Healthy Recipe, Gingerbread Cookies

Here’s a healthy version of your favorite classic gingerbread cookies made with a few simple substitutions. Use whole wheat pastry flour for all-purpose flour, coconut oil for butter, and coconut sugar for brown sugar. Recipe yields around 32 cookies, depending on their size. From Cook and Kate.

Ingredients

Cookies

• 3 cups (310 grams) whole wheat pastry flour*, plus more for work surface
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ teaspoon finely ground black pepper
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ cup melted coconut oil
• ½ cup unsulphured molasses
• ½ cup packed coconut sugar
• 1 large egg
• Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

Lemon icing (optional)

• ½ cup powdered sugar
• ¼ teaspoon lemon zest (optional, for intense lemon flavor)
• 2 ¼ teaspoons lemon juice

Instructions

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, cloves, pepper, baking soda and baking powder. Whisk until blended.
2. In a small mixing bowl, combine the coconut oil and molasses and whisk until combined. Add the coconut sugar and whisk until blended. Add the egg and whisk until the mixture is thoroughly blended.
3. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry and mix just until combined. Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a round disc about 1 inch thick and wrap it in plastic wrap. Place both discs in the refrigerator and chill until cold—about 1 hour, or up to overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with racks in the middle and upper third of the oven. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly flour your working surface and roll out one of your discs out until it’s ¼ inch thick. Repeat until you’ve successfully rolled the dough to ¼ inch thickness.
5. Use cookie cutters to cut out cookie shapes and place each cookie on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about ½ inch of space around each.
6. Bake for 8 to 11 minutes. Place the baking sheets on cooling racks to cool.
7. To make the icing, in a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar, optional lemon zest and the lemon juice. Whisk until thoroughly blended. Transfer the icing into a small Ziploc bag, squeeze out any excess air and seal the bag. Cut off a tiny piece of one of the lower corners and squeeze icing through the hole to decorate.
8. If you’d like to sift powdered sugar over the cookies, do it now. Wait until the icing has firmed up (about 1 hour) before carefully stacking the cookies in a storage container.