Grain free paleo gingerbread cookies are so easy to make and are even healthy for you! Only a few ingredients are needed for these refined sugar-free, vegan, and gluten-free holiday treats!
The major benefit to writing a cookbook on kale during the holidays is yinning the Christmas cookie yang. Kale salad affords you things like cookies and booze. Between detoxing and re-toxing, we’ve got to end up somewhere, and that somewhere is right where we should be: smack dab in the middle of an equation that is reconciled by kale and cookies.
But hold the phone. We can do this holiday thing without kale, detoxing, OR New Years Resolutions if we want to. We can find healthful alternatives to the bane of our ass’s existence (in this context, the bane of our ass’s existence is sugar and wheat. Just to be clear).
A couple of weeks ago, I showed you 50 Gluten Free Christmas Cookie Recipes and figured it would be wise to actually test a couple of the recipes I told you to make. Call it my civic duty. I was intrigued by the idea of gluten free gingerbread cookies. So I poked around my own post.
One of the recipes I settled on was for these Paleo Gingerbread Cookies from The Iron You < – – – cool blog! – – – > and I was amazed by how they turned out. The recipe is not only paleo (no grains, dairy or sugar), but it’s also vegan. So I was skeptical. I figured the cookies would crumble or turn out rock solid.
Neither one of those things happened. These are perfect. They have a nice little crunch on the outside and are soft on the inside. And they’re PACKED with gingerbread flavor. There’s nothing toxifying about them, which means you can save your re-toxing cookies in your cookie bank to be redeemed later following a high-octane kale dish.
Between these cookies, vegan eggnog, and eggnog bread with boozy maple glaze, we’re set to have a decadent Christmas without the need for post-holiday psychosis. We can eat amazing things without having to compensate with kale. But we should still eat kale. Because that’s how kale cookbooks sell.
Note: this recipe was updated 12/11/14. This was the original photo:
Eat them healthy cookies!
Ingredients
- 1-1/4 cup tightly packed blanched almond flour
- 2 tablespoons tapioca flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1-1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger peeled and grated
- 1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
- 5 tablespoons coconut oil melted and cooled*
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
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Add the first eight ingredients (dry) to a bowl and mix together.
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Pour in the molasses and oil and mix well.
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Use a spoon to scoop out mounds of cookie dough. Form the dough into cookie shapes (they will bake to the same size and shape you form them into) and place them on a baking sheet.
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Bake for 9 to 14 minutes or until browned around the edges (bake 9 for chewier soft cookies and 12-14 for snappy cookies).
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Allow cookies to cool at least 10 minutes before removing from the cookie sheet and enjoying
Recipe Notes
If you don't have nutmeg and cloves on hand, you can omit them and use 1/2 teaspoon of allspice
I wish I didn’t hit cookie burnout last week, but I hear these cookies calling my name!
Whoa Julia, that’s so awesome. I’m so happy (and relieved) my recipe passed the RoastedRoot’s test.
Have a Very Merry Christmas!
Did it ever!! I ate one of the cookies as soon as I woke up this morning, and have been trying to make them last until Christmas. So not doing a good job of that. I’ll definitely be trying some of your other tasty recipes 🙂 Merry Christmas!
detox to re-tox is the theme of my life right now! These cookies sound perfect. Love that they are vegan and gluten free!
Crap. I have not yinned any yang this year. Just yanged. Wait…does that sound bad? Is thee a youtube video for this?
Mmm mmm mmmmm! I’ve been loving me some almond meal cookies lately. I especially adore how low in sugar they are! (Even though I fully intend to eat myself into a sugar coma anyway…) Pinned!!
I have been looking for a gluten and dairy free gingerbread recipe and these look perfect – thank you! 🙂
You make the best looking cookies. I cannot believe these are gluten free! So awesome!
I’m all for eating kale and cookies, especially when they don’t retoxify my system. I wish I had enough time to whip up a batch for Christmas because they sound great!
I just made these and spit them in the sink. They turned out really bitter.
Are you sure you followed the recipe correctly? Mine turned out very sweet and nowhere close to bitter. Too much ginger, perhaps?
I love this recipe, it has ingredients I’d actually feel good about eating!! I have a raw recipe that is awfully similar to this so I’m excited to try it baked. I don’t care that the holidays are over, Imma do it!! 🙂
Yeeeeeeah! You do it, sister! I’m still drooling over holiday recipes too. There’s never a wrong time for gingerbread cookies. Let me know how you like them! 🙂
Over the holidays, I was craving gingerbread cookies. This gluten-free gingerbread recipe is perfect for me – look forward to trying it. Your blog is so well-designed – I love it!
Hello there! This is kind of off topic but I need some
guidance from an established blog. Is it hard to set up your own blog?
I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast.
I’m thinking about setting up my own but I’m not sure where to begin.
Do you have any ideas or suggestions? Thanks
WOWZA. I just made these and am devouring them as I type. I made a double recipe and am really glad I did, because I still only ended up with 15 regular-sized cookies. They taste amazing and the texture is great! I hope the texture holds up over the next few days – crunchy cookies are just not for me.
I plan on increasing the amount of ginger, or maybe adding something else for more zing and spice. Maybe some lemon or orange zest? Either way, thanks so much for the healthy treat! I’m writing it down in my recipe notebook (quadrupled in size, because I’ll definitely want to share these).
Currently pressed into the bottom of a tart pan. It’s going to be the bottom layer of a cashew pumpkin cheesecake because I hate raw crusts and I love gingerbread. Score!
Hi Julia: Nice recipe. I’m interested in your teal tone tea towl (say that fast 10 times;) displaying the cookies. Is that a picot edging? If you crocheted it, please tell me how. Thank you.
Hi Ame, I wish I were handy enough to crochet things, but I actually bought the towel from World Market, haha! They may still sell them!
Yes, had to say these were not for me – too bland and not something yummy I would want to give others – nice idea but less than happy final product 🙁
Hmm..did you make any changes to the recipe? I thought the cookies were packed with flavor, so I’m surprised you found them bland. Maybe some extra cinnamon and ginger next time around?
I made these today (Twice!). The first batch I made I used ginger that had been in my freezer, probably a little longer than it should have been. They did not have a very gingery taste. For the second batch I used the rest of the ‘fresh’ ginger I had left and then added powdered ginger spice. That made a huge difference and now they actually taste gingery. I also think the flavor gets better the day after.
I loved the texture. These will become a staple in my house! Not just at Christmas. Thanks for the recipe!
The dough was too dry to bind. Thoughts? Everything was carefully measured.
Honestly, I have no idea what could have happened…I’ve made the recipe 3 times and never had that issue. Sounds like the dough just needed more coconut oil (or more molasses if you wanted the cookies to be sweeter). Let me know if you try another go at the cookies and what changes you make 🙂
Same thing happened to me!!!!
Oh man, sorry to hear that, ladies! Did you melt the coconut oil before mixing it with the other ingredients?
Sure did. Dry as a bone. Increased a little and added a little milk to make it work.
Alrighty, I just re-made the recipe and got the same result as you. Because I’m out of coconut oil, I used olive oil and I tightly packed the almond meal just to be sure I was using an exact solid 1-1/4 cup. Indeed, my “dough” was too dry to form cookies, so I added an additional tablespoon of oil and an additional tablespoon of molasses (for a total of 3 tablespoons each). I have updated the recipe to reflect the changes I made. Sorry for the confusion, and I’m glad you were able to make the cookies work by adding more liquid. Happy Holidays and thanks so much for your feedback!
Can I swap out the almond flour for coconut flour?
Hi Betse, coconut flour absorbs much more liquid than almond flour, so you’d need to adjust the liquid portions in the recipe as well. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to find a gingersnap/gingerbread cookie that calls for coconut flour 🙂 Hope that helps!
I just made these cookies this morning. They were very easy to make and delicious! The smell coming out of the oven was divine.
After mixing them up, the batter was crumbly and didn’t stick together, so I added one egg, which did the trick. I also added about 1/4 teaspoon of salt to bring out all the wonderful fall flavors. I pinched off very small balls of dough and rolled them in my hands and then gently pressed the backs of them with my palm to make a bunch of mini cookies instead of 6 large ones. YUM!
Hello, can you use brown rice flour in place of almond flour/meal?
Thanks!