Vegan Date & Almond Gingerbread

This recipe was the result of some tinkering in the kitchen and musing on whether I could make a roll-able dough that didn’t contain any flour. And I’m happy to report that it was a total triumph, and I’m now able to blog this recipe! It really couldn’t be much simpler either, another big plus in my eyes. Gingerbread is something my family always seems to be making around Christmas time, and the strongest association I have with it is making gingerbread houses with my aunt and all my cousins. Stuck together liberally with royal icing and garnished with all manner of gaudy sweets and sprinkles, they were monuments to bad taste, but always tasted so amazing! I just feel sorry for my aunt and my mother for having to peel us all off the ceiling post-sugar high! This recipe though is something rather more restrained, which isn’t always a bad thing! Naturally it’s vegan, and if you use gluten-free oats in place of regular oats, then voila it’s gluten-free too! Just try not to eat all the dough before you’ve cooked them, it’s extremely more-ish.

Makes approx. 50 small

• Chia seeds. 2 tbsp
• Water. 6 tbsp
• Dates. 100g
• Ground almonds. 150g
• Oats. 50g
• Mixed spice. 1 ½ tsp
• Ground ginger. 1 tsp
• Maple syrup. 3tbsp

Combine the chia seeds with the water in a small bowl and set aside.

Roughly chop the dates, and add to a food processor with the ground almonds, oats, spices & maple syrup. Add the chia seeds in too, and blitz the mixture until it forms a ball of dough. Scrape the mixture out of the processor bowl, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for an hour.

Pre-heat an oven to 150°C. Cut out three large squares of greaseproof paper, and use one of them to line a baking tray with. Un-wrap the dough and place between the remaining two squares of greaseproof paper. Flatten the mixture a little with your hands, then roll it out to around ½ cm thickness.

Remove the top layer of greaseproof and cut the gingerbread into shapes, placing them on the lined baking tray. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 min, or until they’re firming up and starting to darken in colour. Remove and let cool slightly before removing the gingerbread to a cooling rack. Squash together any dough leftovers into a ball, then re-roll like before, cut out and bake again, until you’ve used up all the dough!

Ted x

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