Soft Gingerbread Cookies (2024)

These soft gingerbread cookies use almond butter to replace most of the butter, wheat flour for a few extra nutrients, and applesauce to keep them soft.

Here it is: a recipe that’s been years in the making! Growing up outside of Minneapolis, my familyused to take my sister and meto a Dayton’s holiday display at Christmas, a life-sized department store window displayfilled with animatedcharacters from stories like Pinocchio or the Velveteen Rabbit. We would wait for hours to walk through, my sister and I waiting in expectation for the end so we could have huge, soft gingerbread cookies. Here’s our spin on this recipe: and it’s just as delightful as I remember!

Also try: Gingerbread Waffles, Gingerbread Cake, Gingerbread Syrup and a Gingerbread Martini

How to make soft gingerbread cookies

Ever since childhood I’ve been on a quest for perfect soft gingerbread cookies: spicy, soft, and gooey. And Ithink (*hope*) we’ve finally got it! Sinceour recipes focus onhealthy eating, we’ve also tried to keep these cookies a bit healthier than the standard: we’ve used almond butter to replace most of the butter, and thrown in some wheat flour a few extra nutrients. A bit of apple sauce helps keep them soft. And this gingerbread cookie recipe is finished with turbinado sugar instead of icing, which is a more “natural” sugar (plus it’s much easier than icing!).

We’ve found throughout the years that healthy cookies are, well, just not that good. Healthy cookies taste weird and leave you wanting someting more. But “healthier” cookies—like these soft gingerbread cookie recipe—while they’re not quite as healthy, they’re completelydelicious and satisfying.

Tips for making “healthier” Christmas cookies

• Cookies do need fat, typically butter, to create that cookie-like texture. Omitting or replacing all the fat(with a substitute like apple sauce) usually lends for a cake-like texture, which is not altogether satisfying for a cookie. A good alternative is almond butter, which we’ve used in these gingerbread men: it’sa natural fat with plenty of nutrients and protein. We combined it witha small amount of butter, as well as a bitof applesauce to keep the cookies soft and moist, but not too much to become cake-y.
• Cookies do need sugar, either refined or natural. We love cooking with natural sugars like honey or maple syrup, but have found theychange the taste of a cookie morethan sugar.For this cookie, we used a combination of brown sugar and molasses, withturbinado sugar (a less processed sugar) as the garnish. Medjool dates can also be usedto addnatural sweetness (like in our healthy buckeyes), but we find dates work bestin no-bake cookies, not baked goods.
• Baked cookies generallyneed a flour-like substance.Fat, sugar, and flour are generally frowned uponin the health food world, but if you want to make cookies, you’ve generally got to incorporate these ingredients. Alternatives include flourless cookies and using substitutes like oat flour. For these gingerbread cookies, we’ve used all-purpose flour with a bit of wheat flour for flavor and a small amount of health benefits. We’ve found that replacing white flour with up to ¼ wheat flour in baked goods works well, but adding more than ¼ wheat flour results in a dense, tough texture.
• Make smaller portion sizes. We loveto make mini-desserts; they’re not only cute, but give you less of everything while still feeling satisfied.

Looking for healthy cookie recipes?

Now, for some healthy cookie ideas! We’ve also teamed up with our friend Ashley over at Edible Perspective, who is a healthier cookie aficionado like ourselves. Here are a few of our combined ideas from our blogs:

• Chocolate Peanut Butter Buckeyes – A Couple Cooks(gf / vegan)
• Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cranberry Clusters – A Couple Cooks(gf / vegan)
• Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pistachios – Edible Perspective(gf)
• Flourless Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies – Edible Perspective(gf)
• 1-Bowl Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies – Edible Perspective(gf/vegan)
• 1-Bowl Soft-Batch Pumpkin Spice Cookies – Edible Perspective(gf/vegan)
• Chocolate Dipped Buckeyes – Edible Perspective(gf/vegan)
• 1-Bowl Lemon Cornbread Cookies – Edible Perspective(gf/vegan)
• Soft Gingerbread Cookies
• Peppermint Meringues
• Chai Spiced Snowball Cookies
• Cherry Quinoa Chocolate Bark
• Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies
• Cranberry Pistachio Chocolate Clusters
• Easy Peppermint Bark

This recipe is…

This soft gingerbread cookies are vegetarian.

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