Gingerbread Trees

I’ve never been one for getting into the Holiday seasons with cooking or baking, but this year is turning out to be the exception. It’s been really fun to play with recipes and have fun making some seasonal goodies.

You’ll notice that this recipe is also exactly the same as the pastry dough we’ve been making for the past few weeks. This is intentional as I want to keep things as simple as possible for you during the Holidays. If you’re familiar with the recipe, it’ll make you more likely to dig in during busy times.

So, get some cute cookie cutters and enjoy making and decorating these fun cookies with friends and family. You can even make them into tree decorations! 🙂

Wet
115g ( ½ cup ) water
15g ( ⅛ cup ) cold pressed sesame or nut oil
150g ( ¾ cup ) coconut sugar
45g ( 2 tbsp ) molasses
75g ( ½ cup ) cashews, soaked and rinsed
½ tbsp ginger powder
1 tsp cinnamon
⅛ tsp nutmeg, fresh grated
1 tsp vanilla extract

15g ( ¼ cup ) psyllium husk

Dry
45g ( ⅓ cup ) oat flour + more for rolling
60g ( ½ cup ) ground almonds
20g ( 1 ½ tbsp ) lucuma
30g ( 2 ½ tbsp ) coconut flour

Method

• Blend the first set of ingredients until smooth.

• Add the psyllium and pulse to incorporate.

• Mix the last set of ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

• Add the contents of the blender and mix well with your hands until it comes together.

• After about 5 minutes the dough will be fully set, if you feel it’s too moist, add a 1 tsp of coconut flour, allow to set for 2 minutes and see if you need more. Coconut flour is highly absorbent, so it shouldn’t need too much.

• Lay down 1 Teflex sheet, or wax paper, and dust it lightly with oat flour.

• Place the dough on top, roll it around so it’s lightly covered in the flour. This will stop it from sticking to the sheet.

• Place another sheet or wax paper on top and then roll the dough to about ⅛ – ¼ inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter of your choice to cut the dough. This can be stars, trees, gingerbread men, etc.. Whatever you like. If you don’t have cutters, you can simply cut the dough into triangles and they will look like trees when you decorate them.

• Repeat until all dough is used. Dehydrate the cookies on a teflex lined tray at 115f for 8 hours and then move to mesh and dry a further 4-8 hours or until dry. If you want them a little moist inside, don’t dry as long.

• At this stage, you can use a bamboo skewer, or something similar, to poke a hole in the cookie if you’d like to use these as tree decorations.

• Allow the cookies to cool prior to icing them.

Icing

100g ( ⅓ cup ) coconut butter, softened
50g ( ⅓ cup ) xylitol, cane sugar (powdered) or honey ( can also omit sweetener )
25g ( 1 ½ tbsp ) coconut oil, softened or melted

80g ( ⅓ cup ) water, room temp or slightly warm

½ – 1 tsp chlorella or spirulina powder ( added at the end )

Method

• In a blender combine the first set of ingredients at low speed, just so they incorporate.

• With the blender still running on low, drizzle in the water. Scrape the sides of the blender as needed to be sure it’s all fully incorporated.

• Pour out half the mixture into a bowl so you have some white icing.

• Add your green colouring to the remaining contents of the blender, start with a little bit so you can get a feel of how much of an impact it will have. You can always add, but you can’t take away.

• The icing will thicken as it cools, so feel free to warm it over a bowl of hot water or in the dehydrator to keep it at a nice working temp. It shouldn’t be super runny, but a little loose, so when you pipe it, the icing stays in place and doesn’t spread.

• Use two piping bags, one for the white and one for the green, fit the white icing bag with a smaller round tip than the green icing bag. The green is the main colour and the white it meant to look like fairy lights.

• If you don’t have tips or piping bags, you can simply use a zip bag and cut the corner off. Easy.

• Pipe the green as lines, as seen in the images, and the white as little white dots. Or do what you like and see what works best. It’s all just for fun 🙂