Are you ready for Christmas? We sure are! Making gingerbread men cookies and planning our Christmas activities. There is no better time than the end of November to bake cookies and shop for Christmas presents ;-). Please tell me I am not the only one doing this so early this year!
I asked my son what Christmas desserts he would like us to make and his response came promptly, without one second of hesitation: gingerbread men cookies. Wow, that came by surprise! I don’t remember ever making gingerbread men cookies because I am not a fan of ginger cookies and with my son being gluten and dairy sensitive, I never tried to come up with a recipe he could eat.
So I had no choice but to agree with his request as I thought this would be a good way to add another recipe to our regular rotation. Who said that we can eat gingerbread men cookies only at Christmas time? We can use the same ingredients, make other shapes (butterflies, elephants, etc.), call them ginger cookies and eat them whenever we want to.
And since I wanted to put a healthy spin on a traditional cookie, we added chia seeds for a bit of crunch and additional nutrition.
- 2 ¾ cup almond flour
- ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon coconut palm sugar
- 5 tablespoons chia seeds
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅓ cup blackstrap molasses
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- use any frosting of your choice (red, green, yellow, white)
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 F.
- Mix the dry ingredients (first 8) in a big bowl.
- Mix the wet ingredients (last 2) in a small bowl.
- Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients while mixing gently.
- Take small amounts of the dough and spread each on a cutting board with your fingers. Cut the dough in shapes and remove each cookie with a pie server. Place each cookie on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10 minutes. Pay close attention around the 8 minute mark so the cookies don’t burn.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool. The cookies will be soft to touch, but they will harden when they are cooled.
- Decorate the cookies with red, green, white, and yellow frosting.
I hope you’ll have a chance to make these delicious Gingerbread Man Cookies as they are delicious, if I do say so myself.
Do your kids like gingerbread men cookies? Do you have a tradition of decorating them together as a family at Christmas time?
I have never had cookies with chia, but these looks so cute and yummy!
Thank you, Joanna. My whole family loved them :).