This easy recipe can be done two ways to yield either delicious vegan and gluten-free ginger snaps, or vegan, gluten-free hermit cookies. In case you’re not familiar with hermits, they are a sweet, spicey, raisin-studded cookie or bar that was popular in (and probably originated in) New England. Of course, they were neither vegan nor gluten-free, as are ours.
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As Bon Appetit notes in a fairly extensive history of the hermit cookie, “From Maine to Massachusetts, the hermit was a favorite offering in pantries and bakeshops by the early 20th centuries. Fannie Farmer included a hermit with mace, cloves, raisins, and cinnamon in her cookbooks, but the cookie became a staple in recipe collections published by community groups.”
According to Bon Appetit, food historian Paula Marcoux believes “that the hermit cookie may be a descendant of various spice cookies or desserts, including a late 19th-century tea biscuit called a common rusk, which is made with spices and cooked to a satisfying crisp. At first, the name ‘rusk’ didn’t ring any bells with me because a ‘rusk’ seemed like a biscotti. However, like a hermit, it can be made with sweet or sour milk. And it has cloves or nutmeg. It’s chewy and pleasantly sweet, and it has raisins,” all characteristics of the hermit.”
Regardless of its origin, hermit cookies are delicious and hearty!
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The ginger snap, according to the South Florida Reporter, may have originated as far back as the early 1200s! Says the Reporter, “It is believed that gingersnap cookies originated in Germany during the early 13th century, and were first produced by medieval monks. It is also said that the previous version of these gingersnaps has been called Lebkuchen, which is the German version of gingerbread cookies for Christmas. Records of baking gingersnaps in 1296 in Ulm and 1395 in Nuremberg were the earliest written records for them.”
What’s so incredible about these cookies, besides everything, is that there is no refined sugar in them, not even raw sugar. The sweeteners are molasses and maple syrup!
Whichever version you choose to make (ginger snap or hermit), they’re sure to be a hit! Good thing that they’re so fast and easy to make!
Easy and Delicious Gluten-Free Vegan Ginger Snaps and Hermit Cookies
Ingredients
For Ginger Snaps
1 1/2 cups almond flour (we use the almond flour from Costco)
2 – 3 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 Tablespoons coconut oil, melted (the solid kind, but melted, we get ours from Costco)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 Tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (“acv”)
For Hermits
To make hermits, to the above ingredients add:
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice or cloves
1/2 cup raisins
And decrease the ginger by one teaspoon
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl using a whisk or, ideally, a dough whisk, until thoroughly blended.
Mix in all of the liquid ingredients, adding the apple cider vinegar last, along with the raisins if you are making hermits.
Using a 2-Tablespoon cookie dough scoop (which is actually just a 2-Tablespoon ice cream scoop) if you have one, or otherwise a tablespoon, scoop up the dough and turn it out onto the parchment-lined sheet. The cookie dough (ice cream) scoop makes perfectly measured, perfectly shaped cookie dough balls (really domes) for this, and releases them perfectly onto your cookie sheet. Really, if you don’t have one, it’s worth the $7 on Amazon go get one!
Flatten each ball of dough slighly with the palm of your hand.
Put in the oven and bake for 10 or 11 minutes, or until the edges start to brown.
Remove from the oven and then let cool on the baking sheet as they will be very soft at first and need to firm up a bit while cooling. Then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely. We just leave these out on the rack on the counter for grabbing and nibbling. Otherwise store them in a bowl or canister without a lid (or they will soften up again).
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