This Christmas will be my first ever Christmas on a diet. I know, SHOCK - the words 'Christmas' and 'diet' don't exactly go together in one sentence. You are probably wondering if it's even possible to do Christmas on a diet, and my answer is, I don't know! But this year, I am really giving it a go. I have been doing a lot of research into healthier alternatives to my favourite festive recipes; my goal is to find enough diet friendly options that I won't even notice that I am missing out on the real deal. Well, we will see how that goes!
In my healthy Christmas quest, I have decided to make a recipe for some gingerbread cookies and to share it with you in today's blogmas post. To me, these scream Christmas; they are the perfect size for a snack, they definitely put you in a festive mood and they taste pretty good too, with none of the bad stuff! Plus they are really easy to personalise to your own taste - they don't contain any refined sugar so we have to get quite creative with toppings to fulfil our sweet tooth cravings. I will give you a few suggestions to try out but I find experimenting is always the best way to find what suits you best. So here you go! I hope you enjoy this recipe and would love to know what you think of these cookies!
Ingredients
❄ 300g almond flour
❄ 1 tsp ground cinnamon
❄ 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
❄ 1/2 inch freshly grated ginger
❄ 1/2 tsp baking powder
❄ twist of orange peel
❄ pinch of salt
❄ 1/4 cup coconut oil
❄ 1 egg
❄ 2 tbsp honey
❄ grated vanilla extract
❄ don't forget you also need some fun cookie cutters!
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
2. Combine the almond flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, baking powder, orange peel and salt in a large mixing bowl. When fully mixed, set aside for a minute. N.B. I like to use freshly grated ingredients as much as possible - it just gives such better flavour!
3. Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan. Should only take a couple of mins.
4. Combine the coconut oil, egg and honey in a separate mixing bowl. I also added a little grated vanilla to this mixture - it's not necessary but it'd a nice touch if you like it!
5. Add the coconut oil mixture to the large bowl of almond flour mixture and combine together thoroughly to form a wet dough.
6. Take the mixture out of the bowl and knead it into a ball.
7. Roll the dough ball out onto a baking sheet to about 3mm thick. Place another piece of baking paper on top of it and refrigerate it for at least 30 mins (doesn't matter if it's a little more!). This is so the coconut oil can solidify again to hold the dough together.
8. Take the dough out of the fridge and use your cookie cutters to cut out the cookie shapes. Place your cookies on a lined baking tray (I needed two baking trays for this amount of mixture).
9. Bake at 160°C for 25 mins.
10. Take the cookies out, let 'em cool and enjoy!
Topping ideas
Of course, you may want to decorate your gingerbread cookies with normal icing and that would be fine. If you are looking for a slightly healthier option, I would really recommend sprinkling the cookies with some dried fruits - I put some raisins on mine, but you could also use dates, figs, apricots or tiny pieces of apple. I have also found that topping the cookies with a little maple syrup makes for a delicious snack!
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