I love to take recipes that were my favorites from when I was a kid and make them vegan and healthy for my family to enjoy.

These cookies are adapted from the ones that my mom used to make every year at Christmastime called Swedish Honey Cookies. I used organic coconut sugar in place of brown sugar, maple syrup in place of honey, and used whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour.

These sweet and spicy cut-out cookies are perfect for Christmas! In Scandinavian baking, cardamom is used quite often to make delicious baked goods. I love to make some Scandinavian recipes since I am half Finnish (my dad is from Finland). I also love cardamom and other spices, like cinnamon and ginger in my baking.

Today the girls and I had a wonderful time baking these delicious (and healthy) Christmas cut-out cookies.

Cardamom Christmas Cut-Out Cookies

Makes 24-30 cookies, depending on what cookie cutters you use

Ingredients

• 1 flax egg (2 tablespoons ground flax + 3 tablespoons warm water)
• 1/2 cup Earth Balance margarine, softened
• 2/3 cup organic coconut sugar
• 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
• 2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour + a few tablespoons more for rolling
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together the ground flax seed and warm water to make your flax egg and set aside a few minutes to thicken.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the margarine, coconut sugar, and maple syrup. Add the flax egg.
4. In a separate small mixing bowl , combine the flour, baking soda, sea salt and spices.
5. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in the medium mixing bowl and mix until combined.
6. Sprinkle a bit of flour onto a large clean surface and roll the dough out 1/4 inch thick. You may need some additional flour on your rolling pin as well.
7. Cut the dough with the cookie cutters into different Christmas shapes and place the cookies onto the baking sheet.
8. Repeat steps 6-7 until the cookie dough is all used up.
9. Bake the cookies (one baking sheet at a time) for 5-7 minutes, until very lightly golden. Allow to cool completely before removing from the pan.

And here is a little video of our cookie-making fun! 🙂

Do you have any favorite Christmas recipes that you make every year?