12 Days of Christmas Cookies, Day 10

When I was taking a small poll to try to get an idea of what sort of cookies people would like to see in this series, one sister friend of mine said it just wasn't Christmas without gingerbread cookies.  That's pretty easy to believe.  Everywhere you look there are kits for gingerbread houses, when you look for clip art under "cookies" in Microsoft Word the only pictures that come up are gingerbread people, sugar cookie shapes and chocolate chip cookies....with gingerbread people clearly winning the race.  I wanted to do something different with mine though, no houses...no people.  I have seen those massive sugar cookie Christmas trees made out of star shaped cookies a bajillion times and decided that this year the giant tree is getting a ginger makeover...  This one's for you Shelly!!

Gingerbread Poinsettia

1 1/2 c. vegan buttery spread

3/4 c. organic brown cane sugar

3/4 c. unsulphured molasses

1 T. ground cinnamon

1 T. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 tsp. sea salt

2 T. unsweetened soy milk

3/4 tsp. baking soda

3 c. flour

graduated star shapes set 

rolling pin
extra flour for rolling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream butter and sugar together; add in molasses and mix thoroughly.  Add in all the spices, salt, soda and soy milk.  Blend well.  Add in flour and blend until completely incorporated.  Divide your dough into three equal portions.

Roll out each dough portion with a healthy amount of flour then press star shapes into dough, starting with the smallest and working your way up...in case you run out of room on the sheets.  Then no matter what the graduation of the stars will be correct even if you don't get all 10 cranked out.  But really, you should be able to make 2 trees out of this much dough.  So even if you screw up a sheet...there is still hope!

Place each star shape about 1 1/2 inches apart on the cookie sheets....especially the large ones, spreading isn't usually a problem with gingerbread but it really depends on the brand of butter you use.  Some butters have a higher water content than others.  Vegan buttery spread is a safe choice...and its vegan.  (SO is this dough by the way!!)  Bake for 8-11 minutes.  I advise to you bake the first 5 stars on their own sheet and the larger 5 on other sheets.  The smaller ones will bake faster of course...watch the points of your stars!  They will tell you when the cookies are done in that time range.

Vegan Buttercream Frosting
1/2 c. Earth's Balance vegan shortening
1/2 c. vegan buttery spread
3 1/2 c. organic powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. soy creamer

Cream together butter and shortening; add in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until all in.  Add vanilla and soy creamer.  This is white frosting, for colors use food coloring as desired.  I used green, red and yellow.

This is THE best gingerbread recipe I've ever had in my LIFE.  The bottom and tops kind of form this thin, crispy armor around an incredibly soft inside that you try to believe...  All you have to do is make a recipe of buttercream frosting, color equal parts red and green and a small amount of it yellow.  I completely frosted each star shape with its respective color and put a dollop of yellow frosting in the center of each start for a bit of "cement" for the star that went on the top of it.  Of course as you go up the flower the dollops should be smaller.  (This dollop of yellow is important only if you care about presentation...as you remove stars off and eat the flower there will still be a beautiful round yellow dot in the center of your flower.)  Then you pipe 3 or 4 little yellow dots in the middle and you're golden.  I'm not a professional, I'm sure you can tell...but the BIGGER deal is that you KNOW what you're looking at, and that's all that matters and all that will matter to anyone lookin' at yours.  The real deal is in the taste...and it IS fabulous!  Enjoy!!