Zesty Orange Gingerbread Cookies (GF, DF, V)

a recipe so good it isn't just for christmas

I know Christmas is over, I meant to post this recipe in December but I got so overwhelmed with the whole buying a house and moving while trying to create a magical family Christmas that I just didn’t manage it. BUT I did make this recipe about 4 times with my toddler and I feel like it deserves a place on the winter baking roster, Christmas or no.

This recipe is so simple, so healthy, and possibly even better than the traditional gingerbread of my childhood. The addition of orange zest in the cookies and orange royal icing adds so much dimension to the flavor that I’m not sure regular gingerbread will ever be the same again! Super fun with kids because of the cutting and decorating- we even used it to make gingerbread houses and it worked perfectly.

Also worth mentioning, there’s no refined sugar (except in the icing, I still haven’t figured out a good replacement for confectioners sugar in royal icing but…shhh) and with a good amount of warming winter aromatics like ginger, cinnamon etc I would say these are a pretty healthy sweet tooth satisfier.