Pecan & Date Gingerbread Men (No Sugar) - An Original Recipe & Healthy Alternative to Sugary Snacks
I created these when planning foods for my recent "Picnic Alfresco", and can say with all sincerity they are my best sweet recipe to date! Obviously they are without sugar, you know me, and so rely on dates and Manuka honey for their deliciously natural sweetness. The taste and texture of the pecan nuts, the chewiness of the dates, along with the ginger and wonderfully characterful spelt flour make these super more-ish. They didn't last long at all, haha!
Of course you wouldn't go eating them all in one go, but at least with a recipe using natural, organic, sugar-free and additive-free ingredients means you can eat a few biscuits without all the unpleasant side effects often experienced after eating commercial sugary snacks - like sugar highs, bellyache, weight gain, diarrhoea (yes, sugar is a laxative!), etc etc. They are also safe for children, which was one of my considerations when making them as I have a son less than two. He liked them very much, making his Mama happy! Plus lucky me I can avoid what many parents suffer - their child bouncing off the walls for hours after snacks... phew!
Ingredients:
50g butter
3 tsp Manuka honey (or another type if you don't have this)
150g dates
3 tsp ground ginger
100g pecan nuts
2 free-range eggs
200g spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
Method:
In a bowl cream together the butter and honey.
Finely chop the dates and add to the bowl, along with the ground ginger.
Finely chop the pecans (about the size of chocolate chips).
Add the pecans and eggs to the bowl, and mix well.
Add the spelt flour and baking soda, and give a really thorough final mix up.
On a generously-floured surface, roll the mixture out to about 1.5cm thick, and press the shapes out using a pastry cutter. If your mixture is sticking to the surface, you still need more flour! I find using spelt flour for this instead of wheat flour means that 'excess floury' taste is avoided because spelt has such a lovely and slightly nutty flavour.
Carefully place the gingerbread men onto a silicone baking tray, or a well-floured tray. Pop into a preheated oven at 190 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes, until firm to touch.
Allow to cool on a wire rack.
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Many thanks.
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All photos in this post are my own original, taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S8200.
These look super cute, have written down the recipe to add to my long growing list of Steemit recipes to try ( mostly yours).
Need to still do a post of the pics of recipes I tried doing from Steemit.
Haha, you write them down and they just keep on coming! It would be awesome to see you post about recipes you've tried :-)
I surer do!
It's awesome they keep on coming.
I was trying to do it yesterday, something wrong with getting them from my email, hopefully will sort it today.
Finally sorted, it, could only find a few photo's though.
@woman-onthe-wing thanks for sharing the ingredients and recipe! I like you've replaced sugar with honey :)I also trying to avoid it and sometimes I am using Xylitol instead.
If you have a moment please review my beetroot soup recipe that I think may be interesting to you. It’s the best dish in the summertime and it's very healthy :) Cheers!
Thank you @radzioha, I'm really pleased you like the recipe and avoid sugar in your own diet too! I call sugar the Evil Temptress! I will pop over to your blog and have a wee nosey :-)
thanks! :) following as well :)
Delicious :) I want to try that.
i Love using dates as a sugar replacer. So good :) thanks for sharing this recipe @woman-onthe-wing
Dates are amazing, I'm glad to hear you like using them too :-)
These are awesome - I have a gingerbread-WOMAN cookie cutter! These would be perfect :)
I've never seen a woman cutter before, how wonderful! Now you'll have to do your own post using that :-)
Actually there's a woman, man, girl, and boy. I had the kids and their friends decorate gingerbread men this past Christmas - and of course the girls chose the girl cutters and the boys chose the boy cutters :)
Nice! The whole gingerbread family! Now you definitely have to do a post on that, I want to see them all happy together!
Oh the poor 'Men' ... they didn't last long! Looking amazing as usual and with your description of the top, you make me already feel the taste!
Bravo!
@progressivechef
Thanks very much @progressivechef! I would send you one if I hadn't eaten them all haha :-)
Oh that's so sweet of you dear!
You are awesome!
Looks and sounds delicious!
Thank you @bassmaster123, they were soooooo good if I say so myself!!!
They are too cute your little cakes and they look delicious. I will follow you because you have good ideas and your pictures are very pretty. Good job.
Thanks so much @izbing! That's a very lovely thing to say! :-)
Awesome! I've never had a gingerbread cookie before, but at least now I have a recipe to follow, thank you for making these @woman-onthe-wing!
Stunning pictures as always!
thanks for sharing. i am just envisaging the taste in my mouth
I wish I could send you one to try @outhori5ed! They were so scrummy :-) Gingery, crunchy yet with a certain chewiness due to the dates, sweet but not overly so, and that gorgeous pecan nuttiness..... Mmmmmm.... I'm getting peckish myself just thinking about them haha!!!