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Every year during the holiday season I get recipe requests for a couple of holiday classics and eggless gingerbread cookie recipe is one of them and the most frequently asked one too. Usually, I direct them to my whole wheat gingersnaps recipe and tell them that I will bake and blog about gingerbread cookies without eggs shortly. Finally this year I made it a point to make these gingerbread man cookies right in time for Christmas.
I found this recipe in a Betty Crocker cookie book which I got for a dollar from the Friends of Library sale. It has an amazing collection of cookies and bars recipes. Have bookmarked a lot of recipes and can't wait to try it all.
This one was an easy gingerbread cookie recipe which also included whole wheat flour and used only one egg, which I have replaced with Ener-G egg replacer.
It's a pretty straightforward recipe, just creaming the butter and sugar and adding the rest of the ingredients, chill the dough, cutting into desired shapes, baking and frosting. I don't know why I have been postponing making these gingerbread cookies for all these years!
Another shortcut I implemented was to use store bought cookie icing instead of making it from scratch. I didn't want a whole lot of frosting because I was going to frost only a few cookies for the pictures. If you want to frost all your cookies, I have given the recipe for frosting from the book please follow it. I think it should be good.
These egg-free gingerbread cutout cookies tasted very good, with the robust flavor of the molasses and ginger and a subtle hint of cinnamon. The first batch of cookies was a bit soft to my liking so increased the baking time by 2-3 minutes for the rest of the batches.
How To Make Gingerbread Cookies?
Here are the step-by-step instructions for making easy gingerbread cookies for the holiday season!
Recipe
Whole Wheat Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 and ½ cups sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- ⅓ cup molasses
- 1 and ½ teaspoon Ener-G egg replacer (for 1 egg)
- 3 tablespoons water
- 2 and ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ginger
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1-2 tablespoons water, optional
Frosting:
- 6 tablespoons butter, softened
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- dash salt
- 2 cups confectioner's sugar
- 1-2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- In a large bowl stir together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, ground spices and salt, and set aside. Also whisk together the Ener-G egg replacer powder and water in a small bowl and keep it ready.
- In another large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add molasses (See My Notes) and egg replacer mix; blend well.
- Now stir in the flour mix; combine well. If you feel the dough is too tight add about 1-2 tablespoons of water.
- Divide the gingerbread cookie dough into two halves and wrap each half in plastic wrap or in a container with a lid and chill it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. (See My Notes)
- Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.
- Remove one half of the dough from the fridge. Keep the remaining cookie dough refrigerated.
- On a lightly floured surface (countertop or a big cutting board), roll out the dough to ⅛-inch thickness. Lightly dip the cookie cutters that you want to use in some flour and cut the rolled out dough into desired shapes.
- Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
- As I always suggest test bake 2-3 cookies for 7-10 minutes or until set. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Cool on a wire rack until it cools completely before frosting it.
For the frosting:
- In a medium bowl add the butter, vanilla and salt; beat until light and fluffy.
- Gradually beat in sugar in small increments until smooth.
- Add 1 tablespoon milk; beat at high speed until light and fluffy.
- Add some more milk to get the desired spreadable or piping consistency as per your choice.
- Decorate the cookies as desired.
- The frosting has to set and dry before you can store it in a container.
My Notes
- While measuring the molasses, lightly grease the measuring mug with non-stick cooking spray or use the butter wrapper, so that all the molasses will fall out without sticking to the mug.
- I made the dough and refrigerated it for about a day because I couldn't bake it on the same day. So the dough became quite stiff. I had to keep it out at room temperature for it to become pliable. I had to use little water too to make the dough soft and in order to roll it.
- I didn't have time to do the frosting at home and also I didn't want to make a lot of icing, decorate the cookies and give a sugar high to my kids and others so used readymade cookie icing tubes to decorate just a few cookies. The rest the kids ate it without any icing which was sweet enough and tasted great.
- To make Christmas tree ornament cookies, use a straw to poke a hole on the gingerbread cutouts and then bake the cookies as usual.
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