Gluten-free Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

A very easy Gluten-free Gingerbread Recipe for delicious Christmas Cookies to eat and give as gifts.

I can’t believe, that after all these years of constantly devouring all sort of gingerbread men and cookies since I was young, and this is the first year I have ever actually made my own gingerbread cookies.

I found this recipe on taste.com and it’s super easy to follow. Though I did make some changes and I did make some errors also. So they aren’t exactly perfect. But if I find myself with some time before Christmas, I most certainly will try this recipe again, ironing out the kinks to ensure I create the best gluten-free gingerbread cookies ever.

Firstly, I replaced the plain flour with my gluten-free plain flour. I did this because when I went online to search for a gluten-free gingerbread recipe, they were so complicated and I just felt like swapping one ingredient with another would be sufficient. And in some part it did work. However, I feel for the next time I make these biscuits, I will use a self-raising flour instead, to add a little more depth to the cookies.

But, otherwise, they turned out okay and the small whilst making and baking the cookies was amazing. The whole house smelt like gingerbread, yumo.

My mistakes with this recipe was I had the oven a little too hot for the gluten-free flour, so the edges of the cookies cooked WAY too quickly. Also, I should have made them fatter in depth. I rolled out the cookie dough too thin and should have made it a little deeper. That way the cookies would have been less flimsy.

When I say flimsy, I mean, one bite and they are gone LOL. Too thin. But oh so tasty.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 125g unsalted butter at room temperature
• Half a cup of brown sugar
• Half a cup of golden syrup
• 1 egg with yolk separated
• Two and a half cups of plain flour (gluten-free optional)
• 1 tablespoon of ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon of mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (not needed if you use self-raising flour)

As mentioned before, I did use a gluten-free plain flour, so I needed to add in the bicarb of soda. However, I will be replacing this with self-raising gluten-free flour on the next round. And you can always use either half a mashed banana or other egg replacement for a vegan version too.

Though, I haven’t experimented too much with egg replacements for baking. Maybe that’s something I can do in the new year. I’ve heard half a mashed up banana is a great alternative.

Here’s what to do:

Using an electric beater, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Then add in the egg yolk and golden syrup and then beat until combined.

Mix in the flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarb until you have a nice dough. I suggest using a spoon to mix in the dry ingredients to ensure you don’t over mix the mixture and make it too sticky.

If you do find the dough too sticky and not mouldable, just add more flour.

Knead the mixture until nice and smooth, adding as much flour as needed should you find the dough too sticky or wet. Then once you have the desired dough texture, mould into a disc shape, wrap in plastic and pop into the fridge for at least thirty minutes.

It was a particularly hot day when I made this recipe, so I kept the dough in the fridge for an hour to ensure it was perfect for stamping with cookie cutters.

When you’re ready to start making biscuits. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Place your dough between two sheets of baking paper and roll out until the dough is around 4mm deep. I found 4mm too thin, so I will make it 6mm for my next batch. But test out the 4mm, it might work for you and you might like it.

If you need more flour, sprinkle on the dough as you roll. Or if you need to add more, just knead it in and then roll back into desired depth for cookie cutting.

Using your cookie cutters (preferably gingerbread shaped ones of course), start standing out your little men and place theme carefully on the baking tray, spacing at around 3cm (or thereabouts) between each cookie, so they have some room to grow. Especially if you decide to use self-raising flour.

Once you’re done, pop into the oven and cook for no more than ten minutes, or at least until all the cookies are nice and golden. Make sure not to let them overcook, they will burn easy enough.

Update: I baked a fresh batch of cookies today and they worked out amazing. I opted to use a gluten-free self-raising flour and it worked a treat. The biscuits are soft and chewy and no burning. I made sure to turn the heat of the oven down and I only cooked for 7 minutes, instead of the recommended 10 in the recipe. Amazing.

To decorate, I opted to use some royal icing and just squiggled some interesting patterns onto the cookies. though you can get adventurous with colours and other things if you like. I have never been that great with icing, so I kept it very simple and drew patterns, skipping the faces.

I also didn’t want to smother my cookies with too much icing, as I do love me a natural flavoured cookie without all that sugary icing, another reason why I kept things very simple.

Wrap these up as presents or enjoy with a nice hot chocolate. The choice is yours. Enjoy.