It’s December, which means it’s time for the holiday baking to begin! I have yet to decorate my room which is kind of sad but last night I baked up some delicious cookies! Baking cookies is so fun and I haven’t done it in a while. I love cutting them out, and decorating them is just so relaxing! These Ginger Oat Cookies are made in one bowl and baked for 15 minutes so that you can get to icing them (my favourite part) in a snap.

I used so many tasty ingredients in this recipe! We’ve got ground walnuts, oat flour, maple syrup, and of course lots of ginger. The result is a golden-brown cookie that is deliciously crumbly and full of oat-y, Christmas-y flavour. And did I mention the chocolate icing?!!!??? It’s probably the easiest icing you’ll ever make- it only consists of cocoa powder, maple syrup, and almond milk. And it’s SO rich and delish! I piped it on to my little ginger-oat men (that’s what I’m calling them lol) and gave them cute faces and outfits:) You can adjust the amount of milk you add to it to make it thicker or thinner, depending if you want to spread it on like frosting, pipe on some details, or flood the whole surface. The chocolate goes so nicely with the warm spices in the cookie.

To start make these festive beauties, I simply mixed together all of my ingredients in a big bowl until it came together to form a nice dough; then I rolled it out, cut out my cookies, and baked them up. Super quick and easy! I cut my cookies into the shape of gingerbread men, but feel free to use any fun holiday-themed cutters:)

I love how healthy these cookies are too. They’re vegan, refined sugar free, and can easily be made gluten free if you use gluten free oats. The oat flour and ground walnuts can either be bought or easily made by throwing either oats or walnuts into a blender, which is what I did. The holidays are definitely about treating yourself, but if you’re looking for something a little lighter or that’s maybe a nice and nutritious Christmas snack, then these are for you.

I hope you enjoy these Ginger Oat Cookies! They’re so tasty and cute:)) I can’t wait to share more of my holiday baking with you guys so make sure to keep checking out my blog!

Ginger Oat Cookies

Serves: Makes about 12 Cookies (I used a cutter that was roughly 4 inches by 3 inches in size)

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Ginger Oat Cookies:

• 1 cup ground walnuts
• 2 cups oat flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1/2 tbsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/4 cup maple syrup

For the Chocolate Icing:

• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tbsp maple syrup
• 3 1/2-5 tsp almond milk (depending on how thick/thin you’d like your icing)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Mix all of the cookie ingredients together in a large bowl. Use your hands to form it into a big ball.
3. Place the dough on top of a large piece of parchment paper, and cover it with an equally sized piece. Roll it out with a rolling pin so that it’s about 1/4 of an inch thick. Remove the top layer of parchment paper and cut out shapes with cookie cutters, placing the cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
4. When you run out of room to cut more cookies, collect all of the excess dough into a ball and repeat step 3. Continue to do this until you have used up all of the dough, and you have a pan full of soon-to-be cookies in front of you!
5. Bake the cookies in the oven for 15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove and let cool completely.
6. To make the icing, mix together the cocoa powder, maple syrup, and 2 tsp of the almond milk in a small bowl. Gradually add more milk until you reach your desired consistency.
7. Scoop the icing into a piping bag and cut a small hole at the bottom. Use this to pipe decorations on to your cooled cookies.
8. Let the icing on the cookies harden and proceed to enjoy! These can be stored in the fridge for about 10 days, or frozen and thawed when needed:)

Have a great rest of your week everyone! I’ll see you Friday with another great recipe:)

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))