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These soft, chewy gingerbread cookies have the perfect blend of spices. Easy to form into whatever super-subversive non-traditional shapes, gingerbread houses, or little people your little Yuletide-obsessed heart desires. Decorating them with my eggless royal icing is as fun for you as it is for your wee ones.
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You grab a few pantry basics, whisk with the enthusiasm of a bloodshot-eyed, caffeine-fueled elf, and end up with chewy, lightly spiced, pristine-looking cookies. They make cute gifts for this time of year too! Serve them to old man Claus next to my vegan gingerbread loaf, gingerbread donuts, and a frothy vegan eggnog, and your kitchen becomes the holly-jolliest ring-ding-dingaling yuletide VIP room this side of the North Pole.
Now get your apron on, we're gonna start makin' and bakin'. Oh and if your baking playlist doesn't have the Cookin Soul MF Doom Xmas Album or the 12 Ratchet Days of Christmas in it, start over. Because, for real, if I hear another Mariah Carey banger, I might cry tears of peppermint hot chocolate by myself under the Christmas tree.
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🥰 Why you'll adore this Vegan Gingerbread Cookies recipe
✊ Vegan AF: Like all my vegan Christmas recipes, this one's 100% free of eggs, milk, or anything that causes harm to animals.
🥄 Easy as Heck: Here's the play-by-play: mix stuff, chill stuff, roll stuff, bake stuff. Done. Byeee.
🛒 Zero Fancy Ingredients: You're not trekking across town for "obscure ground nutmeg blessed by monks." Nope. Everything you need is probably already in your kitchen.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Same as all my other vegan recipes, I've had my hundreds of recipe testers bake this in their wide variety of kitchens and climates. Global consensus? 10/10, everyone but Bill Clinton said they would inhale them again.
👎 Get My Worst Recipes (that everyone hates)
😳 Get the low down on everyone's least fave recipes I have ever made. ✌️Don't stress: I'm also gonna share with you my best ones too.
🍪 Vegan Gingerbread Cookies Ingredients
Cornstarch
Cornstarch slides into the bowl and immediately tells gluten, "take a nap, bae." What you get are reaallyy soft but chewy cookies. You can use arrowroot, potato starch, or tapioca starch if you can't find cornstarch anywhere for some weird reason (I blame it on your neighbor.)
The Ginger
Better gingerbread has multiple dimensions of ginger flavor, that's why mine uses both fresh and ground ginger in it.
Fresh ginger is what gives my gingerbread that extra kick, that "I'm not like other cookies" flavor. No fresh ginger? Huh, that's weird. Add 1½ teaspoons more ground ginger and lie to everyone.
As far as the dried ginger is concerned, if you need to go out and get a jar, the absolute winner is the Buffalo Ginger from Burlap & Barrel. It seriously makes other ground ginger look weak and flavorless.
Brown Sugar
Brown sugar gives you darker gingerbread without needing quite as much added molasses. Sub in coconut sugar or palm sugar if you want to make this with a less processed sugar.
Molasses
Molasses is the dark, sticky love of your cookie's life. But warning: blackstrap molasses? That's the evil "healthier" twin. Do not, and I repeat, DO NOT invite her to your kitchen.
Vegan Butter
My faves are Earth Balance Buttery Sticks and Trader Joe's vegan butter. The butter from Joe's comes in a weird shape, and it's not in a measured wrapper which is a little annoying though.
Learn to make your own with my Vegan Dairy Crash Course.
Vegan Yogurt
My ride-or-die? Kite Hill Unsweetened Almond Milk Yogurt, (not their Greek variety though). Coconut or soy yogurt can pull up too, and if all else fails, applesauce will get you through.
Vegan Royal Icing
Made with aquafaba or water and powdered sugar, it dries into that candy-gloss topping you see on those fancy cookies that look too good to eat (but we eat them anyway). You can snag my vegan royal icing recipe for the real deal. Got leftover icing after making this? Slather it all over my vegan Christmas cookies because, m'love, we don't waste beauty.
Raisins
If you want to give these old-school decorations, raisins are a nice optional touch. Little dried currants are quite a bit smaller and make nice eyes or shirt buttons to use in your decorating.
Vegan Food Coloring
I'm obsessed with the natural softer tones you can get from plant-based colors like the ones available from India Tree and Whole Foods 365. You only need them if you are adding colored icing details, but you can totally make these with just white icing too.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
📖 How to make Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
So Santa's heading down your chim, craving cookies like, right now? Don't panic. You can speed-run it straight to the printable recipe card below. Or stay right here for the step-by-step breakdown plus a few lil tips along the way.
Step One
Ford Expedition: Edie Flour Edition:
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and line a cookie sheet with a large piece of parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, cornstarch, ground ginger, fresh ginger, and salt until the mix looks even and lump-free.
Step Two
Butter Call Saul:
In a separate bowl, beat the vegan butter and brown sugar with a hand mixer for about 2-3 minutes until the texture turns pale and fluffy.
Step Three
SuGarry Cooper, Super-Duper:
Add the maple syrup, molasses, and yogurt to your creamed mixture and blend until it's all evenly combined.
Step Four
Chill Nye:
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix gently until a soft gingerbread dough forms. Shape it into a ball, wrap it up, and refrigerate for 30 minutes so it firms up.
✅ If you have one, a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment makes quick work of getting everything mixed up evenly.
Step Five
Flat Stanley:
Place the chilled dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper and roll it to a ¼-inch (6 mm) thickness for perfectly even cookies.
✅ If wrinkles form in the surface of the paper, just peel it off and lay it back down flat so your gingerbread has a smooth surface. You can also flip it so the bottom, which should be nice and flat, can become the top surface that people will see.
Step Six
The Cutty Professor:
Use your favorite cookie cutters (gingerbread man cookie cutters will work best) to shape the dough and place each piece on the prepared baking sheet.
✅ Dipping your cutters in a little flour makes it easy to remove the shapes without stretching or messing them up.
✅ If the dough warms up while rolling and cutting it, put your trays with the formed cookies back into your refrigerator for 10 minutes before baking them so that they don't spread and lose their details in the oven.
Step Seven
Bake Love, Not War:
Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until the edges are firm and the centers are set. Let them cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Step Eight
Icinging In The Rain:
When the cookies are cool, decorate with vegan royal icing, raisins, and food coloring. Let the icing set before serving or storing in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
💡What to serve Santa, whose only form of sustenance is sweets:
If you want a holiday dessert spread that looks straight out of a bakery window, serve these on a platter with vegan pumpkin donuts, vegan matcha sugar cookies, and some vegan linzer cookies.
Don't forget to leave a few on a plate for Santa and watch him cancel the rest of his route. Like, sorry kiddos, old man Claus said he's not leaving until he gets the recipe.
👉Top tips
- Chill the Dough: Warm dough spreads faster than your best friend's breakup rant in your group chat. Just like when you bake vegan linzer tart cookies, chilled dough will hold its shape much better, which is especially important if you are using cutters with intricate shapes, such as small snowflake cutters.
- Don't Over-Roll or Over-Handle: Every time you re-roll, you're basically giving the dough trauma. It gets tougher, crankier, and less likely to bake into that soft-but-crispy-edged perfection. Cut your shapes close together so you don't have to roll scraps again more than one time, as not to overdevelop the gluten.
- Watch the Bake Time Closely: These little guys (your cookies) are liars. They'll pretend they're underbaked just to mess with you. Unless you like them stiffer and more structural for making vegan gingerbread houses with, pull them out of the oven when the edges are firm and the centers are soft, then let them finish cooking on the pan.
- Rotate the Pan Mid-Bake: Halfway through, spin those trays and maybe swap the racks too. Ovens are shady little liars with secret hot zones, and if you skip this step, your cookies will look like everyone's least favorite spray-tanned president.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
You'll want to chill it for at least 30 minutes so it firms up and doesn't spread into shapeless ginger chaos in the oven. But as long as it's fully sealed, you can let the dough chill for a couple of days, or even up to 3 months in the freezer.
Brush a little oil on your cutters and dip them in a bowl of flour before cutting with them for best results. This creates a barrier to prevent direct content of the fatty texture of the dough with the metal surface of the cutters.
They either baked too long or went in too warm. Overbaking and skipping the chill both lead to dry, snappy ginger bricks instead of soft, chewy perfection.
About one-quarter inch thick is the sweet spot if you want a chewier cookie. Thinner cookies get crisp edges while thicker ones stay a little soft in the middle.
✌️More vegan gingerbread recipes you'll dig:
Vegan Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
Equipment
- cookie cutters
Ingredients
Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
- 2 ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons fresh ginger grated
- 1 teaspoon dried ground ginger
- 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- ¼ cup molasses
- ½ cup vegan butter room temperature
- ¼ cup unsweetened vegan yogurt
For Decorating:
- 1 cup vegan royal icing
- Raisins
- Vegan food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, cornstarch, fresh ginger, ground ginger, cinnamon, and salt until well combined and lump-free.
- In a separate bowl, beat the vegan butter and brown sugar with a hand mixer for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Add the maple syrup, molasses, and yogurt, mixing until smooth.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing just until a soft dough forms. Gather the dough into a ball, wrap it or place it into a bowl with a plate over it, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Place the chilled dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper and roll to a thickness of ¼ inch (6 mm).
- Cut into shapes using cookie cutters and transfer to the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until the edges are firm and the centers are set. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled, decorate with vegan royal icing, raisins, and vegan food coloring (mixed into the royal icing for details) as desired. Allow the icing to set before serving or storing in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
Notes
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