I must admit Gingerbread is one of my weaknesses, specially at Christmas time. Kids love making and decorating the gingerbread however they will eat the sweets off the house, and maybe have a little gingerbread but I end up eating 75% of the houses, usually with missing sweets!
For about the last 5 years we have always made a gingerbread house, I must admit the first few years we used to buy the Ikea Gingerbread kit and then get the kids to decorate, however the last few years we have made our own gingerbread house and then completing against each other with my and husband will help a child to make the best one! This has now become our tradition usually a few days before christmas we start.
As this is my first vegan Christmas, I thought I would try making a test tiny batch to see if its nice, and boy this was pretty amazing, you can hardly tell that it's a vegan recipe, has a very slightly crunchy texture, more like what you buy in a shop, but other than that it's delicious!
The royal icing is a weird combination but works brilliantly, holds the house like normal royal icing, but made with chickpeas brine.
Actually I think so far this is a better recipe than my normal recipe, as the kids have already eaten more than ever before, so on the down side I guess this means less for me.
The house's weren't vegan-friendly as the kids used normal milk chocolate buttons, white buttons, snowies, dolly mix, marshmallows, smarties and sour sweets so unless they eat all the sweets I might just have to settle for my completely vegan gingerbread men.
Biscuit:
80g Baking fat ( Vegetable oil based)
100g Dark Brown Sugar
60g Caster Sugar
50g Black Treacle
325g Plain Flour
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves
1 1/2 Tsp Ground Ginger
1/2 Tsp Salt
50ml Unsweetened Almond Milk
2 Tsp Oil
Royal Icing:
12 Tbsp Chickpeas Brine
800g Icing Sugar
3 Tsp Glycerine
Add baking fat, dark brown sugar and caster sugar to a mixing bowl and beat together until light and smooth.
Add black treacle, this bit always gets very messy, then beat together.
Then add flour, milk, oil, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and salt to the mixing bowl.
Mix until the a soft dough forms
Roll out the dough on a floured surface, I now love using my silicone mat as it doesn't tend to stick as much to the mat.
Cut out gingerbread men with a cutter and the using a template cut out the house parts for the gingerbread house.
Place on a baking tray and baked at 170c for about 15 minutes for the larger biscuits and 12 minutes for the smaller pieces.
Once baked allow to cool on a wire rack
For the vegan royal icing add the brine of the chickpeas to the mixing and whisk at medium to high speed until foamy and light.
Then add the icing sugar and glycerine and beat together
The texture will be thick and smooth, then spoon into piping bags.
Piping the icing onto the gingerbread to glue and hold in place.
Decorate with desired sweets and chocolates. We didn't use vegan-friendly sweets as the kids are not vegan.
Pipe icing onto the gingerbread men, and then I used dark chocolate chips (no dairy ) to decorate and add a little chocolate indulgence, for my vegan Christmas treats.
Vegan Gingerbread Men & House
Vegan gingerbread cookie biscuit recipe and vegan royal icing.