These gingerbread cookies are refined sugar free using honey and coconut sugar for sweetness. The spices used are ginger, ground cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon, but they are all optional apart from the ginger of course! Best eaten as soon as they have come out of the oven and have cooled down.

INGREDIENTS

• 400 g flour
• 130 g softened butter
• 100 g coconut sugar
• 140 g honey
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 
• ½ tsp ground cloves 
• ½ tsp cinnamon 
• 1 tsp bicarb soda 
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

METHOD

1. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and using a hand blender or stand mixer, and beat the ingredients together for around 7 minutes until the mixture has lightened in colour and becomes fluffy. Use a spatula to scrape down any bits on the side. 
2. Add the honey, spices, and bicarb soda with apple cider vinegar (place the bicarb soda in a spoon and pour the vinegar over so the bicarb fizzes up). Beat the rest of the mixture until nice and consistent. 
3. Shape the gingerbread cookie dough into a round flat disc and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 40 minutes before use. You want the dough to be quite firm and cool when you begin to roll it out otherwise it’s a bit tricky to handle. 
4. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celcius.
5. Divide the dough into 2 pieces and place one back in the fridge so that it remains cool.
6. Working with the first piece of dough, shape it into a ball and roll it out between two pieces of baking paper till the dough is approximately 3-4mm thick. Remove the top piece of baking paper.
7. Use your choice of cookie cutter, i.e snowflake, star, Christmas tree, gingerbread man etc. Place the cookie formations onto the dough, using up as much of the dough surface as possible but with enough space in between each shape as they will increase in width and size as they bake (and you don’t want them to stick together!). Then using a palette knife or your fingers gently remove the dough around each cut shape. Roll up this excess dough, shape into a disc, cover with plastic and place into the fridge as well, before rolling out again. Then place the baking sheet with the raw cookie dough shapes onto a baking tray and into the oven for 10-12 minutes.
8. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough in the fridge and bake repeating the process until all cookies have been baked!

Prep time: 1 1/2 hours.
Cook time: 10-12 minutes each batch and 45 minutes total.
Makes: 30 gingerbread cookies.

Recipe and photos by Anastasia Zolotarev. Click here to see her blog.