Spiced ginger cookies seasoned with sweet cinnamon and fragrant cardamom! These cookies are not only gluten free, nut grain free and nut free too! They’re made with a simple combination of coconut flour and tapioca flour. The end result is a soft and chewy cookies that’s warm, sweet, fiery and delicious!
Original recipe shared on November 6, 2015 – updated Dec 6, 2024 with improved photos, recipe, tips and ingredient explanations.
⭐Cardamom Spiced Ginger Cookies⭐
- a little sweet + a little spicy: You might be familiar baking with cinnamon and ginger, but have you tried playing around with cardamom yet? A little goes a long way in adding a fresh, somewhat citrusy, somewhat floral taste that adds a really unique and delicious flavor to these already delicious cookies!
- easy prep: Simply beat together the wet ingredients, add the dry ingredients then roll and bake!
- naturally grain free AND nut free: Coconut flour and tapioca starch make a great flour combo for paleo friendly cookies that are not only grain free, but nut free too!
Recipe Steps:
- Combine wet ingredients:
- Mix coconut oil and coconut sugar together until it looks a bit like wet sand.
- Add the vanilla extract, molasses and the egg.
- Beat into a thick, lighter, creamy mixture
- Add dry ingredients:
- Whisk flour, starch, spices, baking soda and salt until well combined.
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients with the mixer on.
- Mix until a thick, soft dough forms.
Roll & Bake:
- Divide cookie dough: Roll the dough into cookie dough balls, each about 2 tablespoons with or 40 grams.
- Roll in sugar (Optional): Add a couple tablespoons sugar to a small bowl or shallow plate. Roll each ball in sugar.
- Bake: Leave about 2 inches of room around each dough ball on the baking sheet to leave room for spreading.
Final Tips Before You Begin
- Use a kitchen scale: For best results, invest in a digital kitchen scale to accurately measure and weight out your ingredients. This is such a game changer when it comes to baking with gluten free ingredients in general. It is especially true when it comes to baking with coconut flour.
- Consider chilling the dough if you have a hot kitchen: If you live somewhere where your coconut oil is already liquid at room temperature, I recommend you chill the dough in the fridge about 20-30 minutes before baking. This will help firm up the fat and ideally prevent the cookies from spreading too much.
- Use butter: Increase the butter to 1/2 cup (113g) and make sure it’s softened to room temperature.
- White Sugar or Brown Sugar: Use 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp light brown sugar OR 2/3 cup white sugar. If you’re using a kitchen scale, just weight out 135 grams worth.
More Delicious Cookie Recipes
Grain Free Cookie Recipes:
- Paleo Gingerbread Cookies
- Almond Flour Sugar Cookies
- Salted Honey Tahini Cookies (Vegan Option)
- Buttered Pecan Meltaways With Almond Flour (Snowball Cookies)
- Rosemary Lemon Christmas Tree Cookies
- Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
More Gluten Free Christmas Cookie Recipes
Enjoy!
Let me know if you try these cardamom spiced ginger cookies! Leave a comment and review with your thoughts. I always appreciate the feedback and serving suggestions that you come up with!
Spiced Cardamom Cookies with Ginger
Cardamon, ginger and cinnamon blend together to create a unique and delicious aromatic spice blend taking crinkle cookie to a whole new level!
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup tapioca flour (165g)
- 1/4 cup coconut flour - lightly packed (30g)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground cardamom*
- 6 tbsp coconut oil, softened or slightly melted (80g)
- 3/4 cup coconut sugar (135g)
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp blackstrap molasses
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp raw cane sugar for rolling the cookies, (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 325°F/160°C. Line or grease a couple of baking sheets with baking paper.
- In medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: tapioca flour, coconut flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the coconut oil and sugar on a medium speed until combined - it will look a bit like wet sand at this point.
- Add the egg, molasses and vanilla extract. Beat again on a medium-low speed until creamy.
- Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Mix on a low speed until mostly combined. Repeat this process you've added all the flour. In the end you should have a thick, soft dough that's slightly sticky.
- Scoop out the dough about 2 tablespoons worth at a time (about 40 grams) and roll into little cookie dough balls.
- Optional: Add the cane sugar to a small bowl or plate then roll the cookie dough ball in the sugar.
- Place the dough on the prepared baking sheets. Leave at least 2 inches on all sides so that the cookies have room for spreading. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the edges are browned. Less time in the oven will result in a chewier cookie, more time will make for a crispier cookie. They should be a golden brown color when you take them out of the oven.
- Allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes then carefully transfer to a wire cooling rack. Enjoy!
Notes
- Pre ground cardamom is the easiest, but you can use cardamom pods in needed. You'll need about 5 pods. Gently bash the pods to open up, remove the seeds and grind them up as best you can in a mortar and pestle.
Judith Lasslop says
These were good but I also changed the flours. 1 c my GF flour blend, 1/4 c each of oat and coconut flours.
Added additional cardamom. Yummy
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Judith! So thrilled you enjoyed the cookies! Thank you so much for sharing your flour alterations too by the way – that’s super helpful to know!
Ellie says
Made these for the first time. I didn’t have tapioca starch, so I used arrowroot starch. The dough was really dry. I added an egg, and the dough was stickier, but the end result was a pretty dry cookie. Is 1.5 cups of starch the right amount?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Ellie! Sorry it’s taken me a bit of time to get back to you! I’m sorry to hear these didn’t work out for you, but I really appreciate your feedback. I went back to retest the cookies and I did end up adjusting a few things.
While the total starch amount did decrease a bit (reduced by 1/4 cup) I think the problem you may have been running into could have also been with the coconut flour. Coconut flour can be quite fussy to work with because of how absorbent it is. You need very little for it to have a huuuuge impact on overall flavor/texture/structure. Too much and it can make things feel very dry.
The best way (if possible) to measure coconut flour is always with a kitchen scale. Without a kitchen scale, I recommend measuring it out by spooning flour into whatever measuring cup/tablespoon you’re working with. Gently spoon flour into the measuring tool until full, then level off the top. This way you avoid packing too much flour into your cup/spoon which can throw off the measurements by quite a lot.
I’m sorry again that you tried these only for them to fail! It sucks to hear when things don’t work out for you guys, but I’m really grateful and appreciate the feedback so I can work on improving both past and future recipes.
Christine says
I am going to try your recipe as is but I have a daughter who is allergic to coconut anything.
What would you suggest I exchange the coconut for?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Christine! It’s hard to say for sure without testing this out myself – coconut flour is quite a tricky flour to substitute 1:1 because it’s extremely absorbent (meaning you usually need less coconut flour than you would other flours). That being said, since it’s such a small amount here you could probably get away with using oat flour instead as that it also a pretty absorbent flour. As for the other coconut based ingredients you can swap out the coconut oil for butter/vegan butter and regular white sugar for coconut sugar.
Hope that helps!
Katrina says
Would it work to substitute applesauce for the coconut oil in this recipe? I often see it suggested instead of oils or butter in other recipes
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Katrina! I think applesauce would work to an extent, but it would end up changing the texture quite a bit (much more moist, I imagine). If you’d like to cut back on the oil I think you might have better results if you were to use half the oil required (1/4 cup instead) and then replace the other half with applesauce (1/4 cup).
Tiffany Burns says
Have you tried substituting Cassava for Tapioca Flour in these?
Sarah Nevins says
I haven’t! I’ve got limited experience with cassava unfortunately so I’m not too sure how it would end up Sorry I can’t be more help here!