These Vegan Gingerbread Cookies are both delicious and easy to make! Soft, chewy, and full of spices, they’re the perfect treat for Christmas.
I aways made decorating gingerbread cookies a Christmas tradition with my children when they were small. They loved deciding how to decorate their gingerbread men and houses.
It was easiest to cut out the shape of a house as a flat cookie for children to decorate. I always set the children up with icing and loads of sprinkles and sweets in bowls so they could decorate however they wanted. The results were often interesting, but as long as they had fun to me that was more important then having perfect cookies.
One year I spent ages making a gingerbread house and left it sitting proudly on the kitchen table. Later I went into the kitchen to find my wolfhound Shola had eaten it! She enjoyed it at least!
The recipe I used then was not vegan but I tweaked it just a small bit to make Vegan Gingerbread Cookies. This recipe makes a soft and chewy cookie which I prefer to crispy cookies.
Make sure to make the dough at least 3 hours before you need it as it needs time to chill in the fridge.
Start by stirring your dry ingredients together in a large bowl: flour, spices, baking powder, and salt. Set the mixture aside.
Now mix your (room temperature) vegan butter and brown sugar together with an electric mixer.
Once they’re mixed, add the vanilla and treacle.
Beat everything together again.
Now start beating in the dry ingredients, just a bit at a time. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Continue adding and beating until everything is mixed and you’ve got a thick dough.
Split the cookie dough into two halves and roll each half into a ball.
Wrap each ball tightly in plastic and place them in the fridge until they’re completely chilled. This will take a few hours, but it’s important. Chilling the dough will firm it up so it’s easy to roll and cut.
The dough is sticky once it’s all beaten together in your mixing bowl and therefore, it absolutely MUST be chilled for at least 3 hours. You want your cookie dough firm so the cookies hold their shape and you want your cookie dough manageable so you can work with it. You won’t have either unless you have chilled cookie dough!
When the dough has finished chilling, sprinkle some flour on the counter. Take one of your dough halves out of the fridge and roll it out.
Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut it into fun shapes. Go traditional and make vegan gingerbread men and women, or use any cutter you want. I have loads of cutters, the cute animal ones are from IKEA.
Try to cut out as many cookies as possible from each time you roll out the dough as the more you handle it and re-roll makes it tough so your cookies won’t be as nice.
Arrange the cookies on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake them for about 10 minutes.
For soft vegan gingerbread cookies, keep the bake-time low. For firmer cookies, bake them longer.
Vegan gingerbread will still be pretty soft when it comes out of the oven, but the cookies should be dry and partially set at their centers. They will continue to firm up as they cool.
These vegan gingerbread cookies will keep in a sealed container at room temperature for about 2 weeks, or in the freezer for about 2 months.
Baked and decorated (or not decorated) cookies freeze well – up to three months. Unbaked cookie dough discs (just the dough) freeze well – up to three months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
Recipe Notes
This recipe makes about 36 medium-sized cookies. I made a mix of small, medium and large cookies and that’s about how many I got. If making larger cookies, you won’t get as many, and if making all smaller cookies, you’ll get more.
When it comes to decorating the cookies then there really is no limit to what you can do. You can use royal icing to flood them and do intricate designs or just use basic water icing and decorate them with sprinkles. I brushed mine with dry icing sugar as I like the look it gives them.
Did you make this recipe? Take a pic and share it on Instagram with the hashtag #aveggiecooks__ and tag @aveggiecooks__. I would love to see it!
Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 145g/ 5oz Softened Vegan Butter
- 150g/ 5 ⅓ oz Brown Sugar
- 160ml/ 5¼ Fl oz Black Treacle
- 4 Tablespoons Vegan Milk
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 438g/ 15½ oz Plain White Flour
- 1 Teaspoon Bread Soda
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Ground Ginger
- 1 Tablespoon Ground Cinnamon
- 1 Teaspoon Mixed Spice
Instructions
- Beat the butter and sugar until creamy in a food mixer
- Beat in the black treacle
- Scrape down the sides. Beat in milk and vanilla
- In a separate bowl mix the flour, bread soda, salt and spices
- With the mixer on low speed slowly mix into the wet ingredients until combined.
- Divide the dough in half and wrap in clingfilm. Chill for at least three hours.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4
- Line large baking trays with baking parchment
- Flour the worktop and rolling pin. Roll out dough to ¼ inch thick. Cut out shapes and place one inch apart on baking tray
- Bake cookies for 10 minutes. The cookies will be soft when you take them out but will crisp up as they cool
- Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray then transfer to cooling rack. Decorate however you like
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