Dairy-free Spicy Ginger Cookies

These cookies are chewy and sweet while also having a nice spicy kick from the ginger! They are dairy-free and made with healthier spelt flour. They will have you coming back for more!

Ginger is one of my husband's favorite ingredients. He loves ginger-flavored drinks like ginger beer and ginger ale (or the more alcoholic versions like ginger liqueur). And we both love ginger in curries or soups and baked goods. However, ginger-flavored things are not easy to find here in Germany. If you're lucky, you can find ginger syrup or even ginger juice. And of course ginger ale. But that's kind of it.

Unfortunately for my husband, you cannot get ginger nuts or other kinds of ginger cookies here! Which – next to lemon cookies – are his favorite type of cookies. So I have been making ginger cookies on and off for him but this time I made a point to write down the ingredients. And I swapped the butter I used before for coconut oil so, while not vegan because the recipe contains eggs, at least they're dairy free. You could always experiment with using flax "eggs" instead of eggs of course. Let me know how they turn out if you do!

I have made several batches of these delightful ginger cookies in the past few weeks because they are truly delicious. I have to store them in a cookie jar out of sight or we will constantly go back and snack on a cookie. Out of sight, out of mind. Well, sort of.

These cookies contain two kinds of sweetener. Brown sugar and molasses. But you really need the sweeteners to counteract the spicy kick of the ginger. It creates a perfect balance! Other than that, I opted for a healthier flour, namely spelt flour. While spelt flour has similar nutritional values than wheat flour, it is at least a bit higher in protein. It also contains several essential nutrients, such as iron, magnesium, and zinc.

Now, we like our ginger cookies spicy in this house. You wanna be able to taste the ginger – otherwise, what's the point of a ginger cookie? Hence the five (yes, five) teaspoons of ground ginger I added to the dough. However, if you prefer them to be a bit less spicy, just use four teaspoons instead.

The cookie dough comes together really fast. First, you need to cream coconut oil, molasses and brown sugar. It's really important that your coconut oil is not liquid but in that creamy, not quite solid state. Sort of like softened butter. If the weather is hot where you are, just pop the coconut oil in the fridge for a while before making the dough. After those ingredients are creamed together nicely, you add the eggs and mix all.

Then you mix all your dry ingredients together and add them to the wet ingredients. And you have your dough!

When you bake these cookies, it's also really important to flatten them with a fork or another kitchen utensil half-way through the baking time. I like using a fork because I love the pattern it creates. Sort of a rugged cookie look.

Oh, and I just love using my David Burke no-stick cookie sheet for these! You don't need to bother with parchment paper or anything and I promise you, they don't stick at all.

Will you bake these delicious cookies soon? Or how about my Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies?