Gingerbread cookies

This time of year seems to beg for gingerbread cookies. I usually manage to wait until closer to December, but I thought there might be someone out there who would appreciate it now.

I adapted this recipe many years ago from a preschool activity book that I was using with my oldest son when he was 4. He's 16 now! Anyway, I "veganized" it.

This makes a big batch to fill at least two cookie sheets, though if you decide to roll it out and use large cutters you may fill three.

Dry ingredients - mix in one bowl:
5 cups wholewheat flour
one and a half tsp baking soda
half teaspoon seasalt
2 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 cup turbinado sugar (it's best to use dry sweetener here unless you like cookies that spread and join up!)

Wet ingredients - mix in a second bowl:
1 cup lightly flavoured oil, eg coconut, grapeseed
2 tblsp soyflour blended with half cup water (this is a substitute for 2 eggs to make it vegan - you could use eggs if you prefer)
1 cup blackstrap molasses
2 tblsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice

you may need a little extra water, but be careful not to make the dough too sticky

Combine the two mixtures and mix well to make a dough. To shape into "people", take blobs of the dough with your hands, make a ball for each head, a sausage shape for the arms and a sausage shape for the legs. The head goes onto the cookie sheet, the arms underneath, and the leg piece is curved into a C shape and butted up against the arms. Tricky to explain in writing but you're aiming for a person shape (sort of like this but upright ---> O()C )

Alternatively, you can just make plain circles, or roll out the dough (I do it between two layers of wax paper as it's sticky stuff) and use cookie cutters. You can add currants for eyes and buttons if you want.

Bake at 350 for 10 - 12 minutes - I usually bake one cookie sheet at a time on the top shelf of the oven - I know it's more economical to do two at once but then they may cook unevenly. Leave them to firm up a bit before transferring to cooling racks.

I have had nothing but praise for these cookies. I assume most people have only ever had stale shop-bought stuff. Tonight, when Lego Nut and I started to make them, I accidentally doubled some of the ingredients, so we had to double ALL the ingredients and we ended up with 36 very large cookies. And they're sort of square because we used rice syrup instead of sugar and they spread out! Still tasted great, though.