In the winter months, a rich, chewy molasses cookie can't be beat. This gluten free version envokes all the holiday feels with warm spices and deep molasses flavor.
You'd be hard pressed to find a better molasses cookie recipe, gluten free or not!
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Ingredients needed for chewy gluten free molasses cookies
You won't find any super surprising ingredients for this molasses cookie recipe, but I do have some extra notes about some of them!
Gluten free flour - I've tried a few brands, and my go-to is Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. It worked really well for these cookies! I've also used King Arthur's All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour with success.
For a totally grain-free cookie, you can substitute cassava flour. While the cookies won't spread and crackle quite as nicely, they're still tasty. Just reduce the amount of flour by ¼ cup.
Molasses - Use dark, unsulphured molasses. Skip over blackstrap molasses or light molasses.
I typically reach for an unsulphured version, as well - my go-to brand is Wholesome.
How to make molasses cookies
If you've made cookies before, nothing here is going to surprise you. This gluten free molasses cookie recipe follows the general formula for great cookies!
- Combine the dry ingredients.
- Cream the butter and sugar together.
- Add the rest of the wet ingredients.
- Combine with the dry ingredients.
- Rest the dough.
- Form cookies and bake away!
How to cream butter and sugar
How do you know if your butter and sugar are creamed enough?
Generally, it takes about 2 minutes on high to cream butter and sugar together.
I suggest setting a timer for this, because too often people end up under-blending the butter and sugar during this step.
Creaming the butter and sugar is important to help the butter blend with the rest of the wet ingredients.
Because it's fat-based, butter doesn't blend well with eggs or molasses, which are water-based. Gluten free flours also sometimes struggle to absorb fats. Creaming the butter sets the fats up to better blend and absorb into the dough overall!
For this recipe, I also melted and cooled the butter before creaming. I found this helped the cookies spread versus using room temperature butter for creaming.
Typically, creaming butter and sugar also aerates the two, adding little pockets of air. For these cookies, that resulted in fluffier, cakey cookies rather than chewy cookies.
The melting/cooling step was crucial for getting that chewy texture with crackly tops!
Top tip for gluten free baking: let the dough rest!
I picked this tip up from a gluten free cookbook years ago and I took it to heart.
Since gluten free doughs don't have gluten (of course), the fats have a somewhat harder time integrating than they would with traditional flour.
An easy way to help? Just let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
Many cookie recipes call for this, whether using wheat flour or not, so this shouldn't be a huge surprise, but it's definitely a step you don't want to skip!
Substitutions and alternatives
For grain-free cookies
I had the best results with a gluten free flour blend, but if you'd like to make grain-free molasses cookies, you can use cassava flour instead.
Just cut the amount of flour from 2 cups to 1 ¾ cups.
Note that cassava flour just WILL NOT spread as well as a gluten free flour blend. If you have a way around that, please let me know!
FAQs
My first question: what gluten free flour blend did you use? Unfortunately I can't test ALL gluten free flour blends, so that would be my first guess!
Likewise, if you use cassava flour as suggested as a grain-free alternative above, the cookies simply won't spread as much.
Another possibility is that the butter and sugar weren't creamed enough.
Did you melt and cool the butter before creaming? This step is crucial for a chewy rather than fluffy cookie. Creaming also aerates the butter, creating a fluffy texture for room temp butter. Melting the butter before creaming cuts the aeration before it even begins.
Yes! I've kept baked gluten free ginger molasses cookies in the freezer for at least 4 months, and after a thaw they still taste fantastic.
At this time, I have not tried freezing the dough.
More gluten free cookie recipes to save
- Coconut No Bake Cookies without Oatmeal
- The Best Gluten Free Snickerdoodle Cookies
- SunButter No Bake Cookies
- Easy Gluten Free Sunbutter Chocolate Chip Cookies
📖 Recipe
Chewy Molasses Cookies (Gluten Free)
- Prep Time: 40 minutes (including resting)
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 2 dozen cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baked
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
In the winter months, a rich, chewy molasses cookie can't be beat. This gluten free version envokes all the holiday feels with warm spices and deep molasses flavor.
Ingredients
- 2 cups gluten free flour blend (I used Bob's Red Mill GF 1-to-1 Baking Flour)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon ginger
- 1 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum
- 1 ¾ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup butter (12 tablespoons), melted and cooled in fridge for a few minutes
- ¾ cup cane sugar
- ⅓ cup unsulphured molasses
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg, room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the gluten free flour, cinnamon, ginger, xantham gum, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream the melted and cooled butter and cane sugar on high speed for 1-2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the molasses and mix again until fully incorporated.
- Add the egg and vanilla, mixing on medium speed until pale and fluffy.
- Stir in the dry ingredients. Transfer the bowl to the fridge and let rest for at least 30 minutes.
- Using your hands, form 2 inch balls of dough (approximately 2 tablespoons of dough) and place them about 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. Gently press each ball down to flatten it slightly. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until cookies have spread and are crackly on top. Let the cookies cool for a couple minutes on the baking sheet before removing to a wire rack to cool. Repeat as necessary in batches to use all of the dough.
Notes
For grain-free molasses cookies, use cassava flour - cut the amount of flour from 2 cups to 1 ¾ cups.
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