Let’s break out the spices and start baking. Christmas time means it is time for all things ginger-y and spic-y. Gingerbread Marshmallows, Gingerbread Popcorn, and now these ginger cookies. Who knows, maybe one of these days I will even write a post for gingerbread.
Back in October I started trying to figure out some delicious holiday cookies. With it being the first year we are dealing with multiple allergies and/or intolerances I wanted to be prepared. So far I have these, and some Chocolate Mint Cookies, which I am guest posting about at Whole New Mom About Today.
The secret to these cookies, is fresh ginger and a LOT of it. A lot. I love robust strong flavors.
A few years ago a friend from Finland was talking about American sweets, how she felt like they had no flavor other then sugar. It was just a passing comment, but it has stuck with me. It helped me get more adventurous with my baking adventures.
I discovered that the more flavors you had in a cookie, the lower amount of sugar was needed to make it a special treat. Complimentary flavors at least. Don’t go putting anchovies in your cookies and try and reduce the sugar. Mmm-kay? But, bring on the cinnamon, allspice, annise, molasses, vanilla, salt, and other flavors. Then let’s break out the measuring spoons, grub our little stirring and ingredient-dumping helpers. Let’s make some cookies. And memories.
–Ginger cookies not your thing? I have a guest post at Whole New Mom today featuring a Chocolate Mint Cookie–
- 1 ½ cups almond flour OR dry roasted, unsalted, sunflower seeds ground into a meal* (not almond meal)
- 2 Tablespoons coconut flour
- 4 Tablespoons ground golden flax
- ½ cup sucanat
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup molasses
- 1 ½ – 2” piece of fresh ginger (longer for a narrow piece, shorter for wide), peeled
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or coconut oil
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ⅜ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- extra sucanant
- *To dry roast sunflower seeds bake in a single later at 350 for 5-7 minutes until they get fragrant and just barely begin to darken. Stir a few times during that few minutes. It takes a little more then 1½ cups sunflower seeds to make enough meal for this recipe.
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Prepare two cookie sheets by lining with parchment.
- Put the sunflower flour or almond flour to in a food processor along with the grated ginger and molasses. Process until the ginger is thoroughly pureed and the almond flour forms a ball (3-4 minutes)..
- Add the water and oil. Process again. Mix all the dry ingredients, except the extra sucanant, together. Sprinkle over the batter and blend until well combined.
- Sprinkle a few tablespoons of sucanat on a plate.Oil or wet your hands as the batter is sticky. Roll tablespoon size balls in the your hands to smooth, then roll in the sucanat. Place on the cookie sheets and press down with your palm to flatten.
- Bake for 25 minutes.
- When done remove cookies to cooling racks to sit until cool.
