Ginger Spice Cookies (Rice Free)

Let the Christmas baking begin!  Shortly after moving into our new house, one of our new neighbors invited me to the annual Christmas cookie swap and then comes the bake sale at school.  Fantastic, except, I haven't made Christmas cookies, per se, for years.  So I began going through old recipes and thinking.  As I was growing up, my family always made lots and lots of cookies at Christmas: ginger snaps, molasses crinkles, lemon bars, cherry pinwheels, raspberry turnovers, sugar cookies, etc.  What to make... and how much tweaking do I want to do?

Ginger Spice cookies

Checking the cupboard showed almost all the ingredients for ginger snaps.  So close but no molasses.  Hm, no molasses.  Well wing it!  These don't have the bite that gingersnaps have due to the lack of molasses.  But it is a fantastic ginger spice cookie!  One thing to keep in mind is these cookies depend on the spices to give them the flavorful pop.  So the spices need to be fresh.  Full of punch!  Top of their flavor! And no one will know that they are gluten free, dairy free, soy free, egg free, rice free, and oat free.



Ginger Spice Cookies
Preheat oven to 350 F

1 1/2 cup sorghum flour
1 cup tapioca
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Spectrum Shortening
4 Tablespoons coconut milk (I used Thai Kitchen, full fat, unsweetened)
water as needed up to 1/4 cup but add it slowly!


Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.  Cut in shortening until the mixture has a sandy appearance.  Add the coconut milk and mix well.  Mixture should still be sandy looking.  Add water by the tablespoon and mix well.  This is a dry dough but it should hold together when you pinch it.  Do not add too much water or the dough will be very hard to handle.


At this point you have two options.  First, you can carefully roll this out between two layers of plastic film, and use cookie cutters.  Carefully transfer to a cookie sheet with a silicon liner (Exopat or Silpat are two brands).  Or, you can roll the dough into logs and slice.  This option is the easiest way to handle the dough.  If you add too much water, chilling the dough for an hour or two will help.

Bake at 350 F for 8-10 minutes depending on how thick you make the cookies.  These cookies will crisp-up some upon standing so do not over bake.  The edges should be just browned.

Enjoy!
~Michelle