Raw Gingerbread

Ginger has long been one of my favourite things. A simple internet search will turn up lists of the awesome benefits of ginger, to me it just comes down to taste. For one thing it tastes great with many of my other favourite things to cook with: lime, coconut milk, basil. Then there’s candied ginger, ginger tea, ginger cookies… yum. Anyway, I found this recipe (my version is below) for Raw Gingerbread last Christmas. And I have been anxious to try it again.

Dehydrator Optional

It turned out drier than last year, next time I’ll use more molasses. So it was difficult to roll out and we only managed 1 (rather thick) man. Lily ate him right away! (Too fast for me to get a picture with his whole body, she LOVED these.) Then I got her to help me try making a couple of reindeer and the rest I rolled into balls. I dehydrated them too which gave an awesome texture when they first came out and were warm. After leaving them in the fridge a while they got too hard so I’m keeping them on the counter now. I think I won’t leave them in the dehydrator quite so long next time. I always start my dehydrator on high for 1-2 hours. (The manufacturer recommends this for raw food, saying it won’t get over 118 in that time.) Then I left these an additional 2 hours on about 115.

Raw vegan gingerbread Recipe

1 cups raw flour*
3/4 cups dates or raisins
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoons cinnamon powder
1 tablespoons of fresh, peeled ginger
1 tablespoon unsulphered molasses
1 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)
1 tablespoons melted coconut oil

Throw everything in the food processor until it forms a ball of doughy goodness. This can take a while so be patient, then add more of your choice of wet ingredient if needed until it turns into a ball. The original recipe says to refrigerate for an hour but this will make it too hard to roll. After you roll them into balls or cut them into gingerbread men you can put them on some parchment paper in the fridge for a couple hours or over night. Putting them in the dehydrator for a couple hours will give them a real gingersnap cookie texture (a rare and beautiful thing in a gluten free cookie!)

Green Mom Notes

*I grind kasha (toasted buckwheat) into flour with the milling blade in my baby bullet (food processor or blender would work too.) You could also buy or make flour from rye berries, oat groats, almonds etc.

I find that kasha really adds to the flavour of these. It has a slightly spicy warm taste that’s actually kind of Christmasy all on it’s own.