Big & Soft Gingerbread Cookies – Gluten-Free & Clean Eating

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These cookies are big, soft, with a slight chew and packed brimming with a burst of warm, zesty spices. Gluten-free and wholesome, these cookies just scream the holiday times to us.

A Brief History of the Gingerbread Cookie 

From crisp snaps to candy-decorated houses to people-shaped cutouts, gingerbread is synonymous with the holiday season. Dating as far back as 2400BC, the Greeks and Romans and even ancient Egyptians all had their own version of this staple treat that was mainly used during ceremonial affairs. Centuries later, the Chinese developed their own version of gingerbread since ginger was a well known and well loved medicinal root, but it wasn’t until the middle ages that the classic gingersnap cookie as we know it today was developed in Europe, most notably gingerbread houses from Germany (think Hansel and Gretel/Brothers Grimm!). In absolutely no time at all the recipe spread thanks to the spice and sugar trade that made ingredients more accessible to the world. Original versions of the recipe feature rye breadcrumbs being added to honey and ginger spice and they were baked until hard and sold or given out at Medieval fairs. Later on the cookie got an upgrade as it began being decorated with royal icing and featured as a mark of elegance amongst the English royals. In the 1700s the soft version of the gingerbread cookie started to become popular among the British settlers in America and it is from that recipe that today’s sweet treat is based!

❤️ Here’s Why You’ll LOVE This Recipe ❤️

• These cookies are made using clean and simple pantry staple ingredients.
• They are gluten free and use almond and coconut flour making them wholesome and rich in fiber and healthy fats and lower in carbs.
• We’re mainly using coconut sugar which is a lower GI sugar.
• They utilize a blend of warm and zesty spices that really makes each bite pop with flavor.
• They are a well known and well loved traditional treat that are iconic with Christmas and the holidays.
• They are so easy to make and can be baked right away or you can make and chill the dough to bake the next day.

So without further ado, let’s jump right into making these cookies! We’ll start by gathering the following…

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Gingerbread Cookie Ingredients

• Almond Flour: I’m using blanched almond flour. You can use unblanched if you prefer but note that the texture of your cookies will be slightly grainier.
• Coconut Sugar: A low GI sugar, I absolutely love the caramel undertones this sugar gives to our cookies.
• Raw Cane Sugar: I’ve finely blended my raw cane sugar to make incorporating it easier. You can also use evaporated cane juice sugar if you prefer. The addition of the raw cane sugar helps give our cookies that great chew texture.
• Butter: I’m using salted butter but you can use unsalted if you prefer.
• Molasses: I recommend using unsulphured molasses and not blackstrap for this recipe. Don’t skip this ingredient either as it’s a classic and iconic ingredient for these cookies.
• Salt: I’m using my favorite Himalayan pink salt. Sea salt also works great but you can use any salt you like or have on hand.
• Baking Powder: Our main rising agent. Be sure you’re using baking powder and not baking soda.
• Coconut Flour: A small touch of coconut flour adds both flavor and texture to our cookie but if you don’t want to use it or don’t have it on hand you can replace 1 tbsp of coconut flour with 1/4 cup of almond flour.
• Vanilla Extract: A touch of vanilla extract adds great flavor to our cookies. Don’t skip it.
• Egg: One whole egg acts as both our binder and give our cookie texture and moisture. I am using a US standard large egg.
• Spices: We’re going to use a blend of spices to flavor our cookies and give it phenomenal pop. They include:
  • Cinnamon Powder: the warmth and sweetness of this spice is critical to this cookie’s depth of flavor. You can use any type of cinnamon powder from ceylon or saigon being the most popular and common options.
  • Ground Nutmeg: fresh or preground nutmeg works.
  • Ground Clove: clove is a strong spice so we’ll only need a small touch.
  • White Pepper: A touch of white pepper leans into our spice blend and perfectly complements the ginger in this recipe.
  • Black Pepper: A bit of a black pepper adds zing and heat to our cookie flavor. Trust us you don’t want to skip this even if it may seem odd.
  • Ginger Powder: The first of two types of ginger, ground ginger powder creates a classic ginger base for our cookies.
  • Fresh Grated Ginger: Adding in freshly grated ginger root – that’s been finely grated on a microplane – takes our cookies to the next level with zing and warmth and really complements all our spices. You don’t have to use fresh ginger but we highly recommend it.

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Let’s Make Gingerbread Cookie Dough

We’ll begin by semi melting our butter in a microwave safe bowl. 30 seconds works well for this. You can also just use room temperature butter if you prefer.

To the butter we’ll add our coconut sugar, finely blended raw cane sugar, molasses and vanilla extract and mix it together until it’s a smooth almost caramel consistency.

Next we’ll add in all our spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, black pepper, white pepper, ginger powder and finely grated fresh ginger root. Mix until it is all evenly distributed and take a moment to enjoy the delicious spiced fragrance coming out of your bowl.

Add and mix in your egg until fully combined and worked into the wet ingredients.

Next we’ll sprinkle in our coconut flour and mix it in. Let this mixture sit for a few minutes to give the coconut flour a chance to absorb some of the liquids and soften.

Finally we’ll add in our almond flour, salt and baking powder and fold it into the wet ingredients to create our dough.

With our cookie dough made, we’ll pop it into the fridge for at least 15 minutes to set up a bit. This is a soft dough so letting it chill will help us with the next step of scooping and portioning.

At this point you can also allow your dough to sit in the fridge overnight to “ripen” and set up. This will allow your cookie’s flavors to deepen even more.

With your dough chilled, we can now preheat our oven to 350F and scoop our dough out into portions. I like to use my ice cream scooper to get evenly portioned and rounded scoops.

Place your portioned scoops onto a parchment-lined baking tray and pop them into the preheated oven.

Bake your cookies for 12-15 minutes until the edges and undersides have begun to brown. Remove your tray from the oven and this step is important: DO NOT attempt to move your cookies or shift them to a cooling rack, they will be soft and unset and will need time to set which will happen as they cool down. Let them sit on the counter in the tray undisturbed for 15-20 minutes. Once they’ve set you can then move them to a cooling rack if you like but I prefer to just let them sit on the baking tray to cool down.

And there you have it a very simple and easy to make gingerbread cookie recipe that will absolutely bring a bite of the holiday festivity and warmth to your home.

And if you’re a fan of gingerbread or ginger root on the whole, check out our other recipes:

• Spiced Gingerbread Loaf – made using 100% whole wheat. This bread is sweet with a great ginger zing and an addictively moist and tender crumb.
• Chewy Gingerbread Cookies – these cookies are gluten free, dairy free and egg free!
• Gingersnaps – these cookies have a fantastic snap and are also gluten free, egg free, dairy free and vegan friendly!
• Honey-Ginger Chews (Homemade Gin-Gins) – these candy chews are delicious and incredibly spiced with fresh ginger. Great for nausea and indigestion they often come in handy during flu season!
• Fresh Ginger Root Tea – this classic herbal tea is made using ginger root and sweetened with honey for a warm and steamy cuppa.