Gingerbread cookies

These flavorful gluten and dairy-free gingerbread cookies are full of Christmas spices, but can (and should) be eaten any time of year!

For those who weren’t following along, Grant challenged me to find a recipe for finding a recipe for the ultimate gingerbread cookie.  He had some gingerbread at Christmas time one year and fell in love with the flavor – now he wants me to re-create it.  The criteria was that it needs to have a spicy flavor, with definite tastes of ginger and nutmeg.  It also needs to be soft and chewy on the inside, not hard like some of the commercial gingerbread men that you can buy.

It took me a while, but I finally found the gingerbread cookie taste that Grant was after!  These cookies originally didn’t have any ginger in the ingredients, but that was quite soon remedied!

So this dough is quite dense, really (REALLY) difficult to roll out to any decent cookie thickness, but totally worth the effort at the end of it.  Just think of how much your arm muscles will get built up!  Full of gingerbread spices such as cinnamon, cloves and all-spice (and now ginger), with a lemon glaze on top.  Considering I had never eaten the cookies that Grant had his mind set on, I don’t think I did too badly finding this one out.

And while these gingerbread cookies do have processed sugar in them, you can feel free to use coconut sugar in place of the brown sugar if you desire.  I’ve also put some substitutions for the gluten-free flour to make it grain-free if you need to.  Of course, if this just sounds like too much work, check out my really easy ginger cookie recipe, which is totally Paleo-friendly and also totally yummy!

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Gingerbread cookies

(Gluten-free, dairy-free, can be refined sugar-free and grain-free)

Cook Time 12 minutes

Servings 20

Ingredients

For the cookies:

• 4 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour
• 1 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tbs ground ginger
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup brown sugar or coconut sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup molasses

For the frosting:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 2 tbs water or almond milk
• 1 tbs lemon juice

Instructions

1. Sift together the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and allspice. Set aside.
2. Beat the egg and sugar together on medium speed in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl as necessary.
3. Beat in the honey and molasses until thoroughly combined.
4. On low speed, stir in the flour mixture until just combined. It will be very sticky and tough, so be sure either your mixer is powerful, or mix it by hand.
5. Turn the dough out from the bowl onto a well-floured surface. Knead the dough, adding more flour as needed until a stiff dough is formed.
6. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and chill until firm, about 2 hours or even overnight.
7. On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough into a 9x12" rectangle. Cut the dough into 20 3x2" rectangles and bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes.
8. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool.
9. Whisk together the icing sugar, water and lemon juice and brush or spread on top of the cookies.
10. Allow the glaze to firm and then store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.

Recipe Notes

To make this grain-free - substitute the 4 cups of gluten-free all-purpose flour with 3 cups of almond flour, 1/2 cup coconut flour and 1/2 cup tapioca flour.  Use tapioca flour for the kneading if needed.

Adapted from Brown-Eyed Baker