Name: Sugar Free Grain Free Soft Gingerbread Cookies
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 42 min
Ingredients: 1/2 cup butter (softened or coconut oil); 2 eggs (room temperature); 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 1 teaspoon cinnamon liquid stevia; 1/4 cup heavy cream; 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses (or yacon syrup); 2 cups sunflower seeds (ground, or fine almond flour); 1/2 cup coconut flour; 1/4 cup Monk fruit allulose brown sweetener ( (brown sugar substitute)); 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon ground ginger; 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum; optional: chocolate chips for decoration

Jump to Recipe

Soft Grain Free Sugar-Free Gingerbread Cookies are the perfect keto cookies for the holiday season. This gingerbread cookie recipe is made without sugar, gluten, flour or nuts! Just 3 g net carbs!

Sugar-Free Gingerbread Cookies Recipe

Soft gingerbread cookies are the perfect addition to your holiday goodie table! With very simple low carb ingredients, made without flour or grains or nuts or sugar!

It was a difficult task, but I'm always up for a challenge around Christmas time, and this delicious recipe challenged me for sure!

When you see many low-carb recipes almost always the main ingredient contains almond flour.

As a mom who wants to keep to a low carb lifestyle and reduce the grains for her children as well, when one child has a tree nut allergy, as my youngest does, everything is just a little bit harder to make grain free.

My substitute of choice for making many keto recipes nut free, has been to use sunflower seeds as a replacement for almond flour.

It tends to work somewhat the same, but because of the chlorophyll in the sunflower seeds, if you use baking soda, you will end up with a green tint to most anything you bake. I avoid the baking soda and use baking powder and have had great success.

Sunflower seed flour is also a great option of you are wanting to reduce oxalates which is high in almonds.

Carbs in Traditional Gingerbread Cookies

According to the app Cronometer, one gingerbread cookie from a bakery with about 15 grams in weight has 10.4 grams of total carbs per cookie.

Now if you eat one maybe that wouldn't spike your blood sugar but more than one cookie would definitely kick you out of ketosis if you're on a keto diet and possibly cause some cravings too.

Instead make our ginger cookies with just 4 grams total carbs per cookie or 3 g net carbs. All the nutritional information is located in the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

I've been wanting to make gingerbread men Christmas cookies for a long time but just finally got around to them over the last week or so when I had some time to experiment.

I think the biggest reason I thought I couldn't make these sugar free was because to make them authentic traditional gingerbread cookies, I needed to use molasses and I was reluctant for years, but finally decided a little is necessary in order to get that nice brownish color and brown sugar flavor.

If you're really opposed to using molasses, try yacon syrup which is similar.

It's such a small amount and with the 24 cookies this recipe makes, my nutritional data came up with no trace of sugar in these low carb cookies.

I let my kids add the eyes and buttons to the gingerbread men because I didn't feel like making sugar free buttercream frosting again and we had all ready made frosted keto sugar cookies and needed something different for our cookie tray.

They are quite delicate so watch out if you do decide to frost them because the little legs may break easily.

But with delicateness comes a tender and perfect texture for low carb gingerbread cookies. By far this is my families favorite holiday cookies yet! Even the picky hubby was impressed!

Can I swap the sunflower seeds?

Because of my youngest sons tree nut allergy I will not use almond flour often.

I have not made this recipe with almond flour, but I do believe it would work well as a substitute for the sunflower seed meal. Please let me know if you try it.

I've often just ground unsalted raw sunflower seeds in my food processor for many of the keto cookie recipes I've made so far, but have found buying it all ready ground is even better and easier too! I've purchased it on Amazon here.

You can still just grind sunflower seeds, but if you overground you can end up making it into sunbutter like the texture of peanut butter so try to just pulse the seeds until they are as fine as you can get them without over processing.

Can I change the low carb sweeteners?

My original recipe used brown Swerve with erythritol. But since erythritol is in recent studies with claims some people may of blood clots, I know many of you are avoiding it.

I typically stay away from using sugar alcohols and like to combine liquid sweeteners with granulated or powdered sweetener to help alleviate any aftertaste.

I decided to use monk fruit sweetener with allulose brown sweetener, just a small amount in the entire recipe and cinnamon stevia.

If you don't have the cinnamon stevia, you could use plain liquid stevia or toffee flavor or vanilla flavored stevia would work nicely too. You could also use liquid monk fruit sweetener instead.

Do I have to make gingerbread men shapes?

No if you don't have a cookie cutter in the shape of a gingerbread man, you can just make smaller cookies that are round in shape. You will probably get 36 cookies instead of 24 gingerbread men.

More Gingerbread Keto Recipes

Crisp Keto Ginger Snaps

Keto Starbucks Copycat Gingerbread Loaf

Keto Gingerbread Linzer Cookies

Keto Gingerbread Pancakes

Sugar Free Low Carb Keto Soft Gingerbread Cookies

Print Recipe Pin Recipe Rate this Recipe

3.75 from 4 votes

Sugar Free Grain Free Soft Gingerbread Cookies

Prep Time30

Cook Time12

Total Time42

Servings: cookies

Calories: 126kcal

Author: Brenda Bennett | Sugar-Free Mom

Ingredients

½ cup butter softened or coconut oil
2 eggs room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon liquid stevia
¼ cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses or yacon syrup
2 cups sunflower seeds ground, or fine almond flour
½ cup coconut flour
¼ cup Monk fruit allulose brown sweetener (brown sugar substitute)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon xanthan gum
optional: chocolate chips for decoration

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place the first 6 ingredients into a stand mixer or large bowl with an electric hand mixer and blend on high until incorporated.
Whisk the rest of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
Slowly pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in the stand mixer.
Blend until combined. The cookie dough will be sticky so place dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Flour surface of counter with gluten free flour and your hands with flour then pat down dough or use a rolling pin until it's ½ inch in thickness.
Use cookie cut outs for gingerbread men and place on a silpat lined cookie sheet or parchment lined large baking sheet pan in a single layer. You will need two pans for the 24 low-carb cookies.
Add chocolate chip eyes and buttons if desired.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing gently from pan to cooling rack.
Makes 2 dozen keto gingerbread cookies.
Storage: Place in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Notes

3 grams of net carbs per cookie

This recipe was first published in December 2014!

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @sugarfreemom and tag #sugarfreemom, I'd love to see your dish!

About Brenda

Brenda Bennett is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, certified Sugar Detox Coach, certified Keto Coach and certified Life Coach. She has been Sugar Free & Refined carb free for 17 years and has written 2 cookbooks, Sugar-Free Mom, and Naturally Keto and her 3rd book The 30-Day Sugar Elimination Diet, is a four part program to help you detox from sugar, eliminate cravings, balance blood sugar and lose weight all while eating a delicious, nutrient dense whole foods. Meal plan offers two tracks to follow, low carb or keto. She is the founder of the Sugar Free Fresh Start course and Sugar Free Tribe weight loss membership. Learn more.

Comments

3.75 from 4 votes (4 ratings without comment)