Gluten free gingerbread sandwich cookies

So it wouldn’t really be Christmas time without a spot of festive baking and what better place to start that with some gingerbread cookies! The smell of gingerbreads baking in the oven just fills the whole kitchen with the most amazing scent of warming spices and leaves me feeling so festive! These cookies are actually gluten free, as they’re made with a combination of buckwheat flour and almonds for the flour part of the recipe. They’re also completely free of refined sugars and instead are sweetened using raw honey and cashew nut butter. Both of these also help to bind the dry ingredients together. For an extra superfood boost, I’ve also added in some maca powder, which has a really delicious caramel like flavour- so works well in sweet treats!

 

This next stage is completely optional, but just gives the cookies that little something extra special I feel! Once the cookies were completely cooled, I then iced them together with a cashew chocolate frosting to create gingerbread sandwich cookies! Making refined sugar and dairy free frostings is something that I often get asked about and it honestly couldn’t be more simple! I use either cashew butter or homemade cashew cream as the general base, then add my sweetener of choice and then the other ingredients, depending on how I’m flavouring the frosting (in this case it was cacao powder.)

Christmas is right around the corner now and these would be a great thing to serve to guests, snack on whilst watching Christmas films or even give to someone as a homemade gift. It’s also a lovely thing to get the children involved with baking as well; I always used to love making gingerbreads as a child!

Ingredients:

Cookies:

3/4 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup almonds

3 tbsp honey

2 tbsp cashew butter

3 tsp maca powder

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

Pinch of nutmeg

Tbsp almond milk

Frosting:

2 tbsp cashew butter

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp cacao powder

Almond milk

 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180c and line a tray with baking paper.

Place the almonds into your food processor and blitz until they form a fine flour.

Add in the buckwheat flour, honey, cashew butter, maca, spices and water and blend until everything is well combined. You want the mixture to form a dough like consistency when pressed together with your hands. You can always add a little more water and blend again if need be.

Roll out the mixture and cut your gingerbread shapes. Place these onto your baking tray and cook them in the oven for around 12-13 minutes or until they are golden brown. Leave them to cool completely whilst you prepare the frosting.

To make the cacao frosting, mix together the cashew butter, sweetener and cacao powder until well combined. Add in a splash of almond milk and mix again to create a spreadable consistency.

Add a dollop of the frosting to half of the cookies and then place another cookie on top. Serve and enjoy!