Gluten-free Ninjabread Men

My sister showed me these great cookie cutters and I just knew they would be great for our Christmas Open House.  Additionally, my husband is a karate sensei, so these are perfect!

 Ingredients

2/3 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

pinch of salt

1 egg

3/4 cup gluten-free molasses

3 cups gluten-free flour *

3/4 tsp. xanthan gum **

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. gluten-free baking powder

* There are several brands of gluten-free flour or baking mixes that you can buy right off the shelf at the grocery store.  Two are Bob's Red Mill brand and Kinnikinnick foods (sold at Save On Foods).  You can make your own mix as well and there are many to choose from.  You can find one on this blog if you look under the subject "gluten-free". 

**Gluten-free flour requires the addition of xanthan gum which will help the ingredients to bind together.  You can actually use a regular recipe, replacing regular flour with gluten-free flour (ration of 1 to 1) with the addition of xanthan gum.  For every cup of flour, you need to add 1/4 tsp. xanthan gum for cookies, 1/2 tsp. for cakes, 3/4 tsp. for muffins and quick breads, and 2 tsp. for pizza crusts.  Yeasted breads are a little more tricky and I will be posting recipes in the future.  Recently I made gluten-free pizza dough and it was delicious.  However, it did require a lot of different ingredients.

 Method

1.  Quietly cream together the butter, sugar, spices, and salt.  Add egg and mix thoroughly.  Add the molasses and blend into the night.

2.  Sift together the gluten-free flour, xanthan gum, baking soda and baking powder.  Add to the molasses mixture with deadly accuracy.  Stir until blended and chill.

3.  Moving like the wind, preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

4.  Using a third to a quarter of the dough at a time, roll it to 1/8 inch or slightly thicker on a lightly floured pastry cloth with a floured rolling pin. 

5.  Release the ninjas.  Transfer them carefully to a parchment paper lined baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough. (I did find that as the dough warmed up, it was a little more delicate.  Let's just say that some of the appendages were a little stretched in their appearance).

6.  Place in oven and bake for 8-10 minutes.  Cool on rack.  Decorate as desired.  I made a royal icing (similar to one made for gingerbread houses) and used red and green M and M's.  Adding the belts was fun!

 This is an activity that you can do with the whole family.  I like to make the dough and bake it on one day and decorate the next.  It can be a lot of fun to invite a few little people over to help you with decorating.  Our daughter has been helping since her first Christmas when she was 15 months old.