Healthy Gingerbread Cookies

My Recipe Tips

• My shortcuts if you forgot to bring your egg and butter to room temperature: For the egg, just place it in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes. For the butter, fill a stainless steel bowl with boiling water and place the butter on a plate. After a couple minutes, empty the water, dry the bowl, and place it upside down over the plate. The heat from the metal will soften the butter gently.
• Chilling this cookie dough is a must. It’s too soft and sticky at room temperature. If it starts getting too soft while you’re cutting shapes, just pop it back in the fridge for a few minutes to firm up again.
• A marble rolling pin like this keeps the dough cold for longer. It sounds fancy, but is actually super affordable! I used an older one in my picture above and it didn’t work nearly as well as the linked marble one I use now.
• Want these healthy gingerbread cookies sweeter? You can add 1-3 extra tablespoons of Besti Brown if you prefer. For me, the 1/2 cup in this recipe is just right and not super sweet.
• For a chewier texture, add 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum. I personally prefer the cookies without it, but it does help with structure.
• Use a good baking sheet, and avoid dark ones. This one never warps in the oven, and the lighter color means the cookies don’t over-brown.
• Use an extra thin spatula to lift the sugar free gingerbread cookies. I learned this trick while testing this recipe. A super thin spatula like this slides right under the cookies without messing up the shapes!
• If your gingerbread men lose an arm or leg on the way to the pan, just press it back on or reshape it. If it’s too far gone, I just roll the dough back out and try again.
• Or just cut them right on the baking sheet. A reader shared this tip and it’s genius! Roll out the dough, place it on the pan, cut your shapes, then peel away the extra dough around them. I always do it this way now.
• These taste just as good baked into simple rounds, especially if you’re short on time. If you do want to make shapes, I used this exact cookie cutter set in the photos, and it has 11 different shapes and is so fun to use.
• These healthy gingerbread cookies should look slightly soft in the center when you take them out. They’ll firm up as they cool, and that’s how you get that perfect chewy texture.
• You don’t need a piping set, but it makes decorating easier. And this is coming from someone who is not great at decorating, ha. I usually use this set for my cakes and cupcakes, but for these cookies I prefer these smaller ones. You can also just use piping bags on their own and snip the corner teeny-tiny to make thin lines.
• If you’re storing the cookies on the counter, wait to frost until just before eating. That way, they can stay fresh on the counter. The frosting itself needs to stay in the fridge, so I prefer to add it last-minute.