The Best Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep gluten-free cookies from falling apart? ›

Chilling helps the flours and xanthan gum absorb liquid, which makes the dough sturdier and easier to handle. Without a proper rest, your cookies are likely to crumble. Think of mix-ins as the Spanx of the cookie world. They are a sly way to ensure that your cookies look like cookies, not misshapen gluten-free blobs.

Honey and agave as a sugar substitute can enhance moisture as well, but be aware that you should cut down slightly on the other liquids you are using in the recipe, as honey and agave are not solid ingredients. Adding an extra egg or oil can also help, but use caution.

Let the batter or dough "rest" 30 minutes before baking. This gives the flours time to absorb moisture and soften, minimizing that gritty texture. Baking time and temperature can vary. Start on the low end of baking time and add minutes as needed.

Add more fat or liquid: It might just be that you need a bit more moisture in your recipe, especially if you're converting a regular “gluten-ful” recipe to gluten-free. Try adding anywhere from ¼ to ½ cup of liquid or fat to the recipe and see if that helps.

Add extra liquid: Gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than regular flour, so you may need to add more liquid to your recipes to compensate. This can help to keep your baked goods moist and prevent them from becoming dry and crumbly.

This is because cold dough is less sticky, and it doesn't spread as easily, too. If you're making a gluten-free cookie recipe that you don't want to spread too much (like crinkle cookies), make sure to chill the dough before baking it.

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

You used a starchy gluten free flour blend.

Some starchy blends need more flour because the starch softens when the liquid ingredients are added. This also happens with the Cup4Cup flour blend due to the dried milk powder. You used too much butter. This sort of goes hand in hand with using too little flour.

Oat Flour. With its creamy, earthy flavor and delicate texture, gluten-free oat flour is a staple of my gluten-free baking recipes. It bakes up soft and smooth, adding necessary starch to many GF baked goods and keeping them moist and tender due to its high fat content and stable protein structure.

What flour is best for gluten-free cookies? ›

Almond flour is a grain-free, protein-rich flour that lends well to cookies, cakes, and more! Almond flour is made from blanched almonds, meaning without skins (as opposed to almond meal, which is made from raw almonds with skins). This is why it has a fluffy, light texture and pale golden color.

Since there is no gluten there needs to be another way to level the cookies and keep them from falling apart. If you make home made GF cookies you would need to add an extra egg or two and more baking soda. That's how I get my home made cookies to work.

Give xanthan gum a try – This is a very common bonding agent in gluten-free baked foods. If your recipes tend to crumble too much then add some xanthan gum to the ingredients and you will get much better elasticity. These tips are amazing for improving the texture and taste of your gluten-free foods.

Instead of proceeding directly to baking, let the gluten-free cookie dough rest for about 30 minutes at room temperature. This resting period is crucial for hydration, not leavening. During this time, gluten-free flours absorb moisture from the wet ingredients, altering the dough's texture and consistency.

Using xanthan gum helps provide some of the stickiness that gluten free goods lack, replacing some elasticity. Xanthan gum mimics some of gluten's most essential properties by sticking to flour and its moisture. This helps create moist goods that hold their shape after being baked.

Another reason is that gluten-free flours, such as almond flour or coconut flour, can behave differently than wheat flour in baking. They may absorb more liquid, for example, which can result in dry or crumbly cookies.

Gluten-free flour is not a perfect substitute for wheat flour. Each mixture out there is designed to mostly work in certain kinds of recipe, but not in all of them. And yes, it is perfectly normal for a gluten-free cookie to be crumbly, since it is the gluten itself that holds wheat cookes together.

This might be due to the lack of gluten but can be for many other reasons. Lots of gluten free flour is rice based and this can result in a dry and slightly gritty texture. The Juvela gluten free White and Fibre Mix have been developed to be as comparable to gluten containing flour as possible.