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
Prep Time 10 minutes
Freeze Time 1 hour
Cook Time 12 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 22 minutes
Tried this recipe?Mention @elanaspantry or tag #elanaspantry!
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.
Peggy says
How did you decorate the gingerbread men with nuts and dried fruit (before you baked them) or did you use some type of frosting to
have it stick afterwards.
Elana says
Hi Peggy, we decorate then bake :-)
Jen says
Hi Elana, I want to make this recipe into a large disc to go on top of my GF christmas fruit cake with a decorative iced pattern. My Question is, is this a sturdy biscuit or is it fragile. I also will use brown rice syrup as my sweetener (fructose free) instead of the agave and I do hope I get a similar result(cross fingers). Thank you so much for your wonderful site I have been browsing it for a while after I bought your Almond flour cook book (since gone missing)and I just soooo! love it, along with my new grain free lifestyle.
Kind regards from Australia!
Jen
Elana says
Hi Jen, these are more of a sturdy biscuit, but I haven’t made them with rice syrup so not sure if that will work. If you try it please let us know how it goes!
Linda Reidelbach says
Dear Elana, My nutrition coach led me to your website. Love it! And have directed others there as well. Two of our grandsons have nut allergies. Any suggestions on substitution for almond flour so they can have the Gingerbread Men?
Thank you.
Linda
Elana says
Hi Linda, nice to meet you! Here’s a link to my Nut-Free Recipes page which will have some great options for your grandsons :-)
Sara says
I subbed olive oil for the grapeseed, honey for the agave and 1/2 molasses and 1/2 honey for the yacon, since I live in Morocco and can’t find , grapeseed, agave and yacon here. Anyway, after refrigerating the dough for 2 hrs it was only a little thinker than the batter of a quick bread. So I added 1 Cup more almond flour and it was slightly better. After chilling it again I then pulled the dough out to roll it. Making the gingerbread men was virtually impossible because of the consistency of the dough so I resorted to round discs. They took longer to cook than stated in the recipe, but it was worth it because they were delicious. Flavor wise the only thing I’d prefer different is more ginger, the spices are very subtle. Although the process was trying, I’d still make them again, but with more almond flour, maybe softened butter so that when chilled the dough is firmer, and more ginger. Thanks for posting this recipe, it was a great guide in making almond flour gingerbread cookies!
Elana says
You’re welcome Sara!
Carroll Gardens says
Hi Elana – Unlike the other comments on here, upon letting my dough freeze, and now that I am rolling it out, the dough is very crumbly and I am having difficulty keeping it together? I’m kind of a baking newbie, so any suggestions to get my dough to the necessary consistency would be greatly appreciated. So looking forward to finally having some gingerbread cookies! It’s been so long!
Thanks.
Elana says
Carroll, this is typically what happens when the recommended brand of almond flour is not used. Here’s a link that will help you with that!
https://elanaspantry.com/ingredients/almond-flour/
Enjoy!
Elana
LA says
I would love to make these using Coconut Oil and Honey / or Agave syrup. I find the dark agave syrup is too strong tasting. Maybe i can try the light agave. Thank you. I’m nut-allergic to, so will use Brown Rice flour etc…
Laura says
I just want to follow up and say that I used this recipe with my international women’s and children’s group last week, and they loved it! The moms were so happy that the cookies were healthy but warm and flavorful. The kids loved decorating them with currants and raisins. Plus, since there was no flour required in rolling out the dough, it was the fastest clean-up I’ve ever seen after cookie-making. This recipe is the best I’ve found for low-sugar, gluten-free cookies yet.
Elana says
Laura, so glad you and your group enjoyed these cookies!
Laura says
This recipe is terrific and so easy to make. I used honey in place of the yacon syrup, because I can’t get it where I live. The recipe turned out just fine.
I rolled the dough out a little thicker, and the cookies were nice and chewy. I burned the first batch, though, so the second I cooked at 300 degrees for 7-10 minutes. Much better. I’m not sure why the timing was so off — maybe it’s my oven?
I’m very happy to have a grain-free, low-sugar cookie to use with my women’s and children’s group next week. Thank you!!!!
Lori Clancy says
I love your blog & book & am grateful for all your recipes & ideas! What is yacon?
nur says
Hi Elana,
I saw from reading the comments that you too suffered from yeast issues and sweetened with only stevia. I also saw that you did the SCD diet.
I know that your focus here is on almond flour (and we adore you for testing out all the recipes and helping us avoid kitchen disasters, and satisfy our sweet tooths). I was just wondering if you have any of your old recipes from when you could only use stevia?
I have candida and a GI disease, so a combo of the candida and SCD diet is what I have been trying to do. I would love some dessert recipes using stevia as the only sweetener…even though I am still afraid of its aftertaste. I have the astraya stevia but to me it tastes like saccharin or some artificial sweetener-but i need to get used to it so i can have some sweetness in my life!
thank you elana for these wonderful recipes, and for rescuing me from total depression about what i could not eat. your site helps me realize so much that i can eat!