A Low Carb Gluten Free Spice Cookie for Christmas? Yes, Please!
I’ve always had a thing about ginger spice cookies. The ginger flavor just reminds me of my Aunt Dorothy. Christmas at her house meant spice cakes and gingersnaps.
Plus, ginger cookies are so darn homey and Christmas-y. My husband and son don’t like them, but I don’t care, more for me!
So the past few Christmases or so that I’ve been gluten free and low carb, you can imagine how bummed I’ve been that I haven’t been able to eat my traditional ginger snaps. This year I decided it’s going to be different. I WILL eat ginger snaps for the Holidays!
Enter My Low Carb Ginger Cookies Recipe
This is one recipe I had to fiddle with to get it to work out right. At first, I tried making them with a mixture of almond flour and protein powder. The taste was spot on, but I might as well have been eating sawdust. Ugh.
I wasn’t really sure how to make it better, but then I got to thinking about the way I made my GF chocolate chip cookies. They had no eggs at all, and used liquid sweetener and oil to bind it together. I know gingersnaps are usually crunchy, but I was willing to overlook that as long as they tasted like gingersnaps.
When I was looking on Pinterest for a low carb gluten free spice cookie, a traditional gingersnap recipe popped up on my feed. It used brown butter to give the cookies a real rich flavor. It sounded so good, I decided to try it instead of the coconut oil. OMG, browned butter makes these cookies taste AMAZING!
For the sweetener, I used xylitol maple syrup and Lakanto golden monk fruit. I’ve fallen in love with golden monk fruit, because I’ve found it’s a pretty close low carb substitute for brown sugar.
And then, to give it a more authentic flavor, I decided to add a tablespoon of unsulphured molasses. Yeah, I know it’s not a low carb ingredient. But a tablespoon distributed throughout 20 cookies is not bad, and each cookie has a little less than two carbs a piece.
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How to Make Low Carb Spice Cookies
The first step in the low carb ginger cookies recipe is browning the butter. Don’t know how to brown butter you say? I was kind of intimidated by this step, but it turns out it’s a whole lot easier than I thought.
How to Brown Butter
First off, you’ll have 100% more success if you use a light colored pan. Browned butter can turn to burnt butter quickly, and you can’t tell the difference unless you’ve got a dark bottomed pan.
I personally recommend the Green Pan. It’s light, and nonstick. Love it!
Melt one stick of unsalted butter, stirring constantly. It will foam a little, but that’s just the water in the butter cooking off. Continue stirring until it’s an amber color.
Don’t worry about the brown bits at the bottom. That is just cooked milk solids. Some people don’t care for it and separate it before they add it to a recipe. I personally like the flavor, and it lends a darker color to the cookies.
In a bowl, add 1 cup almond flour, 2 tbsp coconut flour, 1/4 cup Lakanto Golden Monk Fruit, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves, and 1 tsp of Valencia orange peel. (If you have a fresh orange, you can grate your own, too)
Whisk everything together until well combined.
Now add your browned butter, 1 tbsp unsulphured molasses, and 1/4 cup xylitol maple syrup.
I’ll give a bit of advice here. I’ve tried this with store brand sugar free syrup, and I got cookies with a funky rubbery texture. It might have been just the brands I tried, but I’ve only ever had success with xylitol maple syrup or honey.
Mix everything together well, and drop by teaspoonfuls onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 F for 15-20 minutes, or until firm. Let them sit and cool for a few minutes before you move them to a rack to finish cooling. This recipe will make approximately 20 cookies.
Even though they’re not crispy and crunchy like regular gingersnaps, this low carb ginger cookies recipe gives them the same zesty kick and taste. I hope you’ll give them a try for the Holidays, or anytime you get the ginger spice craving.
