It wouldn't be Christmas without Vegan Gingerbread. This recipe will work perfectly for gingerbread men, a gingerbread house or any other shape you'd like to make. Get the recipe below.
Traditional biscuits
Across Europe, biscuits and cookies play an important role at Christmas. Throughout the festive season you will be amazed at the huge number of different cookies on offer and the wide range of shapes, sizes and flavours that they come in.
Gingerbread is a classic biscuit and there are variations not only across Europe but around the world. I've heard that the first known recipe actually comes from ancient Greece and that there are very old Chinese recipes too.
Because of its warming spices, gingerbread is now synonymous with winter or Christmas. Building a gingerbread house is an important Christmas tradition for kids everywhere.
How to make vegan gingerbread
Just 7 ingredients
To make gingerbread you need fat (vegan butter), sugar (dark muscavado sugar, golden syrup and treacle), spices (ginger and cinnamon) and flour.
Adding some heat
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, you will melt the vegan butter, dark muscavado sugar, golden syrup and treacle until it's a wonderful, sticky, molten mix.
Making the dough
After leaving the syrupy mix to cool for 5 minutes or so, this gets added to the flour and spices and mixed until a slightly sticky dough forms. It will be quite squishy and not at all firm to the touch.
Chilling out
Once the dough has come together it gets wrapped up and placed in the fridge to chill for 1.5-2 hours (or even better overnight!)
In this time the flavours meld together and the dough becomes firm enough to roll out. It also makes sure that the cookies don't spread once it is rolled out.
Rolling out the dough
The dough will be nice and firm once it has cooled thoroughly; it will then be easy to roll it out.
On a lightly floured surface, the dough should be rolled out until it is 0.5cm thick. It's then ready to cut into your favourite shapes!
Baking
Once you've cut out all of your gingerbread men (or whatever shape you've chosen) all that's left to do is to bake them for 10 minutes at 1800C / 350 F / gas mark 4.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to use block butter or can I use spreadable butter?
This is a question often asked in baking and is even more important with vegan baking. For the dough to firm up you need to use a block butter like Flora or Naturli. Both will work fine.
My dough is very soft and sticky will it firm up?
Yes! Trust the process. The chill time is so long because it needs that amount of time to get firm enough to roll out. It will be very soft to begin with.
My gingerbread is still soft even though the baking time is up. Should I put them back in the oven?
No! Gingerbread gets more crisp as it cools. Leave it on the baking tray to cool slightly before moving to a wire cooling rack.
Top tips for making vegan gingerbread
For sticky cookie cutters
Dip the sides of the cookie cutter into flour before cutting out each shape for a clean cut.
For fiddly shapes
If you're making intricate shapes (like the snowflakes I've made), roll out the dough onto baking paper. Cut out your shapes, remove the scraps, and then simply slide the whole sheet of baking paper directly onto the baking tray.
The recipe
Vegan Gingerbread
Ingredients
For the biscuits
- 150 g vegan butter
- 125 g dark muscavado sugar
- 100 g golden syrup
- 50 g treacle
- 375 g self raising flour
- 3 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 pinch salt
For the icing
- 50 g icing sugar
- 2 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Add the butter, sugar, golden syrup and treacle to a heavy bottomed pan and melt over a low heat.
- Once melted, leave to cool for 5 minutes.
- Add the flour and spices to a large mixing bowl then pour in the butter and sugar mix, stirring until it comes together in a ball of dough.
- Wrap the dough in clingfilm then chill in the fridge for 2 hours or ideally overnight.
- Pre-heat your oven to 180 C / 350 F / gas mark 4.
- Line baking trays with baking paper.
- Once the dough has chilled and become firm, lightly dust a work surface and roll out the dough until roughly 5mm thick.
- Using your desired cookie cutter, cut out your gingerbread shapes.
- Transfer the gingerbread to your baking trays then place into the centre of your oven for 10 minutes.
- Take the gingerbread out of the oven and leave to cool on the baking trays until they have cooled slightly and firmed up.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once the gingerbread is cold, mix up the icing sugar and water until you have a stiff but pipeable icing.
- Ice with your preferred design.
Nutrition
Storage instructions
These biscuits will last for up to two weeks in an air tight container.
Gingerbread inspiration
My vegan gingerbread recipe is so versatile that you can use it to make just about any shape you like! Here are some ideas:
- Use a heart shaped cookie cutter for Valentines day and decorate with pink, white and red icing
- Use an egg shaped cutter at Easter time
- Use a person shaped cutter at Halloween and decorate them with white icing to look like skeletons and mummies
More Christmas biscuits and cookies
The Biscuit Archive
For the full selection of biscuit and cookie recipes on the blog check out my recipe collection.
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