Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
Healthy Gingerbread Cookies — lightly sweet, rich, and robust cookies full of molasses, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Unlike typical Gingerbread Cookie recipes, this version is refined sugar free, gluten free, dairy free and vegan!
Gingerbread Cookies were never the kind of treat I craved all year around (that’s what Sugar Cookies and Peanut Butter Cookies are for). It’s the kind of cookie that only used to cross by mind during the winter holidays. And not even as a snack, more as the structural pieces in a Gingerbread house… nothing more. But, I received a few requests to make Healthy Gingerbread Cookies and thought I’d give it a go. And my oh my, these are deeeeelicious!
I’ve been missing out, man. My thoughts on Gingerbread have totally changed. They’re not cardboard-colored and cardboard-flavored, no siree. These are some damn good Gingerbread Cookies.
These Healthy Gingerbread Cookies are treats that your friends and family (and you!) will love during the holidays.
Made with almond meal, oat flour, ground spices, molasses, and coconut oil, these are guilt-free treats that you can enjoy snacking on.
Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 140g (1¼ cups) Almond Meal
- 120g (1 cup) Oat Flour
- 96g (½ cup) Granulated Erythritol (or dry sweetener of choice)
- 1 tbs Ground Ginger
- 2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp Ground Nutmeg
- ⅛ tsp Ground Cloves
- 1 tsp Double-Acting Baking Powder
- ½ tsp Salt
- 168g (½ cup) Molasses
- 75g (⅓ cup) Coconut Oil (melted)
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the almond flour, oat flour, erythritol, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking powder and salt.
- In a stand mixer bowl with beater attachment, add the molasses, coconut oil, vanilla and stevia. Mix on low speed until completely mixed.
- Dump the dry ingredients in the stand mixer and mix until completely mixed. Dough should be dark, sticky, and sweet.
- Roll ⅓ of the dough in between two silicone baking sheets until ~⅛" thick.
- Sprinkle some extra oat flour on a small plate or shallow dish and dip your gingerbread man cookie cutter instead. Dust off the excess flour and punch cookie shapes into the dough. Peel away the dough surrounding the gingerbread man cookies and transfer the silicone sheet onto a cookie tray.
- Bake for 12 minutes, then carefully transfer the silicone sheet onto your counter or a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Keep re-rolling the dough and baking until all the dough is used up. These cookies are best served the day they are made, but will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for ~3 days.
These little guys will bring joy and holiday cheer — 100% guaranteed! Hope y’all enjoy them as much as we did 🙂
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
I LOVEEEE gingerbread cookies!!! These look fantastic Jess! I’ll take the whole batch k thanks bye.
I love baking with molasses. These look so delicious. Great idea with the almond meal and oat flour too.
Do you think it would work if I swapped the Almond meal for buckwheat flour Almond meal here in NZ is $65.00 a Kilo just cant afford to use it.
Dang that’s expensive! I haven’t tried subbing the almond meal with buckwheat flour so I can’t be sure if it’ll work or not. Feel free to test it out though! Crossing my fingers it works out for ya 🙂
This is the kind of recipe I will certainly love! Is it possible to replace molasse by agave or Maple Syrup?
You can replace the molasses with agave and/or maple syrup, but they won’t have that classic gingerbread cookie flavor. Also, since agave/maple syrup is much sweetener than molasses, I would recommend reducing the stevia extract to 1/2 tsp. Hope you like the recipe! 🙂
What on earth is double acting baking powder??! I’m not sure we have it here in Australia. Otherwise this is a recipe I’d like to try. 😃
Hi Marion! I googled it and found a good explanation from the Taste of Home:
There are “two different types of acids that react at different times. The first acid will react by creating gases when mixed with the liquid in the recipe. The second type will react by creating gases when the batter is exposed to oven heat.” Almost every kind of baking powder you can buy today is double-acting (or at least it is in the US) 🙂
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Is there a trick to getting these on the pan? They are so sticky that they turn to mush after we cut them and try to transfer them on the cookies sheet. Ive even tried using flour. Help!
Oh no! I mean, the dough is generally sticky because of the molasses but it shouldn’t be THAT sticky! 🙁
You can try mixing in a few more tablespoons of oat flour or chilling the dough in the fridge!
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Can I sub half of the coconut oil for applesauce or yogurt? I love these cookies. Made them last year!
I don’t think applesauce will replace the coconut oil, but yogurt might be able to replace a bit of it! Glad you liked the cookies! 🙂
Hey I wanted to make these for my brother who can’t have gluten but I was wondering about the baking powder. The great value version has wheat in it. I was wondering if you used a different brand?
I’ve never heard of that brand before… I use Clabber Girl. I’ve also used Rumford and Bob’s Red Mill, all of which are gluten-free.
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These cookies have a good texture and are easy to make, but are way too sweet. I think I would only add half the stevia next time and maybe even less.
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I tried making them and I think I did something wrong … when I put them in the oven they came together and lost the gingerbread man form. I’ll have to try again. Thanks.
Did you weigh out your ingredients like in the recipe? And did you substitute/omit any ingredients?
Wonderfull. I cannot resist, I’m going to prepare it.! Thank you very much
Hello! Can I omit the stevia? Also, can I substitute Erythritol with Brown sugar? Thank you!!!!
You can definitely substitute the erythritol with brown sugar but I don’t think there’s a way to omit the stevia. Without it, the cookies would be bitter or not sweet at all :/
Do you have a replacement for the almond meal it make then allergy friendly?
I haven’t tried substituting the almond meal here. That would take extra recipe testing, but feel free to do so on your own! 🙂
I have no problem with sugar or flour, in fact I love sweets and pastries, but I made this as a Christmas present for grandma who is diabetics. I got all the proper ingredients, no swapping or omitting, and I must say that it’s a pretty expensive treat. However, even though I followed the exact amount of ingredients and instructions, they taste awful!!! Not only to my opinion but also my husbands and a friend. Tomorrow is Christmas and I just finished them so nothing we can do about it other than getting random biscuits at the shop tomorrow. We’ve decided to still give these ones and just make a joke about it “just for decoration, eat under your own risk” we still put a lot of effort and cut each biscuit by hand with a knife so I’m sure grandma will still appreciate it a lot. I would still like to know if they should taste as bitter as they do and maybe it’s just us not liking them or what could have gone wrong? I believe it’s the molasses that give the awful flavor but I used the exact amount on recipe.
Did you use a kitchen scale to measure the ingredients? Baking is finicky, and I measure all of my ingredients with a scale.
Great recipe, taste very good. I used maple sirop and maple sugar. I made these cookies with my 4 year old, it was like playing play-dow!!
Just made these and they turned out perfectly! I was a bit worried after reading the comments, but I had no problems, even when I replaced the sweetener with coconut sugar and left out the stevia. I think people need to maybe understand this isn’t a traditional gingerbread recipe, molasses gives them a dark almost smoky flavour which isn’t for everyone, but I loved them.
OMG yayayayy!! SO glad you liked the recipe Paul!! 🙂
Is there a substitute for the stevia? I don’t have it and I have been having a friend buy my groceries and she said the store was out
I wouldn’t recommend subbing it because any other sweetener will throw off the dry:liquid ratio. I’ve seen liquid stevia at almost every store, like Walmart, HEB, Whole Foods, Target, etc. and it’s also online! I buy mine off Amazon.com because it’s cheaper than store prices 🙂
Can this recipe be made into a loaf or cupcakes?