This has to be the best gingerbread recipe I’ve used, and it’s even better since I can now make it both gluten and dairy free! I had friends taste-test this to confirm and it’s everyone’s favorite. (Although I still want to make it extra by adding some lemon zest, but that will have to happen another time. I’ve got too many cookies right now!)

GINGERBREAD INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup Earth Balance plant-based “butter” (any flavor in the square tubs will work, but avoid the olive oil flavor as your cookies *will taste like olive oil! :/ )
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar (I used dark brown but don’t think it matters.)
• 1/3 cup molasses (some people like the blackstrap kind but I’m good with a regular grocery-store brand.)
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups of gluten-free flour (I used all-purpose gluten-free from Bob’s Red Mill.)
• 1/2 + 1/16 tsp. Xanthan gum (I kind of eyeballed half of my 1/8 teaspoon for that last bit.)
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 TBSP almond milk (you can use any milk)

(A note: If you buy anything from my Amazon links here, I’ll get a small commission, but the price doesn’t change for you!)

GINGERBREAD DIRECTIONS:

1. Use a mixer to cream butter and brown sugar. Don’t go overboard with mixing the ingredients-you don’t want your cookies to have a weird texture later. Just combine them until you don’t see streaks of any of the single ingredients.
2. Add molasses, vanilla, egg yolk, and mix again.
3. The right way: Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Then slowly add some to the liquid bit by bit, stirring in between.
   • My way (that worked fine): Add the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet ingredients. Stir by hand to combine a bit first so when you turn on the mixer, the dry stuff doesn’t go everywhere. Mix just until there are no more powdery streaks visible.
4. Then add the milk and mix until combined.
5. Form the dough into a ball, cut in half, and make each half its own ball. Flatten each ball into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least two hours (up to overnight).
6. Roll out the dough into not-too-thin layers – like, leave at least 1/4 inch in thickness – so you can use your cookie cutters and not have them fall apart when you pull them up to get them on a baking tray.
7. Bake in pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 7-8 minutes (for larger size shapes).

Gingerbread Technique Pro Tip: After cutting shapes, I pushed the remaining dough into a new ball, re-wrapped in plastic, and put in the fridge while I then worked with the second dough. I alternated until the dough was finished. This kept the dough cold and easier to cut shapes with.

My very non-traditional cookie cutters:

Main image design was by my friend, Nigel, who decided (as we didn’t have lots of icing stuff) to turn our very unlucky surfer into a Mr. Bill character.