14 days until Christmas, that’s crazy right? I’m generally a bit blase about holidays but am very excited this year as Kam and I are heading to Sydney next weekend. This will be my first Christmas with my family since I moved down here and it’s also my first visit back home in two years. I feel really slack after having typed that, as that’s much too long between visits! On top of this we’re also having Polish Christmas with Kam’s mum this weekend, so I’m lucky enough to be celebrating Christmas with family twice as hard this year!
With all this journeying around to organise I’ve been stocking up our pantry for our wonderful friend who’ll be house-sitting for us from next weekend (love you sunshine!) and planning snacks for our 10 hour drive to Sydney. While we were originally going to stay overnight in Albury-Woodonga, Kam is keen to slugit out in one go and I’ve been tasked with keeping up his energy levels for the drive.
These raw gingerbread men may take a little while to prepare in the dehydrator but are well worth the effort. I’ve made them 4 times in total so far. The first two times to perfect the recipe, and the last two…. well because they are so delicious! Raw, vegan and grain-free; there’s all the spices and ginger flavour you expect from your holiday gingerbread with the health benefits of fibre-rich medjool dates with almond meal. They’re the perfect chewy consistency and store well at room temperature or the fridge for a few days (if they last that long). So get out your gingerbread man cookie cutters (or stars, christmas tree shapes) etc, and lets unleash your inner cookie monster for the holidays!
Merry Christmas for the 25th, and Happy Holidays to you all 🙂
- 15 medjool dates, pitted and soaked in water to soften
- 1 cup almond meal
- 1-inch knob of ginger, peeled and grated
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp vanilla powder
- a little water (if needed)
- Line two dehydrator trays with teflex sheets or baking paper. Drain the dates, reserving a little of the soaking water.
- Add all ingredients into the bowl of a blender or food processor and process until mixture forms a 'dough'. Add a little of the reserved soaking water to help the dough come together if necessary.
- Turn dough onto a flat surface and either roll out and use cookie cutters to cut out gingerbread men, or place cookie cutter on prepared dehydrator trays and push dough into cookie cutter to make gingerbread men shapes before removing cutter and repeating.
- Dehydrate at 110F for 12 hours or until desired consistency. At the time recommended the cookies will be firm, yet chewy. Makes 8-12 depending on size of cutter.
Comments 16
Sounds really delicious. Thanks for sharing your wonderful recipe.
Author
My pleasure, thanks for the comment Marla 😀
OMG!This will become my go-to recipe for Raw Gingerbread Men! So good and so good for you! These are a must for my holiday feast this year. Thank you for sharing this healthy holiday treat with us at the Healthy, Happy, Green and Natural Hop! Have a happy holiday!
Author
It’s my pleasure Deborah, thank you for hosting such an amazing blog hop 🙂 Happy holidays to you and your family!!
I’ve never had a raw gingerbread cookie -sounds so good!
Author
Thanks for the comment Laura, I love making raw cookies – something different to heating up the house with the oven on 🙂 They’ve got a totally different consistency too. If you don’t have a dehydrator at home you can roll the dough up into balls and enjoy like a superfoood truffle!
These look great! I am wracking my brain to think how I can make these candida friendly because I really want to eat them!!
Author
DO you find dates are one you of your high-reaction foods Candace? I personally like using dates for these due to their ability for modifying the bacterial and fungal colonies of the digestive system and aiding the growth of friendly bacteria. It’s really the only dried fruit I would recommend in cases of Candida or bacterial overgrowth. My suggestion would be to make them small (little men, or balls) and share them around! They are really filling thankfully, so you can’t honestly eat many of them in one go (1 was enough for me!).
I had not heard that about medjool dates, I am excited to learn more – anything that helps with the gut is a friend of mine. I have just been avoiding them due to the sugar content but I know there are some foods that have healing properties while still containing natural sugars (like pumpkin), so I am thinking maybe this is one I have overlooked! I am pumped to explore this further cause I LOVE dates and I really, really want to make these cookies! Thanks for the tip! Great site by the way, I am very excited to explore it more!
Thanks so much for this cute idea! I have made gingerbread fruit/nut truffle balls, but never thought to shape the mix into gingerbread men. What a great though 🙂
Author
My pleasure Kari, I’ve done it as balls a few times and I guess it’s just nice to mix it up a little for the holidays!
Thanks for the comment and I love your blog 🙂
You show how creative you can be making raw goodies. I have to learn from you. Thanks for sharing with us at My Meatless Mondays.
Author
My pleasure Chaya, thank you for hosting! I’ll be sure to link up again soon 🙂
Featuring this awesome recipe tonight on AFW! Thank you for sharing with us.
Happy Holidays.
Be Well
–Amber
Author
My pleasure Amber, thank you for hosting and Happy Holidays! 😀