Low Fat Gingerbread Cookies

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas!! That means cold weather, snow, and lots of treats. That also means, you have to watch your portions too. I was really in the mood to decorate some cookies, but I didn't want each cookie to be over 100 calories. Thanks to one of my favorite food blogs, I was able to find these perfect low fat gingerbread cookies.

I went to the store and bought some festive icing. The icing recipe below was great, but I didn't want only white cookies.

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope this Christmas is the best, and this New Year is great for all of you!

Mix together your wet ingredients.

Combine your dry ingredients.

Chilling the dough with make it so much easier to roll out evenly. 

You can using whatever cookie cutters you want!

While the cookies cool, mix up your icing. You may need to add more sugar so it can harden easily. You do not want it too thin.

Decorate however you want! These were the first few ones I did, as I knew would happen I started getting lazy and the few I did last are just big blobs of icing. :)

Low Fat Gingerbread Cookies
adapted from Skinny Taste

Ingredients:
for the cookies
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 egg
1/3 cup dark molasses
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

for icing
1 1/3 tablespoon egg whites
1/4 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 cup powdered sugar, plus extra just in case
pinch of cream of tartar

Directions:

1. for the cookies: In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and applesauce until smooth. Add the egg and molasses, mix well.
2. In another large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and spices. Add to sugar and molasses mixture, stirring well.
3. Divide the dough into two balls, flatten slightly; cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for 2 hours. 
4. Preheat oven to 350F. Dust the counter with a generous amount of flour before rolling out the dough. Work with one ball of dough at a time, keeping the other in the refrigerator.
5. Roll the dough out to 1/4 or 1/8-inch thickness, sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough if it's a little sticky. Using a cookie cutter of your choice, cut the dough.
6. Place cookies 1-2-inches apart on a lined baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes.
7. for the icing: Mix the egg whites with lemon juice. Combine with powdered sugar, mixing well. If the icing is too thin, add more powdered sugar, if it's too thick add a drop of lemon juice. Add to a piping bag to decorate when cookies are completely cooled.

Makes about 48 cookies, depends of the size of your cookie cutter

Nutrition: (per cookie with icing) Calories 66.2; Fat 0.8g; Carb 14.9g; Fiber 0.1g; Protein 0.9g; Sodium 30.4g