Raw Gingerbread Cookies with Vanilla Cashew Icing

Sorry about the bad photo, they're actually a really lovely gingerbread brown color.

My mom makes the best sugar cookies. Clean white, buttery cookies with what we call "Royal" icing, loaded with powdered sugar and all of those scrumptious things that make the holidays so tempting. I decided to test-run these Raw Vegan 'totally guiltless' Gingerbread Cookies before I bring them home this year.

Also, I've decided this holiday season to ban Agave Nectar from my diet. There is a lot of controversy surrounding agave nectar, but I really just have to go with how it makes me feel, which is not great. I still have a big 20 oz. bottle of Mathew Kenney's OhAgave! Syrup on my shelf, but especially in this season of sweets and treats, I'm going to avoid it and thus avoid over-using it. Thoughts?

Gingerbread cookies:

1 C dry Buckwheat groats
1 t cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1 t nutmeg
2 T melted coconut oil
1/2-1 C soaked dates
1/8 C ground flax(optional, for a denser cookie. If you do use it, make the cookies thinner)

Soak dates for 15 minutes-an hour and then blend into a syrupy paste. Grind the buckwheat groats into a fine flour and mix with the spices and flax. Combine the dry ingredients with the date paste and coconut oil. Mix well a flatten a section of the dough onto a nonstick surface like your teflex sheets. shape into whatever you like and turn onto your dehydrator sheet like you would regular sugar cookies. Dehydrate 8 hours on 105 degrees until they reach desired crunch/chew.

Vanilla Cashew Cream Icing:

1/2 C Cashews
water
1 T vanilla extract
1 T coconut oil(optional, if you want the frosting to solidify better)
liquid stevia/agave/raw sweetener of choice to taste

Blend 'er up. This will make plenty. I piped it on to the cookies using a ziploc bag with a hole cut in it because I found it difficult to spread with a knife.

Add a few dried cranberries to make them a really special treat!

Happy Holidays :)