Amanda T. won last week’s Joy of Vegan Baking giveaway, and chose gingerbread cookies with icing. I hadn’t actually tried Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s gingerbread recipe yet, so I was psyched! The gingerbread cookie recipe on page 122 calls for the Royal icing recipe on page 234, which is simply Ener-G egg replacer, lemon juice, and confectioner’s sugar (the almond or vanilla extract is optional). Two more reasons I’m excited Amanda won: 1, she just had a baby, and 2, I don’t actually know her. Usually my giveaways don’t attract entries from perfect strangers, but as my sister pointed out, “You can’t eat books.”
Once I found a store that had ground ginger in stock (and it did take me awhile, weirdly enough), I had only a couple minor hiccups in my cookie-baking session last night. I’d picked up a cheap-o icing decoration kit from Bed, Bath & Beyond, and made the mistake of first using the tall bottle instead of one of the little accordion-shaped ones. The icing was already pretty thick, so it stuck to the sides of the plastic bottle instead of squirting out. But I transferred the icing with a small spatula into the smaller accordion bottle, and the icing process went smoothly after that.
My first batch (on the bottom) was too thick, but you can see (above) that I figured it out. I’ve been making gingersnaps pretty regularly for years, but this is the first time since high school (has it really been that long??) since I baked gingerbread cookies.

My friend Faith would come in periodically and comment on how great it smelled in Alex’s apartment, and each time she did I gave her another cookie. Flattery, clearly, is the best way to get treats out of me.
Thanks to this giveaway, I have an even longer list of desserts to veganize. I’m particularly excited about Marcel’s chocolate mousse cheesecake challenge, so I’ll be blogging about that sometime in the new year!
Amanda is pretty lucky! They look delicious!
What exactly is the egg replacer?