Healthy-ISH Ginger Bread Men

Ingredients:

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¾ teaspoon 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 organic maple syrup
• 1 large egg
  Icing:
• 1 can coconut cream (cream scooped from the top)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  

Method:

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, cloves, pepper, baking soda and baking powder.
2. In another mixing bowl, combine the coconut oil and maple syrup and whisk until combined. Add the egg and whisk until the mixture is blended.
3. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry and mix just until combined. Shape dough into a round disc about 1 inch thick and wrap it in plastic wrap. Place disc in the refrigerator and chill until cold—about 1 hour, or up to overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius. 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. If the dough is very hard or crumbly, just roll it as best you can and then let it rest for a few minutes to warm up. 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 one.
6. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes; for softer cookies, pull them out around 8 minutes and for more crisp cookies, bake for up to 12 minutes.
7. To make the icing, in a small bowl, combine coconut cream & sugar. 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 the cookies as desired. The frosting will harden eventually, but it won’t ever be as hard as royal icing.
8. Decorate how you please, it’s especially fun to do this with family & friends!

Note: I used melted dark chocolate for the face & melted cocoa butter with beetroot powder to colour the buttons