The weather is freeeezing these days! So to warm myself up and to bring a little cheer into my life, I baked myself some vegan men. Gingerbread men. Who needs real ones when you can bake your own just the way you like 'em? Sweet, warm, dark, handsome, animal-friendly, full of spicy personality... (hey, a girl can dream right?).
Actually, this was my first time baking my own gingerbread cookies. So for my first attempt, I turned to none other than Isa's Gingerbread Cut Out Cookie recipe from the PPK. Thankfully I had all the ingredients! I was a little worried at first because when I went to roll the dough out, it was too wet and kept sticking to my table top. So then I added more flour and that seemed to do the trick.
For the royal icing, I followed the recipe in Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's 'the Joy of Vegan Baking' book. It was pretty simple and it turned out marvelously. I also had a ton of fun filling up a ziploc bag with the icing and drawing faces on my men. :) Then I decided to take it to the next level and added some pink food coloring to give them loving hearts... Yea , you will love me, dammit !
Anywayyy~ These tasted as good as they looked. Delicious. I slightly overbaked one of the batches, but the ones that weren't overbaked were perfect- slightly chewy but still with some bite. Even the ones that were in the oven a little longer were still yummy- kinda like gingersnaps.
Here are a few of my favorite ones. Especially the one on the bottom-right, cuz it looks like he's dancing.
I'm not one to horde the vegan love, so I packaged most of these guys up and handed them out to my coworkers the next day. They all loved them! One guy even asked if he could have another one. Many people said that they were too precious to eat, and that they felt bad while they were biting their heads and limbs off. Hm... I wonder whether they would've said the same thing if they were gingerbread animals instead. Eeenteresting... ;)
This is my future man and me. Joined in the holy baking process.
Anyway, I had a ton of fun, and I'm glad everyone loved these fellas. Who wouldn't - they're so lovable!