Making gingerbread men was one of the most fun baking sessions with little Harry and yiayia Philippa. We used olive oil instead of butter and grape molasses to reduce the sugar needed. The result was truly amazing and the feedback a success from all ages. Check our Instagram post for this super fun child friendly activity 🙂
Makes approximately 20 cookies.
Cookie dough
400g flour
100g brown sugar
120ml grape molasses
80ml extra virgin olive oil
1 large egg
2-3 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
Icing (optional)
350g icing sugar
4 tbs of lemon juice
Method
Preheat oven to 170ºF and line your baking trays with parchment paper or you can use silicone baking mats.
In one bowl whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl mix well and bid together brown sugar, molasses, egg, and olive oil until creamy. You can use a blender or mix by hand. It worked fine by hand. Gradually add flour mixture into liquid mixture and beat until dough starts to form together. Gently knead the dough into a ball.
Olive oil cookie dough is sticky, so you can put your dough in the fridge for an hour prior to rolling out.
Alternatively you can also use two sheets of parchment paper to carefully roll out your dough until approximately 1-cm thick. I did both of the steps above and worked out perfect!
Using cookie cutters, cut into fun shapes. Bake for 10 -12 minutes depending on the size and how crunchy you like them. These cookies are naturally brown because of the molasses and won’t brown further with baking. If you bake them for too long, you will have firm, crisp cookies. We like ours slightly softer than crunchy.
When you remove from the oven transfer on a cooling rack.
Serve as is or decorate with icing.
For the icing simply add the lemon juice into the icing sugar until it becomes firm and spreadable. Then pipe the icing on the cookies to decorate.
Store in airtight container for at least 2 weeks.
