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Decorated gingerbread men cookies on white background
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Healthy Gingerbread Man Recipe For Kids

A perfect fun recipe to get the kids involved on the cold afternoons inside! Low sugar, naturally sweetened, easy and healthy gingerbread man recipe for kids that they will love making and eating. You will enjoy a family afternoon of making the dough, cutting the shapes, and decorating them too. These are delicious and crumbly, made with wholewheat flour and the easiest royal icing that anyone can make.
Course Dessert, Snack
Cuisine American
Diet Low Lactose
Fridge Life? Store at room temp in airtight container for 2 weeks
Freezable? Yes, up to 6 months
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Resting time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 30 cookies
Calories 95kcal
Author Dora

Equipment

  • Mixer

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

  • 3 cups wholegrain flour
  • ½ cup birch sugar (xylitol)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoon ginger powdered
  • ¼ teaspoon cinnamon powdered
  • ¼ teaspoon cloves
  • ¼ teaspoon cardamom
  • ¼ teaspoon anise dried
  • ¼ teaspoon pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon cilantro (coriander) dried

Wet Ingredients

Royal Icing

  • 1 egg white
  • 300 g icing sugar
  • few drops lemon juice

Instructions

The Dough

  • Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another.
  • Add the dry ingredients to the wet and either mix with your hands or use the dough hook of your mixer until it sticks to the hook.
  • Refrigerate the dough for an hour to firm up.

The Cookies

  • Remove the dough from the fridge and preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
  • Lightly flour your surface and roll out the dough. To avoid adding extra flour to the dough you can also simply roll it between to sheets of parchment paper. Roll until about ¼ inch / ½ cm thick before cutting out your cookie shapes.
  • Line a baking tray with parchment paper and transfer the cookies to the baking try leaving about 1 cm / ½ inch space between them.
  • Put in the oven and bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on the strength of your oven. Once you see that they're starting to brown around the edges, remove them from the oven and let them cool.

The Icing

  • Wisk the egg white for a couple minutes before adding a few drops of lemon juice. Then add (sifted) icing sugar bit by bit while continuing to mix until you have a completely smooth consistency.

Decorate Your Cookies

  • Divide the icing into separate bowls and add a little food coloring if desired. Then use a decorating bag to decorate the cookies, or draw the icing on with a chopstick.
  • Add mini marshmallows, edible eyes, chocolate chips or whatever else you enjoy!

Notes

Top Tips

To prevent the dough from sticking to the kitchen counter, don't forget to lightly (lightly!) flour the surface before you roll out the dough. Alternatively, you can also roll the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper.
Don't overbake your cookies! Remove them from the oven when they start browning at the edges – they might seem a little too soft still but don't be tempted to throw them back in. They will firm up as they cool down!
Make your own icing sugar by simply blending table sugar into a fine powder. Just make sure to use a bone-dry blender. You can also blend the birch sugar and use that instead.

Nutrition

Calories: 95kcal | Carbohydrates: 12g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 19mg | Potassium: 1mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 1IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 8mg | Iron: 1mg