Coconut flour cookies: egg/grain/dairy free
Ginger, fennel and black pepper…Doesn’t that sound so chic? Now, I’m not really one for fancy-schmancy, nine-words-long desserts. But although these cookies both look and taste utterly posh, they have humble ingredients and a no-nonsense preparation. Just throw everything in a bowl, mix up, bake and enjoy.
These coconut flour cookies are essentially three ingredients, not counting the three spices that add deep flavor. You can add one or all of the spices. The black pepper sounds like a crazy ingredient in cookies, but it complements the spicy ginger and sweet fennel.
The Ginger Secret!
Have you heard my super awesome ginger secret before? I shared it on my recipe for 3 Ingredient Ginger Strawberry Sorbet.
If you love the taste of fresh ginger, here’s how to preserve it’s lovely flavor indefinitely. Plus, it is the simplest way to chop it! Buy a bunch of ginger, peel it, and stick the bag of ginger knobs in the freezer. When you need fresh ginger, whip out your microplane grater and a knob of frozen ginger and grate away. The ginger will grate cleanly, without that stringy mess that results when you grate room temperature ginger.
Coconut flour cookies without eggs
These coconut flour cookies are egg free, which is quite a feat for coconut flour baked goods. The cookies are also nut free.This may not be a big deal to you, but it is so me! It’s not so difficult to create a good egg free cookie with almond flour… but I have some *ahem* serious issues with almond flour. Like… it’s not really the health food that people make it out to be. Be sure to read my post 5 Reasons to Avoid Almond Flour if you haven’t already.
Anyways, it is quite a challenge to create coconut flour cookies without eggs, since this grain free flour nearly always requires eggs for binding. Here, I’ve created thin and crispy cookies that hold together without eggs. But be sure to measure carefully and let the cookies cool completely before removing them from the baking sheet or they will crumble.
- 6 Tbs. coconut flour
- 4 Tbs. coconut oil or butter (preferably butter), at room temperature
- 2 Tbs. raw honey (or substitute maple syrup)
- ½ tsp. fresh ginger, grated
- ¼ tsp. whole fennel seeds
- A few grinds of black pepper
- Alternatively: Omit the spices completely and/or add 1 tsp. of vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 360 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Stir together all ingredients until a smooth dough forms. If using coconut oil, you may need to place the dough in the fridge for a few minutes and then re-stir to help combine the oil and flour.
- Roll dough into balls and place on the prepared sheet. Flatten the balls into cookies that are about ⅛ inch thick.
- Bake until golden, about 9 minutes. Watch closely during the last couple of minutes to prevent overbrowning. Cool on the baking sheet completely before removing the cookies (or they will crumble).
- Store cooled cookies in the freezer. Cookies will be crunchier if eaten straight from the freezer or softer if eaten at room temperature… I like them best from the freezer!
Are you a fan of fennel seeds? Do you have any favorite fancy-schmancy sounding desserts?
Your recipe says “coconut oil or butter”. Do you refer to dairy butter? Wondering, as the recipe says dairy free, then recommends butter. Or is this some other kind of butter?
Can this be considered autoimmune paleo? I want to make these!
Can I substitute Stevia for the honey? If so, what is the conversion? Also should the coconut oil be melted? Thank you!
I just made your recipe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s sooooooooooooooooooooooo delicious! I love it! I think I’ll make many more and freeze for futre easy access!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love, love, love this recipe! THANK YOU!!!
Hello! I tried the recipe with ginger, vanilla and maple syrup. My cookies turned out very dry… have you encountered this? I’m wondering if it’s just the nature of the coconut flour or if honey would have made them less dry. Any ideas? Thanks 🙂
My child loves coconut but he is allergic to fennel. So that the whole fennel seeds ingredient in this recipe can be replaced by anise, can’t it? Will it have any problem with the flavor?
Hey Lisa! Don’t know if you’re still wondering about it, but I can tell you that the flavor was not badly changed for me when I made these without fennel seeds. I didn’t even sub the anise, but that sounds like a great idea to me!
She stated that you could omit any of the three seasonings if you want. But I bet anise would be lovely in these!
These are fab! I didn’t have fresh ginger so I used a heaping 1/2 teaspoon dried… and used about 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds and a bit of extra pepper, since I love spice. Soooo yummy and melt in your mouth good! Thank you for this wonderful and easy egg-free recipe! ❤️
I just made these for my daughter as she just started excluding wheat and eggs. She was craving a ‘treat’ and was getting depressed that everything out there had ingredients she couldn’t eat. I found this for her and tried it out…..they were amazing!!! Very simple to make and taste great (I added a sprinkle of cardamom). They do crumble if taken off the pan warm (we read the warnings but couldn’t resist tasting) however once cool were easy to handle. We also tried one frozen….still delicious. Thanks so much for posting a cookie recipe that is both wheat and egg free.
I make these cookies all the time, usually with honey. I just made them with maple syrup for the first time, because I ran out of honey. Also, for the first time, I rolled them in coconut palm sugar before pressing them flat. Also, I used Nutiva coconut flour, and I didn’t use ginger or pepper. Insteady, vanilla and ground fresh-roasted anise seed. Anyway, they were the absolute best so far. Really gorgeous, and the margins had this puffy crispy quality. So thank you, and yay!
I’m really missing something. I doubled the recipe since it seemed small, didn’t even add all the coconut oil and its still SUPER wet. Plus, how does 6 tbl of coconut flour make 10 cookies? Are they dime sized? I’m lost!