Vegan Gingersnap Cookies
At the beginning of December, I decided that I wanted to make a holiday cookie recipe. This meant that I needed to start practicing, perfecting the recipe itself and had to get it done before the “holidays”. And unlike developing a dinner recipe, you don’t just have it for one night and see it again in a few days. When you’re working on cookies, it seems like you are surrounded by cookies all day and can’t escape them! Then they start becoming your breakfast, pre-lunch snack, post-lunch snack, mid afternoon snack, preparing dinner snack, and of course your dessert. I’m not trying to make you feel bad for me, I’m convincing you to start developing your own cookies so you too can be swimming in a title wave of sweets!! Fortunately for my figure, I have given out most of these cookies to friends and family in the development process. These were originally made for my mom, a huge gingersnap fan. She loved them and could immediately tell that fresh ginger was incorporated. Which is exactly what you want to hear! Also, there is no cookie more Christmas appropriate. If you close your eyes while these babies are in the oven, you’re immediately taken to a lightly snowy, cobblestone pathed, German Christmas market placed right in front of a church, where they are selling Bratwurst, Glühwein, beer and wooden trinkets. We really think Santa wants chocolate chip cookies and milk? This old, white man wants gingersnaps and definitely some almond milk.These cookies stay incredibly moist after over a week in Tupperware. An additional idea, if you only feel like eating a few at a time, freeze the dough into balls and throw them in the oven whenever you feel like 2 or 3, fresh, weeknight cookies. I also like the idea of putting them in a cute container and giving the frozen dough balls as a gift, so there's no pressure to eat them soon.
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
- 1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger (if you don’t have it, use powdered again)
- 1 teaspoon cardamom (optional, but so so so worth it)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ cup molasses
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup vegan butter (softened, not melted)
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons of plant milk
Topping
- 3 tablespoons white sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Cream your sugar. This is the primary step with every cookie. Mix the sugar into the butter until it is all one grainy, un-melted, soft, paste.
- To this paste, add vanilla extract, fresh ginger, and molasses. Mix until fully combined.
- Sift all your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, powdered ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and salt) into a separate bowl. Mix together with a whisk or a fork.
- Add these dry ingredients a little bit at a time (½ cup increments), to the paste. Incorporating fully before dumping the next batch.
- Now that most of the ingredients are combined, the dough should look a little dry. Add in your 2 tablespoons of plant milk here, it will begin to look like a dough again after some mixing.
- Roll the dough out on a sheet of parchment paper, to ¼ inch thickness. Transfer the parchment paper over to a cookie sheet and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
- Now that it is cold, use cookie cutters of your choice, or just roll into little balls (traditional). Then lightly roll your shapes/ balls in granulated sugar. If you plan on icing, don’t roll in sugar. Dough can be rerolled and used again, after cutout by cutters.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. While you’re waiting, place cookies back in the fridge.
- Once your oven is ready, bake for 8-10 minutes. Or until dough no longer looks wet.
Notes
• You don’t need a stand mixer; this can easily be done by hand. And unless you plan on making several batches of cookies, I would just mix by hand.
• The fresh ginger is optional, but I highly encourage it.
• Flour your cookie cutters, if using, to avoid sticking.
• The fresh ginger is optional, but I highly encourage it.
• Flour your cookie cutters, if using, to avoid sticking.