I don’t know about you but I really love a good gingerbread cookie. It needs to have a fairly spicy bite to it and be pretty thin, adequately dense and perfectly chewy. The sweetness of a good icing ideally helps to balance the spiciness of the cookie. Oh yeah, and you must never be able to guess that they are healthy! I was looking for a (gluten-free) recipe to try online and couldn’t find one that didn’t use nut flour! So I had to make one that suited my tastes and was gluten free, dairy free and nut free. These iced gingerbread cookies fit the bill! Gluten free, vegan,allergy friendly and even paleo (if you’re “team white rice paleo!”)
Here we have developed a cookie that is perfectly chewy, a tad crispy on the edges and keeps this texture quite nicely even a few days later. (recommend storing covered in the fridge!) Using a blend of coconut, tapioca and white rice flour we’ve attained the texture as close as I’ve found to the “real thing.” The icing is very sweet so please use sparingly if you’re not used to the sweetness;) My husband made an icing for his cake that had the juice of half a lemon plus the zest to add a lemon flavor to it which was lovely with the gingerbread!
We use Bob’s Red Mill baking items like flours. I like this molasses, this coconut sugar and coconut oil. I recommend finding a nice bulk section (Winco is great if you’re near one!) or consider buying on Amazon (see link at the bottom of this site) to save on these specialty items.
If you’re a gingerbread fan, I hope for your sake that you try these cookies, you won’t regret it! Please let us know how you like them in the comments!
- COOKIE INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup Coconut Sugar
- ¾ cup Coconut Milk
- ⅔ cup White Rice Flour
- ⅔ cup Tapioca Flour
- ⅔ cup Coconut Flour
- ½ cup Molasses
- ⅓ cup Coconut Oil (slightly melted)
- 2½ tsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Powdered/Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp Clove Powder
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ½ tsp Sea Salt
- ½ tsp Baking Powder
- ½ tsp Nutmeg Powder
- FOR THE ICING:
- ¼ cup Honey
- ⅓ cup Coconut Oil (slighty melted-room temperature-not hot!)
- *OR*
- ⅓ cup coconut oil or butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- Mix all cookie ingredients in a Stand Mixer or bowl with hand mixer. When fully mixed dough should be thick and sticky.
- Flatten dough on a greased cookie sheet and cover with a piece of plastic wrap. (Parchment or Wax paper may work as well.)
- Place in refrigerator for at least 3 hrs but preferably overnight-until very chilled.
- When dough has chilled, remove from fridge but leave it under plastic/wax/parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 350, place the bowl you will use to make icing in the freezer-metal works best!
- Use a rolling pin (or similar object-I used a kombucha bottle!) and roll into ¼ inch thick sheet.
- When it is evenly rolled into a sheet, remove plastic wrap/wax/parchment paper
- Use cookie cutters or a knife to cut dough into shapes.
- Alternately you can skip rolling into a sheet and instead grease your hands and form them into round, flat cookies-still making sure they are about ¼ inch thick-I recommend doing this anyway with the scraps that remain after cutting out the cookie shapes!
- Try to make your rounds about 4-5" in diameter.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until they are puffed up a little and edges are cooked but not burnt.
- While cookies are baking, remove your bowl from freezer and mix ingredients for icing until whipped and well blended, set aside.
- Remove the cookies and let cool to room temp (place covered in the fridge to cool faster!)
- Use a butter knife or spreader to spread a thin layer of icing on the cookies.
- Store in a cool place or the fridge to keep the icing from melting
