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These easy gluten-free ginger cookies use only one bowl and a handful of ingredients: almond butter, brown sugar and spices. No flour or butter needed! The result is a soft, chewy and perfectly spiced ginger cookie that’s also dairy-free and gluten-free.
I recently came out with some confessions from my childhood. Mainly, about my status as a horse nerd. There are many rituals I miss that revolve around ponies. But the one that comes to mind today doesn’t involve trying mane-and-tail shampoo on my hair in the shower stall. It’s a ritual that involved warm, soft ginger cookies.
Most of the time when I’d finish up at the barn it was late—around dinner time. My mom and I would stop at the closest gourmet market (a suburban rip-off of Dean and Deluca) and grab some easy things for dinner. But to tide me over until we got home, contrary to her usual health mandates, I would get a big ginger cookie for the road. After all the struggle it took to take off my tall boots, which once resulted in a broken wrist, I deserved it.
Because of this special brand of nostalgia, dairy-free gluten-free ginger cookies have been on my to-make list for a while. Tates makes a good crispy version that Charlie and I sometimes buy and crumble over our vanilla ice cream like true champions. But it’s the chewy, pliable ones with loads of holiday spices that I crave come this time of year, even when I’m not wearing chaps.
How to Make Gluten-Free Ginger Cookies
One of my favorite gluten-free baking hacks is this easy flourless peanut butter cookie recipe, which has the same moist, chewy quality I was after, but doesn’t require any xanthum gum or five types of gluten-free flour.
For these dairy-free ginger cookies, I swapped in almond butter and all the necessary spices, and upgraded the sugar from light to dark brown to give the cookies that rich, molasses flavor.
You can make these as big as you like, but without any horse-related activity preceding my consumption, I prefer to keep my gluten-free ginger cookies on the smaller side using just a rounded tablespoon of batter per cookie. Feel free to experiment – you’ll want to flatten the balls slightly but the baking time will be the same.
The only way you can go wrong with this recipe is over-baking them. Even if the tops look slightly undercooked, remove them from the oven anyway. You don’t want too much browning on the bottom otherwise the result will be too crispy around the edges.
For that ideal chewy texture, you’ll want to aim for just 8 minutes in the oven. As the cookies cool slightly on the sheet pan, their bottoms will firm up and the inside will remain gooey.
Like my delicious low sugar oatmeal cookies, these gluten-free ginger cookies are best warm, straight out of the oven and baked to order (not made in advance). However, the batter can easily be made ahead of time and kept chilled in the fridge (or rolled into balls and frozen) to bake at a later date.
You can easily pre-roll the cookie dough into balls and freeze them for later use, especially if you have a few cookie swaps on the calendar and want to do all your gluten-free friends a solid. I’m so excited to have dairy-free ginger cookies back in my life for this holiday season, especially since now I don’t have to muck out any stalls in order to earn one.
Can you swap the sugar in these gluten-free ginger cookies?
As much as I love using maple syrup and honey in most of my baked goods, these cookies taste best with granulated sugar. If you’re going to make any substitution, you can try coconut sugar instead of the brown sugar, but be warned: you’ll be missing out on the natural molasses flavor that gives the cookies their signature winter spice.
That said, I would not recommend using actual blackstrap molasses unless it’s as a flavor additive (1 tablespoon). The liquid just doesn’t work since these cookies have no flour. I tried a version with it for my latest gluten-free cookbook, and just couldn’t get it right.
This formula exists for a reason – it makes delicious flourless gluten-free cookies every time!
If you’re looking for more amazing gluten-free cookies to add to your repertoire, don’t sleep on these steel cut oatmeal cookies!
With health and hedonism,
Phoebe
Soft & Chewy Flourless Ginger Cookies (Gluten and Dairy-Free!)
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These easy gluten-free ginger cookies use only one bowl and a handful of ingredients: almond butter, brown sugar, and spices. No flour or butter needed! The result is a soft, chewy and perfectly spiced ginger cookie that’s also dairy-free and gluten-free.
These dairy-free ginger cookies are best right out of the oven, so instead of making them in advance, store the dough in the fridge until you’re ready to enjoy them and bake to order. The dough also freezes well if you pre-roll it into balls and store in an airtight container!
The only way you can go wrong with this gluten-free ginger cookie recipe is over-baking them. Even if the tops look slightly under-cooked, remove them from the oven anyway. You don’t want too much browning on the bottom otherwise the result will be too crispy around the edges.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Diet Gluten Free, Kosher, Low Lactose, Vegetarian
Keyword cookies, dairy-free, passover
Prep Time 10 minutes minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes minutes
Total Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes
Servings 16 cookies
Author Phoebe Lapine
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy almond butter
- 1 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
In a medium mixing bowl, beat together the almond butter, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla until smooth, about 3 minutes.
Add the baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and salt and stir to incorporate. Transfer the gluten-free ginger cookie dough to an airtight container (or cover the bowl with plastic wrap) and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, and up to a week, before baking. Refrigeration is key.
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
Using a cookie scoop or rounded tablespoon, form the batter into balls and place on the prepared baking sheet, spaced 2 inches apart (about 8 per tray). Slightly flatten the mounds with your fingers before baking so they don’t stay too domed.
Bake for about 8 minutes, until the edges are set (but NOT deeply browned) and the cookies have spread slightly but are still gooey in the middle. Allow the dairy-free ginger cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes, until firm but still soft, before removing to a plate.
Enjoy immediately with some (dairy-free) milk!
If you make this, tag @phoebelapine and #feedmephoebe – I’d love to see it!
