Vegan Gingerbread Hearts with Jam Filling

Today we are making vegan gingerbread hearts with jam filling. If you so desire, you can also make them vegan, you only need to swap out the butter for vegan butter as the dough naturally does not contain any eggs. You may find this gingerbread surprising as it contains jam and chocolate. I can assure you, this is a very German recipe. In fact, every year these gingerbread hearts are sold as of October. I always thought it was impossible to make them at home. But one time when I was eating a store-bought heart, I thought, let’s see how they are actually made and consulted the Internet. To my surprise they are much easier to make than originally thought. You make gingerbread dough (check), you cut out hearts with a cookie cutter, then you place a bit of jam on one heart and seal it with another heart on top. You bake them and dunk them in chocolate. That’s it!

I somehow thought that this was a special gingerbread dough, which would need to be baked and then filled with jam. However, once I discovered that you actually simply cut out hearts and sandwich jam in between two, I was sold. Obiously these require more work than a simple gingerbead cookie, a gingerbread house, Christmas tree decorations or similar. But I promise you, once you bite into the first one, you will be rewarded. They definitely taste better than store-bought!

Print Recipe

Jam-filled Gingerbread Hearts (Vegan)

Serves: 15-20, depending on size

Prep Time: 45min – Cooking Time: 10min – Total Time: 1hr

These are some special cookies from German, you will place a bit of jam on one cut-out gingerbread, place the second on top and after baking dunk them in chocolate. So good! They can be made vegan.

Ingredients

• Gingerbread Dough
• 100 grams of molasses
• 25 grams of water
• 25 grams of brown sugar
• 15 grams of (vegan) butter
• 150 grams of all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon of cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon of cardamon
• 1/4 teaspoon of ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 
  
• Filling
• 300 grams of tart jam, traditionally raspberry or apricot
• 
  
• Glaze
• 300 grams of semi-sweet chocolate
• 1 tablespoon of neutral oil

Instructions

1

For the gingerbread dough melt molasses, water, sugar and (vegan) butter in a large pot until the butter has melted. Add all remaining ingredients and combine with a mixer. Chill dough in an airtight container for at least half an hour. Since this dough does not contain eggs, you can keep in the fridge up to a week if covered. You may also freeze.

2

Roll out dough thinnly on a lightly floured surface. Since you will place two cut-out cookies on top of each other, try to roll out thinnly. Cut out hearts or an other shape. Repeat until all dough was used. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place about one small teaspoon of jam on half of the hearts. Use your fingertip to wet the edges of these hearts with water. Now place one heart on top of the filled heart, seal the edges. Repeat with all. Bake for about ten minutes.

3

For the glaze melt the chocolate with the oil on low heat. Dunk all hearts in it, I dunked them fully inside the chocolate. Let cool on parchment paper. These cookies also freeze beautifully.