Paleo Gingerbread Camels
These crunchy gingerbread camels (or any shape!) are perfectly spicy and made for dunking or decorating! Made with the simplest of ingredients, they are grain, dairy, egg, and of course - gluten-free! These cookies are so super simple to make and store well for days, you’ll be munching on them for the whole holiday break!
Happy Holidays everyone! Honestly, I’m not sure which traditions made gingerbread the holiday favorite it is, maybe it’s just a beautiful way to round out the spiced-everything season. But I feel gingerbread, is a perfect cookie. Gingery, rich in molasses flavor and CRUNCHY. As a gluten-free person, I am ALWAYS searching for proper crunch. One might call it an obsession.
Anyway! These cookies are so insanely easy and fun to make, I’ve made them an unnecessary number of times leading up to writing this. They are just the right amount of sweet, and can withstand a proper 5-10 second dunk for that perfectly soggy cookie bite. I’ve not included an icing recipe in this post, but these cookies can be decorated or used to build a gingerbread house. If you’re not looking for crunch, they can also be rolled into tablespoon-sized balls, rolled in coconut sugar and gently pressed down onto the baking sheet and baked for 15 minutes for a softer cookie.
Happy Holiday Baking!
Ingredient Fun Facts:
- almond flour: making up the bulk of the dough, almond flour lends a crumbly cookie texture without obvious aftertaste like coconut flour. I haven’t tried it, but I’d imagine subbing with another nut flour such as hazelnut flour, would be delicious!
- tapioca flour: acts as the binding flour in this recipe. It helps to create a more solid cookie that can be dunked, built with and satisfyingly snapped. Tapioca flour can be subbed by its cousin, arrowroot flour. Sweet rice flour would like also work, but isn’t grain-free like tapioca and arrowroot.
- warming spices: ground ginger, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg could be replaced with 1.5 tsp of pumpkin pie spice, plus an additional 1 tsp of ground ginger. The ginger, cinnamon and molasses are the base of the flavor, but the added nutmeg and clove add an additional earthy, bitterness that keep these cookies from tasting overly sweet
- coconut oil: can be subbed for melted butter if not paleo/dairy-free!
- blackstrap molasses: the leftovers from crushing and boiling down sugarcane, blackstrap molasses is highly concentrated in minerals (such as iron) and has a simultaneously sweet, bitter and salty taste. More concentrated than standard molasses, blackstrap has a brighter flavor, but can be replaced with standard molasses if need be. Reduce maple syrup by 1 tbsp if this is the case
How to Make Paleo Gingerbread Camels:
1. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix thoroughly. Then add the remaining wet ingredients to the dry and mix until a shaggy dough forms.
2. Using your hands, bring the mixture together and mold into a smooth ball of dough. Place the dough in a sealed plastic container or cover with plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes. If you’re making the dough in advance, place in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or until the next day
3. Preheat the oven to 350°F and place two racks towards the center of the oven
4. Prepare two baking sheets and two pieces of baking parchment or baking mats. Place one baking mat on a flat work surface, remove the dough from the freezer or fridge and place it on top
5. Using a rolling pin (or wine bottle in a pinch!), roll the dough out to 1/4” thick rectangle, don’t worry about the edges cracking. If the dough is too sticky, use an additional piece of parchment on top of the dough, to help roll it out. Patch the dough and re-roll if it breaks
6. Using your choice of cookie cutter (camels can be found on amazon.com), cut out as many cookies as you can from the rectangle, leaving a small space between each one
7. Carefully remove the excess cookie dough from around and in-between the cookie cutouts, using a knife to help carve out the excess without damaging the cookie shapes. Form another smooth ball of dough with the excess and set aside
8. Repeat the rolling out and cutting process on the second baking mat, and save any excess dough for a third round if necessary. If you do a third round, keep the dough in the freezer until you are ready to roll it out again (no more than 30 minutes)
9. Bake in the oven for 11-13 minutes, or until lightly brown on the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool for 1 minute to harden a little, then transfer to a cooling rack. The cookies will feel soft at first, but as they cool with crisp up significantly
10. These cookies can be iced, sprinkled with coconut sugar, used to build a gingerbread house or eaten plain! Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks
Paleo Gingerbread Camels
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 almond flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp ginger
- 1/8 tsp cloves
- 1/8 nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 3 tbsp coconut oil melted 40g
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 tbsp blackstrap molasses
Instructions
- Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix thoroughly. Then add the remaining wet ingredients to the dry and mix until a shaggy dough forms.
- Using your hands, bring the mixture together and mold into a smooth ball of dough. Place the dough in a sealed plastic container or cover with plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes. If making the dough in advance, place in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and place two racks towards the center of the oven
- Prepare two baking sheets and two pieces of baking parchment or baking mats. Place one baking mat on a flat work surface, remove the dough from the freezer or fridge and place it on top
- Using a rolling pin (or wine bottle in a pinch!), roll the dough out to 1/4” thick rectangle, don’t worry about the edges cracking. If the dough is too sticky, use an additional piece of parchment on top of the dough, to help roll it out. Patch the dough and re-roll if it breaks
- Using your choice of cookie cutter (camels can be found on amazon.com* in the link below!), cut out as many cookies as you can from the rectangle, leaving a small space between each one
- Carefully remove the excess cookie dough from around and in-between the cookie cutouts* and form another ball of dough with it, and set aside
- Repeat the rolling out and cutting process*** on the second baking mat, and save any excess dough for a third round if necessary
- Bake in the oven for 11-13 minutes, or until lightly brown on the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool for 1 minute, then transfer to a cooling rack. The cookies will feel soft at first, but as they cool with crisp up significantly
- These cookies can be iced, sprinkled with coconut sugar, used to build a gingerbread house or eaten plain! Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks
Recipe Notes:
**I used a small pairing knife to help me with this
*** If there is a third ball of excess dough leftover, you can either roll it out and cut it into simple shapes or let it rest in the freezer until the first batch is done baking, re-roll it out, cookie cut it and bake
Calories
54.05Fat (grams)
2.95Sat. Fat (grams)
0.34Carbs (grams)
6.32Fiber (grams)
0.77Net carbs
5.55Sugar (grams)
3.34Protein (grams)
1.20Sodium (milligrams)
20.41Cholesterol (grams)
0.00
