Gluten-Free Gingerbread Men

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!

It's the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year. A great day for opening one Christmas present to soothe the anticipation of the big day, and a great day for baking gingerbread men and decorating them with your children. 

Kathryn was thrilled to open up her new Logitech gaming headset so she can start making her own Minecraft videos and Skyping with her friends. 

Bay received the earring holder she wanted so she can organize all her jewelry. 

The kids can now look forward to opening the rest of their presents on Christmas morning. 

Here's a gluten-free gingerbread recipe that you can use to feed all of the holiday revelers in your life, both gluten-free and otherwise. It's that good. 

I found this recipe and this recipe and this recipe and countless others for gluten-free gingerbread cookies but they all had either a.) too many ingredients b.) a missing ingredient from what I'm used to making gingerbread men with, or c.) had an ingredient I didn't want to use (like flax meal -- ew...not in my Christmas cookies). So I mae this up as I went along with a bit of guidance from the above sources, and I think you'll find this recipe quite satisfactory. 

Gluten-Free Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups gluten-free flour blend (plus more for rolling later)
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 T butter at room temperature

Directions:

• Heat oven to 325F and set your baking sheets up. Use Silpat or parchment on your baking sheets. 
• Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. 
• In a separate mixing bowl, combine the egg, molasses, and vanilla. 
• Pour all the wet into the dry at once. Cut up the butter and add it to the mixing bowl. Mix on medium speed until all combined. 
• Check your consistency. Your dough should hold its shape in a ball. If it's too wet, mix in some additional flour, a couple tablespoons at a time, until it stiffens up a bit. 
• Divide your dough into three portions. 
• Between two sheets of parchment covered, I mean covered, in more flour mix, roll out each portion of dough to roughly 1/3" thick and cut your gingerbread however you choose. Really use a lot of flour. It's the key to great, gluten-free cut-out cookies. You don't want your cookie dough to stick to the parchment, and the recipe is built is a way that the extra flour will be fine in the finished product. We'll clean up our cookies later. For now, be generous with the flour on your work surface. To get the cut dough to the cookie sheets safely, I use a spatula to lift then up off the work area. These guys puff up just a little bit, so give them a little room, maybe an inch between cookies. 
• Continue in this way until all your dough is cut and ready to bake. 
• Bake for 12 minutes before checking on your cookies. Mine were done at the 12 minute mark, but yours may need a few extra minutes. 
• Cool completely before decorating. 

Now, about all that flour that's all over your cookies. Simple solution: when they've cooled completely, use a pastry brush to gently brush away all that excess flour from your beautiful cookies. It's worth using when cutting, and it's easy to get rid of when you're done. Watch:

Use a ton of flour when you're rolling and cutting. 

All the flour sticks to the cookies. It's okay. Leave them. 

Cool the floury dudes completely once their baked. 

Then, take out your handy-dandy pastry brush, and brush that flour right off. 

Voila! Naked as the day he was ...oh, nevermind. 

Now most people use royal icing for these cookies, but I don't care for the taste, or lack thereof. So I use a traditional buttercream frosting to decorate my gingerbread men. Here is a reliable recipe for royal icing if you want to go that route. If you want buttercream, here's a good recipe to use.

Have fun decorating your gingerbread family!