Holiday Cookies: Gingerbread

With the holidays coming up, many of you might be gearing up to make your favorite holiday cookies. With the right ingredients, your favorite holiday treats can be made without any animal products whatsoever! One of my favorite cookies is the gingerbread cookie. The Post Punk Kitchen has a very easy and delicious (and vegan!) gingerbread cookie recipe (click here or see below):

Ingredients
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup plain soy milk

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (I used unbleached flour)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon (Feel free to add a touch extra cinnamon if you would like)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Directions
In a large bowl beat together oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add molasses and soy milk. The molasses and soy milk won't really blend with the oil but that's okay.

In a separate bowl, sift together all the other ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches. Mix together with a firm spoon or spatula until well combined. You should have a pretty stiff dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. If you chill longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up a bit before proceeding. (Chilling the dough before baking is especially important if you want soft cookies).

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease your cookie sheets.

*If you want to make gingerbread cut outs:
On a floured surface roll you dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. You can do this in 2 batches if you don't have the space. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and gently place on cookie sheets (if you are using them to decorate with remember to cut a hole with a straw or something before baking).

Bake cookies for 8 minutes.

Remove from oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then move to a cooling rack.

*Wait until they are completely cool before icing.

These cookies are delicious! I highly recommend them for vegans and non-vegans alike!