. However, as it’s rather coarse I ground it up in a grinder to make the batter finer. I didn’t do that with the first batch and the batter became just too mealy. I also decided to use store-bought raw buckwheat flour as opposed to grinding it myself from groats, as I couldn’t get the groats into fine enough flour in my grinder.
Instead of peanut butter I went for tahini and sunflower seed paste. You could use almond butter as well (if you don’t mind spending a small fortune), which is also Candida diet friendly or any other nut butter if you have no dietary restrictions.
Instead of peanut butter I went for tahini and sunflower seed paste. You could use almond butter as well (if you don’t mind spending a small fortune), which is also Candida diet friendly or any other nut butter if you have no dietary restrictions.
To add some sweetness to my vegan gingerbread recipe I really didn’t have other options but to add xylitol and stevia. Some sweet taste also comes from almonds, carob, rice or oat milk and applesauce, but it’s just not enough for this gingerbread.
If you plan to decorate your gingerbread cookies generously, you might add a little bit less of sweeteners, as the icing is extremely sweet.
Vegan Gingerbread Recipe with Egg-Free Royal Icing
Ingredients
- 100g (3.5oz) almonds, ground into meal
- 100g (3.5oz) raw buckwheat flour
- 100g (3.5oz) oat bran, ground finer
- 3 tbsps. carob powder
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. ground ginger
- ¼ tsp. ground cloves
- ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp. cardamom
- ¼ tsp. ground allspice
- Few pinches of black pepper
Instructions
Grind almonds into fine meal.
Grind oat bran until it has a finer texture.
In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.
In a small bowl, whisk together all the ingredients of wet mixture.
Pour the wet mixture on dry ingredients and mix
well until a well-incorporated batter forms. I find it the easiest to
use my hand.
Put the dough ball (which is supposed to be
quite soft) into a sealed container and refrigerate overnight or all day
or at least for 6 hours. It’ll firm up.
Divide the dough into 2-3 balls and place one at
a time on a floured non-stick mat or on stone surface. Keep the dough
you are not working with in fridge. Flour a rolling pin, sprinkle some
flour on the dough and begin rolling it out until you have a rectangle
or circle that is about 2mm thick. I like to press it down with my hands
first to ease rolling. When rolling the dough ball try moving it around
the surface every now and then to make sure there’s flour underneath
and that it wouldn’t stick to the surface. Add flour if it starts to
stick.
Cut the gingerbread into the shapes of your choice and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake for 10 minutes (175°C, 350°F), and then
remove from oven. Rotate the pan and return to oven for 5-6 minutes
longer, until golden. Carefully, transfer crackers to a cooling rack for
5-10 minutes.