Gluten-Free Ginger Biscuits
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A good ginger biscuit should be spicy, have a good crunch and survive a good tea dunking. These Gluten-Free Ginger Biscuits pass all those tests with flying colours. They make a wonderful cookie treat, a superb base to your cheesecake and take under 30 minutes to make from start to finish. Made with teff flour for an extra boost of molasses flavour.
Anyone else have a soft spot for a crisp Ginger Nut Biscuit? A wonderful classic biscuit which is laden with earthy spicy flavour and deep caramelised sugar flavour.
These Ginger Biscuits can look a little plain but it belies their rich complex flavour. They are crisp on the outside but also have a slight chew, which is from using almond flour.
You can make these simple little biscuits so quickly and they last a good few days in the biscuit tin - if you can resist. After all they are perfect for tea dunking!!
I recently slightly amended the recipe after receiving lots of helpful feedback from people who tried the recipe and found the high proportion of bicarbonate of soda to give a bitter flavour which upon re-testing I agreed with. Therefore I have decreased the leavening agent so you may find the cracking appearance of the biscuit isn't as pronounced as the photographs. However, the revised recipe you can see in the video below.
Why You’ll Love These Gluten-Free Ginger Biscuits
- Spicy ginger taste – no skimping on the ginger flavour. So many gluten-free ginger cookie recipes can be a little bland – not these ones!
- These little beauties stand up to the dunking test with aplomb and can withhold a good tea dip without dissolving.
- Texture. They are crisp on the outside with a slight chew in the middle. Simply delicious.
- Gluten-free – made with teff flour for an extra boost of molasses flavour.
- They take 30 minutes tops from deciding you might make some gluten-free gingernuts to dunking a freshly made one in your tea.
Watch the Video
Sometimes it helps to see a visual of what I'm talking about. So watch the video to see what it looks like to make your gluten-free ginger biscuits.
Ingredients Needed
Teff Flour. We choose teff flour for these Ginger Biscuits for flavour. Its deep molasses flavour boosts the spicy notes of the ginger. You can use white or brown teff flour.
Almond flour. This flour helps with the structure of our biscuit and gives it a little bit of delicious chew in the middle. You are looking for blanched ground almonds. There is a bit of labelling confusion over almond flour which is sold as ‘ground almonds’ in most major UK supermarkets and found in the baking aisle. If you want to know what exactly you are looking for then check out this post >>>Is Almond Flour The Same As Ground Almonds. You could swap the almond flour for chickpea flour texture and structure wise but I do find this swap a little bitter. Otherwise I don't recommend substituting in this instance.
Butter. We are using unsalted butter which we melt and then cool slightly before using.
Brown sugar. Gives lovely gentle molasses flavour and moisture.
Golden syrup. The flavour this gives the cookies is lovely. It helps them hold together as well.
Bicarbonate of soda. Also known as baking soda, this is a white crystalline powder that is commonly used as a leavening agent in baking. We use 1 teaspoon here which makes the cookies slightly softer in the centre. You can reduce to ½ - ¾ teaspoon for a crisper cookie.
Salt. I like to use kosher salt in my baking as it has a round gentle flavour. Using salt in your baked goods lifts and sharpens all the other flavours.
How to make Gluten-Free Ginger Biscuits
Sift together teff flour, almond flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt and ground ginger in a large mixing bowl.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in melted butter and golden syrup.
Stir together until the mixture has come together into a loose dough.
In the palms of your hands roll the dough into balls.
Place on the baking tray a couple of inches apart and flatten slightly.
Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven then leave on the baking tray for 10 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.
Tips and Troubleshooting
Make sure you add the golden syrup to the melted butter after it has come off the heat so the golden syrup doesn’t melt. The biscuit dough won’t hold together otherwise.
These biscuits are spicy. If you like a more subtle ginger flavour then just use 1 tablespoon ground ginger.
To achieve uniform biscuits weigh out 20g of dough on digital scales before rolling into tight balls and placing on baking tray. You can make larger biscuits if you prefer by weighing out 30g of dough and this will produce 15 biscuits.
I always used my fingers to press down on the cookies to flatten them before baking but after many years of making this recipe I recently realised that pressing them down with the back of a fork is more attractive. In the future I'm sure I will try and re-photograph doing this method but in the meantime give it a try!
When the Ginger Biscuits are out of the oven leave to cool for 10 minutes on the baking tray before moving them to a rack so they have a chance to firm up.
The biscuits keep well in an airtight tin for up to 3 days.
These gluten-free ginger cookies make a brilliant cheesecake base like in this White Chocolate Ginger Cheesecake. Just replace your usual cookie or biscuit with the same amount of Ginger Biscuits.
For an amazingly speedy dessert option crumble a ginger nut biscuit over a bowl of ice cream and a drizzle of maple syrup. Outstanding.
FAQs
They might seem crumbly when you are mixing them together but they will come together, you have to squeeze the dough quite tightly into a firm ball. If they are crumbly or gritty after baking then it could have been the teff flour as some brands are courser than others. Try oat flour or sorghum flour if you are not keen on the texture it provides.
I don't recommend it here as the balance of starches / protein packed flours and wholegrains will not be enough to create stability in this biscuit as we are not using any extra binders. The almond flour is vital here. However, you could swap just the teff flour for a store-cupboard gluten-free flour - it won't carry the same molasses teff flavour but the recipe would work.
Honestly this recipe doesn't really produce biscuits that spread too much. Maybe you used too much melted butter or a different flour.
Recipe Variations
For even more ginger flavour then you can add a little bit of chopped crystallised ginger to the cookies.
They can look a little plain on your biscuit tray, feel free to jazz them up with a little icing sugar glaze. (a lemon glaze is fantastic and a chocolate glaze is luxurious).
More ginger recipes you'll love
Homemade Stem Ginger in Syrup
Homemade Crystallised Ginger
Lemon Iced Stem Ginger Parkin
White Chocolate Ginger Cheesecake
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Gluten-Free Ginger Biscuits
Ingredients
- 100 g teff flour
- 100 g almond flour
- 80 g soft light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 11/2 tablespoons ground ginger
- 100 g unsalted butter - melted
- 60 g golden syrup
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 190°C / 170°C fan assisted /gas mark 5 / 375°F and line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper.
- Sift together the teff flour, almond flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, salt and ground ginger in a large mixing bowl.
- Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the melted butter and golden syrup.
- Stir together until a soft dough has formed.
- In the palms of your hands roll up balls of dough, at 20g each.
- Place the balls on the baking tray a couple of inches apart and flatten slightly with your fingers.
- Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and leave them to set for about 10 minutes on the baking tray before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Video
Notes
- Flours. You can swap the teff flour for sorghum flour or oat flour. I don't recommend swapping the almond flour as it's vital for texture and structure.
- Make sure you add the golden syrup to the melted butter after it has come off the heat so the golden syrup doesn’t melt. The biscuit dough won’t hold together otherwise.
- To achieve uniform biscuits weigh out 20g of dough on digital scales before rolling into tight balls and placing on baking tray.
- When the Ginger Nuts are out of the oven leave to cool for 10 minutes on the baking tray before moving them to a rack so they have a chance to firm up.
- The biscuits keep well in an airtight tin for up to 3 days.
I noticed when reducing the bicarbonate of soda, you also deleted the baking powder in the recipe.
I reduced the bicarbonate of soda and removed the baking powder.
I questioned the high baking soda and baking powder ratios compared to the flour ratios but went ahead and followed the recipe as it was written. I found this recipe to be very off-tasting: salty and bitter. I made a complete different GF recipe as a comparison and will definitely not be using this one again. That one was less gingery than I would have liked but very tasty otherwise and I didn't grimace every time I tasted one of the cookies like I did with this recipe.
Thank you - this is excellent feedback (even though you were harsh - ouch!!) but after re-testing this recipe I agree that it had too much leavening agent in it. I have now amended the recipe. I removed the baking powder entirely as it was unnecessary and reduced the bicarbonate of soda to give a lovely texture but so that it doesn't contribute to any bitterness. I am happy with the salt content of it - so I guess that is a personal preference.
Absolutely delicious! Really crisp and lovely ginger taste. They were so quick to make that I can see these becoming my go-to biscuit recipe. Great to have another teff recipe too.
I'm so happy you enjoyed these biscuits- thank you for leaving your feedback.
I loved these! I was thrilled with the amount of ginger. And the crunchy texture was great. Being in the USA, finding Golden Syrup is not easy. I used Cane Syrup instead. I believe these will become a staple around my house.
That's great to hear - I'm happy you enjoyed them!
Is there an alternative for teff flour?
Yes - you could use oat flour, sorghum flour or buckwheat flour. Let me know which you try.
These cookies were yummy- loved the teff almond combo. I think next time I’ll reduce the ginger to 1 Tbs. While I was ok with the amount of ginger, it was too spicy for others.
Im at high altitude and so I reduced the baking soda to 1.5 tsp, which worked great.
I'm so happy you enjoyed the biscuits!!
I don’t have a very sweet tooth. I find these biscuits awesome but can reduce the sugar without affecting the chewy texture?
You can absolutely try reducing the sugar. I haven't tried it for this recipe but you should be able to remove about 20% without affecting the texture/structure.
AHMAGAD... it's all I can do not to stuff my gob with the entire batch in one go. I will definitely be adding Buderim ginger baking bits next time too.
I'm so happy you enjoyed the recipe - so hard to resist a tray of homemade biscuits!!!
These are just like McVitie's ginger nuts and utterly delicious. Great level of spice. Served some up at the end of a dinner last week and people loved them - and took some home!
I'm so happy you enjoyed them - thank you for leaving lovely feedback!
A great flavour. I used oat flour instead of teff and it seemed to work fine. Next time I think need to allow more space between the biscuits when I bake them as they merged into one!
Hi Chandra - I'm so happy you liked the recipe - thank you for your feedback!
I love this recipe and so appreciate you using Teff my most current favorite flour. I will try to substitute the corn syrup for honey and hope for good results too Thanks for making it easy to act in solidarity for a celiac grandchild, I am making the fruit cake today too!!
Such a pleasure - thank you!!
I ‘think’ I absentmindedly used oat flour instead of almond and got gorgeous cookies. I’ve made these several times now and love the full amount of ginger although my small granddaughter says they are too spicy. So good!
Well whatever flour you used it seemed to work!! Thank you for your lovely feedback!
These are great. But I reduced the leavening to just one teaspoon of baking soda. It didn’t seem like it needed all you listed. I accept I may be wrong, but these are good! I’ll put a pic on the Pinterest post.
Also, I reduced the ginger to one tablespoon because my little granddaughter was helping. Next time I won’t. The full amount would be awesome.
Thank you for your feedback Debbie - I'm happy you liked the recipe!!
These are even better next day. I think they will be my go to cookie. Thank you!