Vegan buckwheat gingerbread cookies

Gingerbread cookies are an all-time Christmas classic in Nordic homes. They are an essential part of the holiday season and many families bake them weeks before Christmas to get into the holiday mood. Gingerbread cookies are paired with glogg, the Nordic version of the spicy and sweet mulled wine.

These vegan and gluten-free gingerbread cookies have just as much flavor as the traditional gingerbread cookies baked with eggs, butter and wheat flour. And what is even better is that these cookies are suitable for different diets.

In this recipe, the eggs have been left out and the butter replaced with vegan margarine. Instead of wheat flour, the gingerbread cookies have been baked with buckwheat flour and almond flour, so the cookies are also gluten-free. Buckwheat flour and almond flour add extra flavor and texture to these spicy cookies.

In addition to dark syrup, these gingerbread cookies have been sweetened with unprocessed, nutritious and aromatic whole cane sugar. Coconut sugar would also do the trick in these spicy treats!

You can enjoy the cookies as such or unleash your inner artist and experiment with confectioners’ sugar icing for decorations. Try hanging decorated cookies on the Christmas tree as ornaments!

Ingredients

(3 baking trays)

• 150 g vegan margarine
• 1,5 dl whole cane sugar or coconut sugar
• 1 dl dark syrup
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground clove
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 3 ½ dl almond flour
• 4 dl buckwheat flour
• 1 tbsp potato flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 ¼ tsp salt

(+ ready-made icing for decorating)

How to prepare:

1. Bring margarine, sugar, syrup and the spices to the boil in a pan.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the almond flour, buckwheat flour, potato flour, baking powder and mix them with the margarine-sugar mixture. Cover the dough and chill in the fridge overnight.
3. Preheat the oven to 200 °C.
4. Remove the dough from the fridge. Flour the work surface and the rolling pin with buckwheat flour. The dough is quite soft and can stick to the rolling pin quite easily so it’s good to use the flours generously. Flour the work surface continually as needed. Roll out the dough until 0,5 cm thick.
5. Cut out shapes from the dough with a cutter and place the pieces on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Re-roll dough scraps until all the dough is shaped. Repeat with the remaining of dough.
6. Bake the cookies in the oven for about 7 minutes depending on the size of the cutters you used and how soft you want the cookies to be.
7. Let the cookies cool down. Once completely cool, decorate the cookies as you prefer.