Ginger Spiced Biscuits (vegan)
Who can resist the aroma of freshly baking spice biscuits (or cookies if you're in the USA)?
I created these after a request from one of the family for "a chewy biscuit", and turned to that old-fashioned pantry staple Golden Syrup to create the right chewy texture. You can substitute brown rice syrup if you prefer, and can sub out the dark brown sugar for rapadura (less processed) sugar with very similar results.
The biscuits are short because of a quick amalgamation after the flour is added, and also because wholemeal spelt flour is a brilliant, brilliant flour for baking. It adds nourishment, without having a heavy texture. It's the mainstay in all our baking these days. If you prefer, you can use white spelt four instead.
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoons ground flaxseeds
3 tablespoons water
¼ cup coconut oil
¼ cup walnut oil (or other nut oil)
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
⅓ cup golden or brown rice syrup
1 teaspoon ground dried ginger
½ teaspoon mixed spice
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 ¼ cups wholemeal spelt flour - or you can use white if preferred*
¼ teaspoon bicarb soda (baking soda)
METHOD
Preheat fan forced oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).
Combine ground flaxseeds and water in a cup and set aside to gel.
Place coconut and nut oils, sugar and syrup in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Mix at low speed until fluffy and creamy — about 3 minutes.
Add spices and vanilla while it is mixing.
Add flaxseed mixture and mix again until incorporated.
Turn off machine. Add flour and soda. Gently mix to combine at slow speed. Do not overmix (this helps to keep the mixture very short textured).
Drop mixture onto stainless steel baking trays and bake for about 6-8 minutes.
Leave to set on trays for a couple of minutes before removing onto cooling racks to cool completely.
Store in an airtight tin.
MAKES APPROXIMATELY 40 BISCUITS.
*If using white spelt flour, it is less absorbent than wholemeal, so up the quantity by another tablespoon of flour.
“I want to take all our best moments, put them in a jar, and take them out like cookies and savor each one of them forever.”
Perfect for the Christmas season, with the gingery spices, these biscuits are actually delicious any time of the year. You'll notice they don't use vegan margarine, but instead use a combination of half coconut oil (cold pressed refined so there's no coconut flavour) and half cold-pressed nut oil. Although we do make our own vegan butter for use in some recipes, for many biscuits and cakes it's much quicker and simpler to use this combination of oils straight into the mix, with excellent results.
We prefer not to use processed store-bought vegan margarine, and of course we don't use butter as all our cooking is vegan, so we're always experimenting with simple ways to use wholefoods as "direct ingredients".
As these biscuits have a fair amount of sugar in them, they're not an everyday food - but every now and then, they make the most delicious treat.
