Raw Vegan Gingerbread

If you can't make it through the holidays without gingerbread and you want to keep it raw, try this recipe.  It does contain blackstrap molasses, which is not raw.  If you want to omit the molasses, you can try substituting with palm sugar.

Raw Vegan Gingerbread Slathered with Ginger Apple Butter

For the bread

8 cups raw pumpkin puree
3 cups almond flour
2 1/2 cups dates, soaked in water
3/4 cups coursely chopped ginger
1 tsp coconut oil
 1/2 cup blackstrap molasses (not raw)
1 tbsp of powdered ginger
1 tsp clove
 1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup flax meal

To make raw pumpkin puree:  wash and peel pumpkin, slice it into strips.  Run the strips through the shredding blade of the food processor.  Switch to the S-blade, and process the shredded pumpkin again until it is smooth.

For the almond flour, I used about 1/2 almond pulp from making almond milk, and 1/2 almond flour purchased from a store.  The Raw Chef Russell James says that you can dehydrate your almond pulp to make almond flour.  I haven't tried it yet.

Drain the dates, and place them in the food processor with the ginger.  I used some of the the coconut oil to grease the measuring cup for the molasses.  Add the coconut oil and molasses to the food processor, and process until it is a smooth puree.  Stir it into the pumpkin mixture.

Stir together the flax meal and dried spices, and then stir that into the pumpkin mixture.  Divide the batter into four portions.  One at a time, place each portion in the food processor, whipping it until light, then gently spread it on a teflex dehydrator sheet.  It should look like a large pancake.

Dehydrate on low, about 105 degrees Fahrenheit, for eight hours.  Then flip each "bread" over so that the other side can dry.  Before you put it back in the dehydrator, use a pizza cutter to score each sheet into about nine pieces.  Dehydrate until it has reached the desired texture.  This particular batch required another 24 hours.

The apple butter slather was so simple it's ridiculous.  Simply take about 6 sweet apples, wash and core them, (don't bother peeling them,) and toss them in the food processor with about 3 dates, a tbsp of dried ginger, and a tsp each of cinnamon and clove.  Puree until smooth and creamy.  Adjust the sweetening and spices to taste.

If you want, you can sculpt the gingerbread dough.  My husband made a Ninja Turtle for our kids: