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!