Beth’s Mini Gingerbread Men

a quinoa based mini version of the classic ginger cut-out

If you eat normal, you may mistake these gluten-free gingerbread men as holiday dog biscuits, because they kind of look like those natural, homemade dog treats you see at the local farmer’s market. But they’re not. The canine biscuit look comes from the color of molasses and the texture of ground flax seeds.

These gluten-free, dairy-free gingerbread men are named after my friend Beth. Beth is the one who celebrated my 13th day of being archerfriendly by giving me a modified birthday card for the occasion. Beth and I both started eating archerfriendly around the same time, although our diets are different now. She behaved a lot better when it came to the holidays. She stuck to her diet. I didn’t. I always thought she was an archerfriendly rockstar for eating so well, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. She saw a radical improvement in her health from her new diet. Eating well changed her life.

I love remembering this. Eating well has changed my life too, but sometimes I run out of fervor for eating so healthy. Sometimes I just want to, well, eat junk (especially the hot java fru-fru drinks from you know who).

Anyways, these mini gingerbread men are super easy. I whipped up a batch of them before church this past Sunday, and that’s saying a lot. Because they are only made with quinoa flour and ground flax seeds, they are really quick to throw together. I’m used to gluten-free baking taking forever due to the gazillions of flours I use for one recipe. Not these puppies (oh, am I still thinking about the dog biscuits?).

Just in case you’re a normalfriendly eater person, you may like these too. We had our normalfriendly neighbors over last night, and they really enjoyed them. The quinoa flavor jives really well with the spicy ginger and earthy molasses.

Beth’s Mini Gingerbread Men are adapted from Beth’s mom’s recipe for bethfriendly ginger snaps, so they are lovingly named after her.

Beth’s Mini Gingerbread Men

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

1 1/4 cup quinoa flour

3 Tablespoons ground flax seeds

1 tsp ginger

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp stevia

Wet Ingredients

1/2 cup organic virgin coconut oil

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Makes about 40

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preheat oven to 360°F.

Thoroughly mix dry ingredients together, ensuring there are no lumpies.

First blend coconut oil and molasses together. Then add the egg and vanilla.

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix together.

On top of a flat surface covered with parchment paper, press the dough with your hands until it is ~ 1/4 inch thick. You may want to rub your hands with some coconut oil before pressing the dough. The dough is sticky.

Cut out your mini gingerbread men with a cookie cutter. Use a spatula to transfer them to the baking sheet. If the room temperature is high, you may need to transfer the dough to the freezer for a few minutes to make it easier to press and cut the cookies. A high room temperature may make your dough too soft and it will be difficult to cut your little men.

Bake for 10-11 minutes or until done.