grain free molasses cookies

It's officially Christmas cookie season! I think this month is like wedding season for bakers with so many events, gifts and possibilities for sweet treats. Molasses cookies are one of my favorites to pair with a piping hot cup of tea and this grain free version of the cookie classic is soft, buttery and has all of the flavor.

Baking with almond flour has been one of my challenges in my baking journey.  I find that it's easy to replicate flavor but texture has been a challenge that I worked at tacking in this recipe.  With these cookies, there are three main tips that I find must be followed.  1) You have to chill the dough.  I know, it's the busiest time of the year and here I am giving recipes that require additional time for chilling. Just get the dough ready, get it covered and in the fridge, go wrap some presents, address the Christmas cards, clean the house or sit and take some well deserved you time.  Or make the dough the night before and get some sleep. You'll be glad you let the dough chill. 2) You have to space these cookies well when baking.  I made enough mistakes testing this recipe so you don't have to! I found that 6 cookies per cookie tray (usinga large rectangle cookie sheet) worked best and better to be safe than sorry so don't try to squeeze any extras in there. 3) Use parchment paper and let them cool a solid 15-20 minutes before removing them off the parchment paper.  I used one cookie tray and 2 sheets of parchment paper for this recipe.  When one batch came out of the oven, I slid the parchment paper off onto a cutting board with the cookies still on it and threw a second piece on the tray for the next batch to go into the oven and then swapped each batch.  The end result after all of my tweaks and recipe testing is a soft, chewy molasses cookie with a hint of ginger that says Christmas all day long.

Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients
-1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
-3/4 cup brown sugar
-1/2 cup white sugar + 1/3 cup white sugar for rolling/dusting
-1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-1/2 cup molasses
-2 eggs
-3 cups almond flour
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 tsp ground cloves
-1 tsp ginger
-1 1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp salt

Directions
Place the butter and sugars in a large bowl and cream together with a stand or hand mixer.  Add in the vanilla extract, molasses and eggs and mix until combined.  In a separate bowl, stir together the almond flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, baking soda and salt.  Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually while mixing together.  Once the dough is fully combined, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 3 hours.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie tray with parchment paper. Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and place the left over 1/3 cup sugar in a bowl for rolling the uncooked cookies. Using a small cookie scooper, scoop out each cookie and roll into a ball with your hands.  Roll the cookie in the sugar and place on the parchment paper lined tray. Once you have six cookies on the tray, place in the oven for 11-12 minutes.  Return the remaining dough to the fridge while batches of cookies bake. Once baked, remove from the oven and slide the parchment paper with the cookies on it off of the tray and onto a cutting board and allow to cool completely for 15-20 minutes before using a spatula to lift the cookies onto a wire cooling rack to finish cooling.  Lifting the cookies too soon will cause them to fall apart...they'll still taste great but you'll be making a molasses cookie trifle instead.  Set up your next batch with another piece of parchment paper and continue the process of rolling the balls of cookies from the chilled dough and rolling into sugar until all the dough is used.  The recipe makes approximately 3 dozen cookies.

​Happy baking! Enjoy the season!