One December during my middle school years, my aunt flew out from Arizona to visit us for the holidays. On her first full day at our house, she suggested that we made gingerbread cookies as an afternoon project, and since Mom usually lacked the patience for baking anything besides boxed mix brownies, my brother and I immediately agreed.
We found a recipe in one of our faded old cookbooks and quickly set to work measuring and mixing together the ingredients. After rolling out the dough and slicing it into fun shapes with our eclectic collection of cookie cutters, everything from candy canes and Santa’s sleigh to Mickey Mouse and the Pillsbury Dough Boy, we popped the trays into the oven to bake.
A couple of hours later, we sat down at the kitchen table to decorate our treats. Instead of mixing up traditional royal icing, we just stirred together milk and powdered sugar in a handful of small bowls, then squirted in a few drops of food coloring to dye them pastel shades of pink, green, yellow, and blue.
When we finished icing the cookies, we arranged them on large dinner plates and safely tucked those away on top of the refrigerator. Our golden retriever could easily jump up on the counters and eat anything in sight!
That evening, I slipped into the kitchen to sneak a cookie before dinner when Mom wasn’t looking. After grabbing a small star, I hastily slid the plate back on top of the fridge and brushed the crumbs off my fingertips, but when Mom opened the refrigerator door a few minutes later to pull out some vegetables…
That plate tumbled down and shattered on the kitchen floor, sending broken pieces of stoneware and cookies into every nook and cranny. Whoops!
Ever since then, I’ve thought of my aunt and that little refrigerator incident whenever I’ve eaten gingerbread cookies… But since she passed away six years ago, I haven’t actually baked any homemade ones. However, I decided to change that this year, so I set out to create this recipe for the Ultimate Healthy Gingerbread Cookies. They’re full of the same cozy flavors as traditional recipes, but without any butter, refined flour or sugar, they come with none of the guilt. And I know my aunt would’ve loved these!
(And I stashed the leftover cookies on a shelf in the pantry this time, not the top of the fridge!)
To make these healthier gingerbread cookies, you’ll start with white whole wheat flour. That sounds a little contradictory, doesn’t it? Normally white flour and whole wheat flour are two totally different things! However, white whole wheat flour is made by finely grinding a special type of white wheat, whereas regular whole wheat flour comes from a heartier variety of red wheat. This gives white whole wheat flour a lighter taste and texture, similar to all-purpose flour, but it still has the same health benefits as regular whole wheat flour (like extra fiber!).
The gingerbread flavor comes from two main sources: ground ginger and molasses. I’m sure you guessed the first of those ingredients! The molasses provides the deep, rich, cozy undertones, and it’s absolutely crucial when making gingerbread cookies. Don’t skip it! Molasses is inexpensive, shelf-stable, and keeps for ages. This is the kind that I buy, and you can find it at most grocery stores near the honey or maple syrup.
In addition to the molasses, you’ll sweeten these cookies with one of my favorite ingredients: vanilla crème stevia. Stevia is a plant-based, no-calorie sweetener that’s clean eating friendly, and it’s very concentrated. A little goes a long way—you just need 1 teaspoon for this entire batch of cookies! This is the kind that I buy because I love its warm vanilla flavor and don’t notice any strange aftertastes like with some other stevia products. You can find it at many health-oriented grocery stores, but I always buy mine online here because that’s the cheapest price I’ve found. (And you’ll use it in all of these recipes of mine, too!)
I have a special trick to share with you about how to easily roll out cookie dough with absolutely NO mess… You’ll roll it out between two large sheets of plastic wrap! With this trick, you don’t need to flour your work surface OR the cookie dough OR the rolling pin. It works like a charm for pie crusts and my sugar cookies, too! (Bonus: Your rolling pin won’t get dirty, so you don’t have to wash it!)
Here’s another pro tip for how to create perfectly shaped cut-out cookies… After pressing down the cookie cutters into the dough, peel the extra dough away from those shapes. (If you pull the cut-out cookie dough away from the extra dough, it usually stretches and turns misshapen!) Then slide a knife underneath the cut-out cookie dough to loosen it from the plastic wrap, and transfer it to your baking sheet. Ta da! Perfectly shaped cookies!
Then after a quick trip to the oven…
Time to pour a glass of milk and enjoy your cookies! Although with how much my family loved these, you may need to bake a second batch to make sure you have enough for Santa on Christmas Eve… 🎅🏻⛄️😉
And when you make your own, remember to snap a picture and share it on Instagram using #amyshealthybaking and tagging @amyshealthybaking IN the photo itself! (That guarantees I’ll see your picture! 😊) I’d love to see your gingerbread cookies and feature them in my Sunday Spotlight series!
| The Ultimate Healthy Gingerbread Cookies | | Print |
- for the cookies
- 1 cup + 6 tbsp (165g) white whole wheat flour (measured like this)
- ¾ tsp cornstarch
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
- ⅛ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp (28g) unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup (60mL) molasses
- 1 tsp vanilla crème stevia
- for the icing (optional)
- 10 tsp confectioners’ style stevia
- 2 tsp nonfat milk
- To prepare the cookies, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter, egg, and vanilla extract. Stir in the molasses and vanilla crème stevia. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Transfer the dough to the center of a large sheet of plastic wrap, and shape into a 1”-tall rectangle. Cover the top with another large sheet of plastic wrap. Chill the dough for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
- Leaving the cookie dough between the sheets of plastic wrap, roll it out until ⅛” thick. Lightly flour your cookie cutter, and press it into the dough, making sure each shape lies as close to its neighbors as possible to minimize unused dough. Peel the unused dough away from the shapes, and place them onto the prepared baking sheets. Reroll the unused dough, and repeat.
- Bake the cut out cookie dough at 325°F for 8-10 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- To prepare the icing, stir together the confectioner’s style stevia and milk in a small bowl. Spoon into a zip-topped bag, and snip off the corner. Pipe onto the cooled cookies.
Many store-bought gluten-free flour blends will work as a substitute for the white whole wheat flour, if measured like this.
The molasses is essential to create the gingerbread flavor. It’s inexpensive, shelf-stable, and keeps for ages. I do not recommend substituting for it! In a pinch, you can substitute pure maple syrup, honey, or agave, but the cookies will no longer have that classic gingerbread taste.
I highly recommend using the vanilla crème stevia! It's one of my favorite ingredients, and you'll use it in all of these recipes of mine, too. You cannot substitute additional molasses, pure maple syrup, honey, or agave for the vanilla crème stevia because cookies require a precise balance of wet and dry ingredients. However, you may substitute ½ cup + 2 tablespoons (120g) coconut sugar (or granulated sugar, if you aren’t concerned about keeping these cookies clean eating friendly) for both the molasses and stevia, but the cookies will appear “speckled” if using coconut sugar because it doesn’t dissolve as well.
This was the exact cookie cutter that I used.
The cookie dough can be refrigerated for up to two days. If the cookie dough has been chilled for longer than an hour, it may need to “thaw” a little on the counter for a few minutes before rolling.
I recommend re-rolling the scraps of cookie dough no more than twice. If you re-roll the scraps too many times, the cookie dough becomes tough and the baked cookies won’t have the same soft and chewy texture.
Any milk may be substituted for the nonfat milk, and regular powdered sugar may be substituted for the confectioners' style stevia.
As written, the icing recipe only yields enough for a “minimalist” decorated appearance. If you like more icing, feel free to make more!
{clean eating, low fat, low calorie, lower sugar, gluten-free option}
View Nutrition Information
You may also enjoy Amy’s other recipes…
♥ Soft-Baked Ginger Cookies
♥ Chocolate Chip Gingerbread Oatmeal Cookies
♥ Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
♥ Classic Gingerbread with Maple Glaze
♥ Chocolate Chip Gingerbread Mini Muffins
♥ Gingerbread Protein Overnight Oats
♥ Single-Serving Chocolate Chip Gingerbread Mug Cake
♥ Baked Gingerbread Donuts with Maple Glaze
Now I know which gingerbread cookie recipe to make with my brother this year!! Except I’LL be making the dough, my brother can do the rolling and the cutting. 😉 Another reason why you and I are twins! 😀
Awwww!! That means SO much to me that you’d change recipes this year to try mine — you’re such a sweetheart Marina! I can’t wait to hear what you think of the cookies… And whether the official cookie-cutter-outer did an excellent job! 😉 😉
Amy, I like getting your blog posts in my email! Thanks for sharing your recipes with us.
That means so much to me that you’ve subscribed to my blog’s emails Erin — thank you so much! ♡
oh man busted!! hopefully some of the cookies were salvageable?? probably not i guess, haha! at least its a fun memory! These cookies look gorgeous Amy!
Thank you so much Karen! 🙂 Funny enough, my mom actually didn’t remember the plate falling and breaking when I asked her about it the other day… But at least we had four more plates still tucked safely away on top of the fridge, even after that one broke!
” but no butter, refined flour or sugar!” actually there is butter…
Thanks for catching that Caterina! I’ve updated the recipe and blog post accordingly. 🙂 I’d love to hear what you think if you try the cookies!
Why do I still see butter? I can’t get whether the recipe requires it or not :/
I appreciate your interest in my recipe Caterina! You can either use coconut oil or butter — the choice is yours! If you use the former, then there isn’t any butter in these cookies. 🙂 I’d love to hear what you think if you try them!
If I had a plate of gingerbread cookies on top of my fridge, I’m sure I’d be tempted to sneak one every so often, too! What a shame that the plate ended up tumbling onto the floor – at least you’d manage to eat that star before it happened! Gingerbread cookies certainly are difficult to resist, and these look fantastic! I love that tip about rolling out the dough between 2 sheets of plastic wrap – it can be tricky when the dough just gets stuck to the table and rolling pin, so that’s a really useful trick to know!
I love how you always look on the bright side and find the silver lining Katie! You’re completely right — I would’ve been much more upset if I didn’t get to eat a cookie first. 😉 I use that plastic wrap trick for rolling out any cut-out cookies or pie crust (I’m lazy and don’t want to wash more dishes!), so I hope it works for you too!
Do you know of any sugar free molasses?
No, I actually haven’t heard of sugar-free molasses before. If it exists, I wouldn’t recommend substituting it in this recipe because its flavor won’t be the same. I’d love to hear what you think if you try the gingerbread cookies Shelley!
Never seen a gingerbread recipe with cornstarch before! Sounds very interesting, gonna try this recipe for Christmas this year
That means a lot to me that you plan on trying my recipe for Christmas Maria! The cornstarch helps keep the cookies soft. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of them!
These look delicious! Hearing the story behind the recipe made me think, sometimes the memories make the recipe, too. What a treasured walk down memory lane. <3
Thanks Morgan! It’s so true about how memories can make a recipe even better. 🙂
Can I substitute vanilla stevia instead of vanilla cream – couldn’t find the one you used here in Vancouver
Yes, that should work Christina! If it’s a different brand than the one I use, then you may need to adjust the amount of stevia because different brands can have different concentrations of sweetness. The one I use has a serving size of 5 drops. If your bottle says the same thing, no adjustments necessary! 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of the cookies!
Thank you,! It’s the same brand and I used 1/2 teaspoon but there’s definitely an after taste. My girls don’t seem to mind, but maybe I didn’t need 1/2 teaspoon?
The icing helps with the taste too:)
I’m glad your girls enjoyed the cookies Christina! 🙂 If it’s the same brand, then it should be a one-to-one substitution. I don’t notice any aftertastes with the vanilla creme flavor, so it could just be that the vanilla flavor doesn’t mask the stevia aftertaste as well. Either way, I’m glad the icing helped too!
Sorry I meant I used 1 teaspoon of the stevia 🙂
Too funny — I read your “1/2 teaspoon” as “1 teaspoon” anyway Christina! We must be on the same brain wavelength. 😉
We are making these right now as my boys were dying for gingerbread men, but I’m just wondering if you doubled your recipe for the pictures? My batch did not make nearly that much and I followed instructions to a T. ??
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Sara! I only used a single batch for these photos. If your batch didn’t yield as many cookies, then there are three most likely causes: (a) if you used a different sized cookie cutter {I linked to the exact one that I used in the recipe!}, (b) perhaps your cookie dough wasn’t rolled quite as thinly {I rolled mine out to be ⅛” thick at most}, or (c) you didn’t gather the scraps and re-roll them as many times as I did {I re-rolled the scraps twice, again until ⅛” thick at most}. Do you think any of those reasons was the culprit? 🙂 I hope you and your boys enjoyed the cookies’ flavor!
This is the BEST gingerbread cookie recipe I have ever found and made, thank you for giving us such a perfect, healthy and delicious recipe! I doubled the spices because I REALLY like the spice 🙂
I’m so glad you loved the cookies Lisa! That means so much to me that you think these are the best gingerbread cookies you’ve ever made — thank you!! 🙂
Made these last night and they turned out so much better than I imagined. Mine didn’t get super crispy but I like that about them. Great recipe!!
I also made the coconut sugar cookies and they were incredible!
Oops I mean I made the sugar cookies and subbed coconut sugar for the stevia!
I’m so glad you enjoyed both cookie recipes Emily! That means a lot to me that you made two of my recipes on the same day — thank you for sharing that with me! 🙂 Happy holidays!
This recipe looks awesome and so easy, and so I tried it today…… However, it”s so depressing how it turned out, it has a gummy-like texture but crispy on the outside. To mention, I baked twice this week, both coming from your recipe, and I admit that the first one was, I think, overmixed so it came out with the same texture. I followed the recipe, meticulously measured every bit of it, chilled and molded as you mentioned here, I followed every step… 🙁 But still I got the same outcome. What do you think are the possible reasons? How can I make it better next time?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Biana! Let’s work together to figure out what happened. 🙂 To start, did you make any substitutions? Did you use the same vanilla creme stevia that I linked to? When you measured the dry ingredients, were you using measuring cups or a kitchen scale? When mixing together the cookie dough, did you use a stand or electric mixer, or did you use a spoon or fork? We’ll solve this — I promise!
Yes I did some substitutions since not all of the ingredients were available here, I used all purpose flour, honey instead of molasses, flax egg instead of regular egg to go further with its nutrition, and I did not use vanilla creme stevia or anything to substitute it. I used measuring cups/tbsp/tsp. When I mixed the dough I used a wooden spoon and I promise I tried not to over mix it as I have seen it from the first one. After mixing all the ingredients, I noticed that the dough was a little bit dry, seems that there’s not enough liquid to say that it’s like a muffin-thick-batter, but I left it like that. With all my hopes up, I chilled the dough following everything you said, then I baked it and tadah! As I expected, the dough was dry so it came out with a tough/gummy texture. I am not an expert baker but I do bake some cookies and cakes that were actually good for a beginner, since I wanted a better/healthier versions of desserts, I researched for some recipes, and this recipe didn’t really worked out well for me. I’ve done a lot of recipes before and this cookie-thing didn’t behave as it needs to be. (do you feel the frustration from what I wrote? haha sorry! but I really want to work things out). Anyway, I do appreciate the response, very uncommon for bloggers. 🙂
If the cookie dough was dry, then there was probably too much flour. When you used measuring cups, did you scoop them directly into the container of flour? Or did you use a spoon (or a fork — that works even better!) to lightly spoon and level, as described in the link in the Ingredients list? Scooping directly from the container will result in 1.5 times as much flour, which would cause the dry cookie dough texture and gummy baked cookie texture. If you want the cookies to taste like regular cookies (ie sweeter!), then you’ll need to use the vanilla creme stevia or an appropriate substitute. 🙂
Hi Amy!
I’m planning on making these cookies today with my son. They look absolutely delicious, I can’t wait to try them. I was just wondering, I’m a bit confused, it says to preheat oven at 325°F but then says to bake cookies at 350°F, was that a typo or are you suposed to preheat at a lower temperature for some reason then up the temperature to bake? (I’m not a pro baker hehe) ☺
Thanks for catching that Sylvie! I’ve fixed the temperature. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you and your son hear of the cookies!