Okay friends, it finally hit me this weekend that the holidays are really here. I’m not quite sure how that even happened. Christmas lights and christmas trees are up in the neighborhood, and the 25th is drawing ever so near. Yesterday, even though I was feeling a bit under the weather, I spent the afternoon in the kitchen. I usually make 3 recipes on Sunday, to post here during the week, it’s really the only time that I can get anything done (after crossfit, after grocery shopping, and then usually before bikram yoga at 4pm). My Sundays are busy to say the least. My husband, Jake, is doing this work 4 hours when I get home from work/paternity leave thing, which leaves me little time to get anything done during the week. I usually walk 3/4 miles after school on the afternoons it’s not bitter cold out, as Zoey is too small for our running stroller just yet. Although I did run a Santa Shuffle with my Mom & sister this year! I’m hoping we can make it a tradition!
Anyways, it took me a few tries to get these gingerbread cookies right for y’all. But I was determined to get it right. Sometimes it takes throwing away some batches before anything turns out correctly (which gets expensive). I know when recipes are paleo, usually there a lot of eggs, and although I do eat eggs (fresh from a friends’ chickens!) I know I have a lot of vegan readers! This vegan, paleo, and gluten free recipe reaches out to all of you guys! You can make these for any holiday party, they will be a huge hit, and you know they are something you can feel good about eating or feeding others. Also, if you are thinking about a great gift for a baker (that’s not very expensive) try a resuable Silpat! No greasing needed, easy to wash, and great for the environment. I couldn’t live without mine!
(and that would be my husband’s hand, sticking his fingers into the cookie tin while I was trying to take photos!)
- 1¼ cup almond flour
- 1 cup arrowroot flour (or tapioca starch) (+ more for rolling out dough)
- 3 tablespoons black strap molasses
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
- 2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ginger (or more if you like them gingery!)
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- Mix dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg) and set aside
- Mix wet ingredients in another bowl
- Add wet and dry ingredients together and mix until the dough becomes a ball
- Place dough in the refrigerator until cold (around 30 minutes)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Grease cookie sheet if needed
- Roll out dough until the dough is ¼ to ½ inch thick (you can do this in small sections if needed)
- Cut out cookies with gingerbread people shapes (or any others like trees, snowflakes, etc)
- Place cookies on the cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges begin to brown
- Repeat as necessary until all the dough is used!
How cute are you guys! And this recipe looks so scrumptious!!! Thanks for sharing. I’ve pinned to make over the holiday break.
Thanks Kelly! I hope you like them! Happy Holidays!
The first thing I learned when making these cookies is that room-temperature molasses and honey can still solidify melted coconut oil if the room’s temperature is dang cold. I should know this already. My bad.
The second thing I learned is that it’s completely unreasonable on my part to expect to be able to form a ball of dough by mixing with spoons. I should know this already, too. Also my bad.
Something I didn’t need to learn is that singing about the Gingerbread Man can evaporate any goodwill caused by the fact that I am in making cookies. This I actually did know already; I did it anyway. My bad; I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m bad I’m bad I’m bad.
TL;DR they turned out delicious. Thanks for the recipe! The molasses/honey combo is so flavorful; definitely sets these apart.
For any commentstalkers (my own kind) looking for extra information on fudging with the recipe’s perimeters, you can make this recipe perfectly fine by substituting equal parts tapioca starch for arrowroot, although it’ll make the end result less healthy (and some people consider tapioca to not be paleo).
If you’re vegan or an agave die-hard, and considering substituting agave for the liquid sweeteners, I’d advise a note of caution. I tried both an agave-only mix and a mix using the original recipe’s sweeteners, and aside from the superior flavor of the molasses/honey combo, the agave cookies are seriously dry and powdery. Just awful. One could try substituting agave for the honey but leaving molasses as-is, to make them vegan, but no guarantees on how that would turn out. I think it needs the added moisture that molasses and honey give it, since both are humectants; maybe add a little extra oil also if substituting out the honey. (A humectant in this context is something in food that adds and retains moisture.)
Also, I kinda sorta accidentally used regular old unsulphured molasses instead of blackstrap molasses. Still delicious, less healthy.