Gluten-Free Vegan Gingerbread Cookies - Rhian's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep gluten-free cookies from falling apart? ›

Chilling helps the flours and xanthan gum absorb liquid, which makes the dough sturdier and easier to handle. Without a proper rest, your cookies are likely to crumble. Think of mix-ins as the Spanx of the cookie world. They are a sly way to ensure that your cookies look like cookies, not misshapen gluten-free blobs.

Chilling the dough for at least several hours results in cookies that are extra-thick and chonky because it allows the flours to absorb more moisture.

Use a Binder. Binders like xanthan gum and guar gum provide structure in gluten-free baking to make up for the missing gluten. This prevents cookies from being too crumbly plus it also helps with freshness.

One of the most common gluten-free baking tips is “let your batter rest”. Letting the batter rest gives the gluten-free flours and starches more time to absorb the moisture. In theory, it will turn your dry, crumbly cakes into delicious, moist masterpieces.

Using xanthan gum helps provide some of the stickiness that gluten free goods lack, replacing some elasticity. Xanthan gum mimics some of gluten's most essential properties by sticking to flour and its moisture. This helps create moist goods that hold their shape after being baked.

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

Almond flour is a grain-free, protein-rich flour that lends well to cookies, cakes, and more! Almond flour is made from blanched almonds, meaning without skins (as opposed to almond meal, which is made from raw almonds with skins). This is why it has a fluffy, light texture and pale golden color.

Your results may vary if using a different GF flour blend. The longer you let the dough sit in the fridge before baking, the better these cookies will be!

Since there is no gluten there needs to be another way to level the cookies and keep them from falling apart. If you make home made GF cookies you would need to add an extra egg or two and more baking soda. That's how I get my home made cookies to work.

Texture Differences

Gluten-free baked goods don't have quite the same texture as wheat-based products. However, huge improvements can be made by using combinations of flours and mixing in additives. Measuring according to weight and not volume also helps.

How do you know when gluten-free cookies are done? ›

While visual cues like the toothpick test and pressing the top of the cake will still help, the best way to determine if your baked goods are perfectly done is with a timer and oven thermometer. This is because gluten-free treats often look underdone and slightly wet inside after baking.

Moisture. There are many ways to increase moisture in a recipe. In general, recipes that call for pureed fruit, sour cream or yogurt are ones you can rely on for a moist product. In case your recipe does not call for these things, using brown sugar instead of white sugar to add moisture.

After adding your dry ingredients, mix the dough for a few minutes (instead of just until combined). This will help the dough develop a bit more structure and get rid of any gritty texture from unincorporated ingredients. After all, you can't develop too much gluten if there's no gluten to begin with.

To add extra moisture to your gluten-free bread, incorporate 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise into the recipe. The oil and eggs will help to make the baked bread nice and tender. Olive oil is a healthy cooking oil that adds wonderful flavor to bread. It also adds moisture, creates a tender texture, and extends shelf-life.

This might be due to the lack of gluten but can be for many other reasons. Lots of gluten free flour is rice based and this can result in a dry and slightly gritty texture. The Juvela gluten free White and Fibre Mix have been developed to be as comparable to gluten containing flour as possible.

If you overmix the dough, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. The best way to fix this is to add more liquid to the dough. This can be done by adding milk, water, or even melted butter. You may also need to add more flour to the dough if it is too wet.

If you've glanced at other no-bake cookie recipes then you'll see how important it is to boil the sugar mixture long enough which will help the cookies to set. Boiling too long will cause the cookies to be dry and crumbly. However, if you don't boil long enough the cookies will not set and will be runny.