The other day we had friends over and made tons of gluten free gingerbread men cookies. So many little hands rolling and cutting out dough. We decorated our gingerbread men with dried fruit and nuts. The kids even cut loose and made free form cookie shapes as well.
Gingerbread Men Cookies
Ingredients
- 5 cups blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup grapeseed oil or palm shortening
- ½ cup agave nectar or honey
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup yacon syrup
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine almond flour, cinnamon, ginger powder, cloves, salt and baking soda
- In a small bowl, mix together grapeseed oil, agave, vanilla, yacon, eggs and lemon zest
- Stir wet ingredients into dry
- Chill dough in freezer for 1-2 hours
- Roll out dough between two pieces of parchment paper to ½ inch thick
- To make dough even easier to handle sprinkle with almond flour
- Remove top sheet of parchment paper, cut out cookies using a medium ginger bread man cookie cutter
- Decorate with nuts and dried fruit-- we used pieces of lemon rind for the mouth
- Transfer with a spatula to a parchment paper lined baking sheet
- Cook at 350°F for 12-15 minutes
- Cool and serve
I have been working on this gluten free, dairy free gingerbread recipe for years. At last, I find myself sufficiently satisfied with the recipe and offer it to you for some Christmas cookie baking fun.
Lisa@bakedinmaine.com says
We LOVE “gingerbread boys” and have FUN making them!
It just wouldn’t be Christmas without them…
I did a healthy whole-grain version on my blog/site this year.
Happy Holidaze!
Lisa
xo
Suzi says
Hi all and Merry Christmas. I had the same issue with the almond meal here (and I think the fact that its hot and muggy doesn’t help) anyway couldn’t get the cookies into any shape, it was too wet, but, added some rice flour to the top and bottom of the dough before I rolled it out and was able to get them into perfect stars..yippee….Thanks Elana
elana says
Hi Suzi,
Great job adapting the recipe to work for you, though wondering what brand of almond flour you used for this. Some brands of almond flour are far too wet, and coarse to work in my recipes, so that can make a difference as well :-)
Thanks for stopping by!
Elana
Marsha says
I made these the other day. I had to add more flour to get a dough like consistency.
This could be because I used honey in the place of yacon syrup which I could not find at any of the three health food stores in my area. I am wondering if that was the issue. I added enough to make the recipe act like dough. These were yummy and I think more healthy because of using almond flour. I will make these again. If allergic to nuts, you might try millet flour or a combination of millet and brown rice fours.
elana says
Marsha,
It could be that the honey you used was more liquidy than yacon. Another possibility would be the type of almond flour that you used. Do you recall the brand?
Thanks,
Elana
katy says
my two sons have been wanting to make ginger bread men for some time now…but my experimenting never turns out right! I’m excited I just found this recipe! Now I want to make the kids ginger bread men this weekend just for fun! I did check out your FAQ for my question but I couldn’t find it… when you where experimenting did you try substituting molasses for yacon syrup? If so, can I replace the yacon syrup for molasses?
Jenny says
Would I be able to use this recipe to make a gingerbread house?? I just wasn’t sure if the result would be too soft or not.
Thanks.
Jenny
Christianne says
Hi Lou,
Thank you so much for your help, it is much appreciated! Since fall is around the corner, it is almost time to take out all pumpkin recipes and make lots of gingerbread men…!
Have fun with your baking and let us know how quick they were gone :-)
Christianne
Lou says
Hi Elana
Thanks for the great recipe. Just wanted to let Christiane and other European readers know that iherb does ship to Europe. I have ordered some yacon syrup from them and it is very cheap (compared to the European stockists).
I can’t wait to take delivery so that I can make the cookies!!
elana says
Kristin,
Thanks so much for your comment and the report on almond flour. I spoke with one of my favorite almond flour experts the other day, Lucy Rosset and she confirmed my observations on Bob’s Red Mill almond flour, stating that it is a very coarsely ground product that does not work well.
I’m glad you managed to salvage the dough and that your girls had fun.
Take Care,
Elana
Kristin says
I have been enjoying many of your recipes the past 6 weeks. Today we tried the gingerbread cookies using Bob’s Red mill flour since we had run out of the other and it was all we could buy in our local store. Just wanted to report that you were right – the batter was too runny and didn’t work. I tried to thicken it with a little garbanzo bean flour, since we had used all the almond meal we had bought, with no luck. We ended up just making round cookies which my girls decorated with seeds, nuts and raisins. They still had a blast and the cookies tasted very good. I am looking forward to trying your recipe again with the proper ingredients!
elana says
Stephanie,
Thanks for your comment.
I think everyone heals differently. It seems like you are dealing with a very challenging situation. When I was faced with this (I was quite ill and my 3 year old was also not doing well). We went on the strictest phase of the SCD and we saw a difference within a couple of months. I am still grain/soy/corn free, which works very well for me, however my son is now able to be on a regular gluten-free diet, can eat some processed foods (all GF) and is in good health.
I can totally relate about being overwhelmed with social situations. It takes a while to get comfortable to adapting oneself (and family) to a new eating plan, then the next phase is dealing with it in a public/group setting. Once you adjust, it will get easier. Especially if you can bring treats to share (that work for your family) to parties, etc. Breaking “bread” with friends is the best.
Hope this helps and best of luck.
Elana
Stephanie says
Thanks for this recipe. We suspect that my 2 year old has celiac and my 4 year old is wheat intolerant. It has been a tough holiday season with all of the cookies and sweets at friend’s houses and school. We didn’t go to any of the parties we were invited to because I don’t know how to handle it yet. They will be thrilled to make these tomorrow morning. I have been skeptical of making everything with rice flour so I am happy to see almond flour in your recipes. Any idea how long it takes for the symptoms to go away after cutting out gluten(and dairy and soy and corn)? Thanks again.
-Stephanie