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.
AJ says
I absolutely love cardamom, and these cookies look amazing! What would you recommend using in place of the coconut flour for someone who is allergic to coconut?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi AJ! Coconut flour can be a tricky ingredient to replace in baked goods because it’s an extremely absorbent flour – you often need only a fraction of what you might need compared to most other flours.
I’m not totally sure without trying this out myself, but I think you might have some success using oat flour in place of the coconut flour. Almond flour could work but I’m almost certain you’ll need to double the amount to make it work.
I hope one of those suggestions might help!
Teri Parkhurst says
Can you use almond flour instead of tapioca flour?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Teri! I haven’t tried this myself yet, but I do think almond flour would work here. The only main problem is that you might need to use more almond flour.
That being said, I think you might have better luck using this sugar cookie recipe as a base as it’s actually quite similar: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/almond-flour-sugar-cookies/#mv-create-recipe This recipe is made with almond flour and tapioca flour. You could add the spices and molasses from the cardamon cookies and use 1 teaspoon baking soda in addition to the 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. You can use butter or oil – both will work. I think that recipe would work better a starting point because it’s already got the right flour amounts. Hope that helps!
Brie Martin says
The taste was delicious, but my cookies spread out into more of a cookie sheet. How do I fix that for my next go around?
Thank you!!
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Brie! You probably need a little bit more coconut flour – coconut flour can be a tricky flour to measure out correctly without using weights. If you were to try making these again I recommend adding 1-2 extra tablespoons of coconut flour and that should make a huge difference. Hope that helps!
cecilia says
I love ginger cookies and these have a real kick. Mine worked out. The texture is a bit different (melt in your mouth) but they hold together well like a regular cookie. I didn’t melt the coconut oil although it’s 35 degrees here today (sweltering) so it was half melted anyway. Spicy good.
Sarah Nevins says
Yay! Glad you enjoyed them! Thanks Cecilia!
Kira says
I made these cookies 3x already in the past 2 weeks! I love them a lot and so does my boyfriend& other friends who have tried them! <3 Thanks for sharing 🙂
Sarah says
That makes me so happy to hear! Thanks Kira!
Laura says
The recipe states 1 1/2 cups tapioca flour, but the Pinterest preview shows 5 1/2. Could you clarify? I tried the recipe tonight with 1 1/2 cups and they were super spicey. I had to throw them away 🙁
Sarah says
Hi Laura – the one that pinterest brings up is wrong. I’m not sure why it does that, but I’ve noticed it brings up strange measurements on recipes that don’t belong to me. Sorry they were to spicy for you!
Holly says
I made these cookies this weekend because my husband LOVES Gingersnap cookies. I was happy to make him a much healthier version than the ones I buy at the grocery store. I was super excited that these came out perfectly! The taste was sooooo much better than those hard cookies at the grocery store. I don’t need to look any further for the perfect Gingersnap. And I love that it has cardamom spice. I’ve been looking for more ways to use this spice. Thanks for a great recipe!
Sarah says
Thanks so much Holly! 🙂
Julia says
I definitely want to try these cookies! I finally found some reasonably priced ground cardamom–at Whole Foods of all places!
Sarah says
Isn’t it great when you can find more specialty items at a decent price? Hope you like them!
Annie @ Annie's Noms says
I really don’t bake with cardamom enough, I bet it adds such a gorgeous flavour to these cookies. I didn’t think ginger cookies could be made better, but I think you’ve done it with these!
Sarah says
Aww, thanks Annie!
Lyndsay says
These cookies look and sound amazing. I just bought Cardamom the other day but hadn’t thought about using it in cookies. I’m going to give this recipe a try. Thanks for sharing ?
floritaflores says
I love cooking&baking thanks for the recipe
Sarah says
Thank you!