What’s a snickerdoodle? Think of a rich buttery cookie rolled in cinnamon sugar…Now make it Vegan and Gluten Free!
Sound too good to be true?
If I weren’t eating one right now, I would agree with you. But these cookies are as good as they look!
How is it possible to make a rich buttery cookie without butter, eggs, gluten, grain, almond, or cashew?
This Is Break A Recipe and that is what we do here! We make delicious allergen friendly foods that taste like the traditional version…
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What makes these Snickerdoodles healthy? They’re loaded with legumes (don’t worry you won’t taste them), coconut oil (medium chain triglycerides/ MCT), and they use beet sugar, which is less inflammatory than cane sugar. They are also free of gluten, grain, dairy, egg, soy, corn, almond, and cashew. They truly are the healthiest Snickerdoodles you’ll ever find! No one will ever guess they aren’t made with traditional ingredients.
Welcome To Break A Recipe!
My name is Nina, I’m a food nerd who cooks without grains, dairy, egg, soy, corn, almond, and other foods. Having food allergies has inspired me to create delicious recipes free of the top allergens and share them with you!
Everyone deserves safe and delicious foods…Not one or the other, BOTH!
People always ask how I can cook and bake without grains, dairy, egg, soy, or, corn. I tell them my secret ingredient is Unicorn Farts…
They laugh and then we can talk about how we can use alternative ingredients to enjoy traditional foods safely!
Take a look at my instagram to see what I’ve been cooking lately. No grain, gluten, dairy, egg, soy, corn, cashew, or almond in anything! Are you hungry? Me too. Let’s get cooking!
Thank you so much for stopping by to check out this recipe for Healthy Snickerdoodles! If you are a first time visitor, I’m so excited for you to try this recipe. If you are a returning reader, newsletter subscriber, or recipe tester, thank you so much for following! I appreciate your questions and feedback on recipes each week. You help me level up my cooking game and Break New Recipes!
Now Let’s Get Back To The Healthiest Snickerdoodles Ever!
How are we going to make cookies without gluten or grain, easy…we’ll use my grain free flour blend! It’s so easy to make. Once you blend it up, you bake like normal…No using 17 different ingredients or a different flour for every recipe. This is the ONE blend I use in all my baking. Cookies, breads, cakes, pie crust, you name it. This is the blend I use.
Using this delicious blend of flour has saved me so much time and money over the years! It uses chickpea flour, taipioca flour, and coconut flour, to mimic white flour. I blend up 5 pounds at a time, and then I just cook…no worrying if I’m out of this or that…or if I have to go to a particular store where I can get that one unique flour for one recipe I’ve been dieing to try.
I have great success Breaking Cookie Recipes with my grain free flour blend. If you’re looking for a great chocolate chip cookie recipe that’s free of gluten, grain, dairy, egg, soy, corn, sesame, cashew, and almond, I have a recipe that is irresistable! The gluten lovers always go for seconds and thirds on these cookies. Click here for the recipe.
We’ve talked about the flour we’ll use to bake our Snickerdoodles, now let’s get to the rest of our ingredients. Like most cookies, our Snickerdoodles will use fat—for a healthier cookie you can use organic coconut oil. For a cookie that tastes more like it was made with butter, use refined coconut oil.
Most cookies use eggs, but our Snickerdoodles will be egg free! Even without Unicorn Farts, we can do this! We’ll use chickpea flour and coconut milk to take the place of eggs.
Another cool thing about using coconut milk and chickpea flour to take the place of eggs is the cookie batter looks exactly like traditional cookie batter! The chickpea flour gives the recipe a coloring as if it were made with eggs, and the cold coconut milk causes the coconut oil to cool rapidly, forming small clumps in the batter. It looks almost exactly like we’ve made it with eggs and butter!
Of course we’ll use sugar in our recipe. Sugar can be inflammatory, so we have to be creative…beet sugar is a great replacement for cane sugar and less inflammatory than cane sugar. Feel free to Break The Recipe and use the sweetner that you feel is safe for you.
If you’ve ever baked something gluten-free, then you know we need a binder. I haven’t had good luck with psyllium at all! Click here to see what happened when I tried to bake with psyllium. I prefer to use an allergen friendly Xanthan gum, which is free of wheat, gluten, corn, soy, and dairy. It’s made from cabbage and I can use it safely with no reaction. It’s the closest I’m ever going to get to Unicorn Farts.
And we’ll need some cinnamon to roll the cookies in. Can I tell you a secret? I don’t use cinnamon…I Break The Recipe and use Pumpkin Spice!
Are you ready to Break a Recipe? Let’s Go Shopping!
Ingredients
- Coconut Oil (melted)
- White Sugar (I use organic beet sugar)
- Chickpea Flour
- Coconut Milk
- Grain-free flour blend.
- Xanthan Gum
- Salt
- Cream of Tartar
- Baking Soda
- Cinnamon/Pumpkin Spice
Equipment
- Electric mixer or stand mixer
- Mixing bowl
- Baking Stone or Cookie Sheet
- Dry Measuring Cup
- Liquid Measuuring Cups
- Adjustable measuring spoons
- Cookie Scoop
- small glass bowl
These ingredients and equipment are what I use in my own kitchen. As an amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase anything through an affiliate link, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping to “keep the lights on,” here at Break A Recipe.
Enough With the Words, Let’s Break A Recipe!
Snickerdoodles (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Allergen Friendly)
Equipment
- Electric mixer or stand mixer
- Mixing bowl
- Baking Stone or Cookie Sheet
- Dry Measuring Cup
- Liquid Measuuring Cups
- Adjustable measuring spoons
- Cookie Scoop
- small glass bowl
Ingredients
Cookie Dough
- 1 Cup Coconut Oil (melted)
- 1½ Cup White Sugar (I use organic beet sugar)
- ½ Cup Chickpea Flour
- ⅔ Cup Coconut Milk
- 2 ¾ Cups Grain-free flour blend. See recipe notes for link.
- 1 ¾ teaspoon Xanthan Gum
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 2 ½ teaspoon Cream of Tartar
- 1 ¼ teaspoon Baking Soda
Coating
- ¼ Cup White Sugar (I use beet sugar)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon or pumpkin spice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°
- In a large mixing bowl, mix melted coconut oil, sugar, and chickpea flour on low speed.
- When thoroughly mixed, add coconut milk and blend until thoroughly mixed. The mixture will cool and resemble "creamed" sugar, eggs, and butter.
- Gradually add grain free flour, ½ cup at a time. Mixing on medium after each addition.
- When all flour is thoroughly mixed, sprinkle salt and xanthan gum over the top of cookie dough. Mix on medium speed for one minute.
- Sprinkle baking soda and cream of tartar on top of dough. Mix on medium for one minute.
- Grease a cooking sheet or baking stone and set aside. Mix white sugar and cinnamon or pumpkin spice in a small glass bowl.
- Use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop to measure dough into small balls. Roll each ball in sugar coating.
- Place on cookie sheet 1 ½ inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes.
Notes
This is the Grain-Free Flour Blend I Use!
Grain Free Flour Blend
Equipment
- Mixing bowl
- Container for storing extra flour
Ingredients
- 2 cups tapioca flour
- 2 cups chickpea flour
- 1 cup coconut flour
Instructions
- Add tapioca flour, chickpea flour, and coconut flour to a mixing bowl. Using a large spoon, stir ingredients until well mixed.
Notes
Let’s See It Happen
It Really Is That Easy!
Talking About Tecnique—Rolling Cookies In Sugar & Cinnamon/Pumpkin Spice
To make these delicious snickerdoodles, we will need to scoop 1 tablespoon of dough and then roll it in cinnamon / pumpkin spice and sugar.
Why do we do this?
Rolling the cookies in cinnamon or pumpkin spice places the flavor on the outside of the cookie instead of distributing it throughout the cookie evenly. If we were to blend the cinnamon into the cookie evenly we would loose the sharp flavor. Rolling the cookie in cinnamon sugar creates a contrast of butter and bold cinnamon. Each bite brings a contrast of buttery cookie and sharp cinnamon to our tastebuds!
Isn’t it amazing what a simple technique like this can do?
But that’s not the only reason!
Cinnamon is an excellent spice, but chemically it doesn’t always play nicely with other ingredients! It can take the rise out of baked goods. If you’ve ever wondered why cinnamon breads and rolls use the rolling technique, now you know! When I’ve tried to use cinnamon in custard, it actually caused the custard to crumble into curds!
By keeping the cinnamon on the outside of the cookie we get the delicious flavor of it without jeopardizing the texture of the cookie or the rise.
Tips & Tricks…
It’s better to have dough that’s a little chilly than dough that’s too warm. Here’s what happened when I left the dough out on a warm day…Regular old cookies and no trademark snickerdoodle crack! The cookies will still be delicious. The temperature of the dough affects the way the cookies bake. Told you, I break lots of rules in the kitchen. But each time I do, I learn!
Let’s Take A Closer Look At Our Ingredients
White Sugar (beet sugar or cane sugar)– Of these two, beet sugar is less inflammatory than cane sugar. If you are concerned about inflammation, I would go with beet sugar. It’s what I use when I cook and bake. If you have a safe 1:1 substitute for sugar, feel free to try it. If you use coconut sugar in this recipe, your snickerdoodles will have a caramel flavor and not a Buttery flavor. Another delicious way to Break A Recipe!
Refined coconut oil —The more ingredients a recipe has, the greater potential it contains allergen. Since we are using coconut milk and coconut flour in our Grain-Free Flour Blend, we’ll use refined coconut oil as our fat. One of the great things about using refined coconut oil, is it doesn’t taste like coconut. For healthiest option use Organic Coconut oil, (your cookies will have a slight coconut flavor.)
Grain-Free Flour Blend, This takes the place of white flour in our bread. We blend it from three main ingredients: chickpea flour; tapioca flour; & coconut flour. While all the flours are gluten-free, chickpea gives us protein, tapioca gives us starch, and coconut gives us fiber. This and a little xanathan gum and we can create breads, cookies, and cakes which just look and taste like the real thing!
Chickpea Flour–Oh marvelous chickpea flour, it has so many uses. In this recipe it adds protein to our grain-free flour blend, and it takes the place of egg. Most doctors encourage their patients to consume more legumes if it is safe to do so. Baking with chickpea flour is a great way to do this!
Xanthan Gum–The closest I’ll ever get to baking with unicorn farts, xanthan gum makes the magic happen! It thickens, it emulsifies, it foams. It creates structure and allows the CO2 pockets created by the baking soda and cream of tartar after the cookies are removed from the oven.
The most frequently asked question about xanthan gum is—“Does it contain: dairy, soy, wheat, or corn?” These are the most common ingredients uses in creating xanthan gum. So people are right to ask. But I have found Authentic Foods Xanthan Gum, a brand that is free of all these allergens! It’s made from cabbage. I haven’t had anyone tell me they dislike it. It’s high quality, allergen friendly, and it gets the job done!
Salt— Known for brining out flavors, salt is an essential nutrient we need in moderation. If you are concerned about salt intake, take the salt shaker off the table, and salt your recipes in the kitchen.
Baking Soda–what would a kitchen be without baking soda? Make sure to have a separate box or jar for the fridge and another for baking. We use baking soda to give the “lift” an egg would give these little loaves.
Cream of Tartar—
Another leavening agent, this recipe uses cream of tartar to in combination with baking soda and chickpea flour to replicate eggs.
Coconut milk –I like using the coconut milk in the carton when a recipe calls for “milk”. My favorite brand is So Delicious. Coconut is my duct tape, I can make almost anything with it. Any time a recipe calls for “milk” this is what I use. When a recipe calls for whole milk, I’ll use the full fat coconut milk in the can, and when a recipe calls for cream, I’ll go with canned coconut cream.
Cinnamon/Pumpkin Spice– Our Snickerdoodles are traditionally made with cinnamon. Here at Break A Recipe, we not going to let that stop us. I make mine with pumpkin spice because I love the depth of the flavor that it adds. The ginger and nutmeg balance the bold flavor of the cinnamon and add depth. We New Englanders have the right to use Pumpkin Spice year round, and we do!
You might have heard me say “Recipes Are Meant To Be Broken” –I truly believe that the best recipe is the one you can enjoy safely with your family. I would love for you to tell me how you’d like to break this one! Will you add vanilla extract? Make it with vegan butter, with coconut sugar? Or something else? Comment on this post or email me at breakarecipe@gmail.com and tell me about it.
Before You Go…
Thank you for reading, for trying this recipe, and for taking a chance on a recipe made with unique ingredients!
You’ll find it’s easy to make, and your body will feel much better after eating it. You will find your gluten-and grain loving friends going for seconds!
If you’re cooking this for someone with allergies, thank you again for supporting them. You’re an amazing friend. Pin this recipe so you can share it with those who need it, and find it later!
Please tell me how your recipe turned out when you make it. Click here to reach me directly. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest using the links below. I really enjoy your feedback and comments. I can’t wait to hear how your recipe turned out!
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I recently became gluten free and was so disappointed I would not have cookies for the holidays until I found this recipe! My whole family enjoyed them and they were gone in seconds! I highly recommend making this recipe!