ere’s the best chewy and soft gingerbread cookies recipe that makes your house smell of holiday flavours. It’s a quick and easy recipe requiring 8 ingredients and 45 minutes to make.
Before we go on, considering that this post is quite long, I’d like to give you a brief overview of what to expect:
- In the beginning I describe how I achieved the chewiness and softness of those gingerbread cookies.
- After that I point out all the good qualities of the cookies.
- Most importantly, you’ll find many useful tips below the recipe: how to decorate the cookies, substitution tips as well as additional recommendations to succeed with this recipe.
- Then, given that you’ll have some cookies left over, I share my tricks for storing.
Another key point is that my gluten-free soft gingerbread cookies are also as healthy as they can get – they do not contain refined sugar (not even brown sugar), refined flours and oils or butter. Furthermore, my soft gingerbread cookies come without molasses. So, what’s in them?
How to make healthy chewy and soft gingerbread cookies.
I’ve been obsessed with chickpeas in gluten-free vegan baking ever since I discovered chickpea cookie dough bites. So, it felt very natural to include them into this year’s gingerbread cookies recipe.
It’s very easy to achieve chewiness if you don’t use any refined ingredients – whole foods naturally need chewing before you can swallow them. This in turn results in better digestion and consuming smaller quantities as your brain will have time to receive the “full stomach” signal. So, no melting in your mouth like with refined flours, sugar and butter.
While almost all the ingredients contribute to chewiness (except salt, sweetener and plant milk), the softness comes from… well, soft batter ? However, it’s not as simple as that! The batter stays soft after baking because it has very little grain-based flour in it – most of the mass is chickpeas, tahini and nut flour that do not absorb much liquid.
What makes them the best soft gingerbread cookies?
- Simple recipe with 8 ingredients (not counting salt and sweetener)
- Gluten-free
- Refined sugar free
- Diabetic friendly
- Kid-approved – my kid’s classmate loved them when he was over. In fact, he couldn’t get enough!
- Soy-free
- Peanut-free
- Low in grains
The Best Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 can (240g, 8.5oz) chickpeas (with no added salt), drain and rinse
- 75g (2.6oz) additive-free tahini (preferably at room temperature)
- 120g (4.2oz, ½ cup) additive-free almond milk
- 80g (2.8oz) fat-reduced almond flour [see tips]
- 30g (1.06oz) buckwheat flour
- ½ tsp. Himalayan salt
- 3 tbsps. carob powder
- 1 tbsp. cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp. gingerbread spice mix
- 5 tbsps. birch xylitol (or date sugar for Plantricious version)
Instructions
Start by adding all ingredients (except
buckwheat flour) into food processor and process until you have
homogeneous batter. Check substitution tips if you don’t have food
processor.
Then, blend or mix in buckwheat flour.
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
Next, take ungreased cookie sheet (or baking sheet) and line it with
parchment paper. Weigh about 30g (1.06oz) pieces of cookie dough and,
using the help of two spoons, place them onto baking sheet. You’ll get
about 21 cookies (given that you don’t eat much dough).
Now, you have two options. First, you can shape your gingerbread
cookies using a fork. Secondly, you can make neat-looking cookies by
flouring your hands and shaping them into same-size discs. To achieve
that, start by making a small ball between your palms and then press it
down and shape into regular circle. Flour your hands as needed – the
cookies are quite soft.
Bake the cookies for 25 minutes, and then transfer onto cooling rack and let cool completely.
Leave me a comment below! If you make this recipe and post about it, please tag me – I’d love to see your creations!