Grain-Free Sugar-Free Vegan Gingerbread Cookies

Did you believe baking Grain-Free Sugar-Free Keto-Vegan Gingerbread Cookies is a cinch? Yes, it is! This recipe is all you can wish for a truly, healthy, gingerbread cookie recipe: it tastes good, it is super-easy to make, and it does good for you. Moreover, it holds together extremely well so that you can create very detailed patterns as you can see from the photos. The cut out cookies are also easy to transfer to the baking sheet; they won’t break, but will hold together well. Which cookie shapes are you going to create?

About the Grain-Free Sugar-Free Vegan Gingerbread Cookie recipe

I originally developed a keto-vegan gingerbread cookie recipe for my Finnish keto-vegan eBook. It was surprisingly easy to develop considering I couldn’t use, for example, eggs or cream cheese to bind the dough. Luckily, there are several keto-vegan (i.e. starch-free and plant-based) alternatives to replace eggs.

My favorite keto-vegan egg replacers are psyllium husk powder and chia seeds. For this recipe, I wanted to use both for the best result. Milled chia seeds work better in this recipe since the result is smooth; you don’t want to have any big pieces — even though chia seeds are tiny, they are still too large — in your gingerbread cookies. No, the mouthfeel has to be smooth.

I had to conduct quite a few experiments to perfect this recipe. Mostly I was surprised how much fluid the recipe needs! I wanted to use almond milk because it’s more liquid than, let’s say, coconut milk. Almond milk was also better than water. I was simply concerned that if I used water it would make the cookies, well, too watery and bland.

For this final recipe, I’ve reduced the amount of almond milk. I used to use 1 full cup (240 ml), but the dough was slightly too wet. When I reduced the amount to 3/4 cup (180 ml), the cookies were just perfect.

In addition to almond milk, the dough needed some oil so that it was easy to handle and not sticky. I always use light olive oil when baking, but melted coconut oil should be equally good (and maybe also healthier?) option.

Oh yes, and since these cookies are super-rich in fiber, remember to drink water when you eat these cookies.

Tips for making the Grain-Free Sugar-Free Vegan Gingerbread Cookies

These cookies are soft straight out of the oven, but they will harden once they have cooled down. It’s actually erythritol which makes the cookies to harden.

I already mentioned you should use milled chia seeds instead of whole chia seeds. The finer the better. That’s also the case with psyllium husk. Use as fine a psyllium husk powder as you can find to guarantee the best texture.

However, the freshest milled chia seeds you’ll get when you grind the seeds yourself. As the seeds contain oils that get easily rancid when the seeds are crushed, the store-bought milled chia seeds might be already rancid when you buy them. Therefore, to get the freshest — and best tasting — result, you can grind chia seeds yourself, for example, with a food processor or a smaller amount (the 3 tablespoons in the recipe is doable) with pestle and mortar.

Note: if you cannot find ready-made gingerbread spice mix, this Apple Pie Spice is a perfect replacement. You can also create your own gingerbread spice mix. As I’m a Finn, I prefer this Finnish mix: 2 teaspoons ground Ceylon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground bitter orange peel, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves and 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger.

Here’s how to make these seasonal cookies:

Take a medium bowl and add the dry ingredients. Add first the vanilla or chocolate-flavored stevia-sweetened rice protein. I use vanilla-flavored here. I used to use chocolate-flavored rice protein all the time, but currently I’m running out of it. I was afraid vanilla wouldn’t lend that nice brown color that gingerbread cookies should have, but it’s actually the gingerbread spice (and the cinnamon there) that is responsible for the brownish color. As you see, the cookies are beautifully brown also with vanilla-flavored rice protein.

Then, add erythritol crystals. Like I said, this sweetener makes the cookies crunchy.

Add coconut flour…

…milled chia seeds…

…psyllium husk powder…

…gingerbread spice (see the note)…

…and aluminum-free baking powder.

Mix well to break up any lumps.

Add the almond milk…

…and the oil.

Mix until well combined.

Let set and thicken for 30 minutes.

While you wait for the dough to thicken, preheat the oven. Once half an hour has passed, form the dough into a ball.

Place the ball on a parchment paper.

Place another parchment paper on top of the dough ball.

Flatten the ball with your hands.

Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment papers until 0.2-inch (0.5 cm) thin.

Remove the topmost parchment paper.

Cut out cookies with your preferred cookie cutter. I have used the classic gingerbread man cookie cutter here.

Transfer the cookies onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake the cookies until they get some color, about 15 minutes. The baking time depends on the size of the cookies — smaller cookies naturally need shorter time than larger ones.

Remove from the oven and…

…either let them cool down on the baking sheet…

…or transfer to a cooling rack.

Let cool completely.

You can decorate the cookies for example with sugar-free keto-vegan royal icing (my next blog post!).

By now, you must be drooling, so here’s first the video on how to make these cookies:

 
And here’s the recipe. Enjoy!