Meet my favourite holiday cookie of 2014 – the vegan and gluten-free Snickerdoodle! I’ve been testing all kinds of Christmas cookies this year and I decided to pick the best of the bunch and share that recipe with you before the holidays. The humble-looking Snickerdoodle doesn’t get enough respect in my opinion; it’s often overshadowed by spicy gingerbread, decorated sugar cookies, and fancy flavoured shortbread, but I think that needs to end today! My favourite kind of Snickerdoodle is chewy with a crisp edge, craggy/textured/crinkly, and of course, rolled in cinnamon sugar. Oh yea. I can’t get enough of the doughy, cinnamon-y simplicity.
It’s been a goal of mine to make my vegan Snickerdoodle recipe gluten-free. I actually found that I prefer this version over the one with wheat flour that I posted on the blog 4 years ago; there’s just something so flavourful about the nutty, sweet, and buttery combo of oat flour and almond flour that I adore! Whenever you want your cookies to have a lovely chewiness to them (and light buttery flavour), add a bit of almond flour into the mix. A little bit goes a long way though. I made the mistake of making a shortbread cookie entirely out of almond flour and it was way too chewy/tacky (and stuck to the teeth!) – lesson learned. I’ll nail that shortbread recipe some day, but for now…snickerdoodles!
Other exciting things about this recipe:
1) Prep time = 15 minutes, Bake time = 10 minutes
Yes, that means you can be eating these bad boys in under a half hour!! Isn’t that what it’s all about?
2) Snickerdoodles make your house smell amazing. This is the perfect recipe to pop into the oven before guests arrive.
3) For the fat component, I used virgin coconut oil instead of vegan butter. I’m happy to say it worked great and meshed with the flavours so well! Thumbs up for healthier fat swaps.
One last thing. I experimented baking the dough as balls (image left, below) and also flattening with a fork (image right). When I flattened with a fork, the cookies came out quite flat and spread out (as you’ll see in most of the photos), but when I left the dough as balls they had a bit more thickness and lift to them and weren’t as spread out. I think I prefer not flattening them out – plus it saves an extra step too. Just an FYI. You can always try some rolled and some pressed with a fork and see which you prefer!
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Snickerdoodles (vegan + gluten-free)
Yield
10-12 cookies
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Classic Snickerdoodles made vegan and gluten-free! These cookies are crispy around the edge, chewy in the middle, and coated in a cinnamon sugar. I KNOW. For a non-gf version, try my other Snickerdoodle recipe made with whole wheat pastry flour.
Ingredients
Wet ingredients:
- 1/2 tablespoon ground flax seed + 1 1/2 tablespoons water
- 1/3 cup cane sugar (see note)
- 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tablespoon almond milk (optional, see directions)
Dry ingredients:
- 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon gluten-free oat flour*
- 1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons almond flour (not almond meal)
- 1/4 cup sorghum flour
- 2 1/2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
- Pinch of cinnamon
Cinnamon sugar topping:
- 1 tablespoon cane sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl or mug, mix the flax and water to make the flax egg. Set aside.
- In a medium sized bowl stir together the sugar, melted coconut oil, and vanilla until incorporated. Add in the flax egg and stir until combined.
- In another bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together (oat flour, almond flour, sorghum flour, arrowroot powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and pinch of cinnamon). Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir well. The dough will be very dry at first, but it will come together if you get in there with your hands and knead it a few times. Add the optional almond milk if your dough is too dry. You need to be able to form balls of the dough without it cracking, but you don't want it super wet either (or it will spread out too much when baking).
- Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a small bowl. Take about 1.5 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. Roll in cinnamon sugar and place on baking sheet at least a couple inches apart. Repeat for the rest.
- Bake for 10-11 minutes. (I baked for 10 minutes and the edges were slightly crispy after cooling.) For a soft cookie, bake less time. For a crispy cookie bake longer. Cool for about 3 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack until completely cool.
Tip:
- If you don't have store-bought oat flour you can make it at home. Simply add rolled oats into a high speed blender and blend on the highest speed until a fine flour forms.
- I don't recommend subbing the cane sugar for coconut or Sucanat sugar - in my previous trials it came out too dry.
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)PS – See all my cookie and square recipes here!
Contest Winner:
Congrats to Elicia K. for winning the big OSG Holiday Giveaway!! We have sent you an email to collect your info. Thank you for everyone who participated and gave us all kind of awesome flavour ideas for our tea! I would like one of each please.
We are gearing up for Adriana’s first Christmas and I can’t wait to experience it as a family of 3! I’m looking forward to a bit of downtime over the holidays too. While it’s been a great year, it hasn’t left me with much free time and I’m hoping to wind down and chill out with friends and family as much as possible to close out the year. And hockey, LOTS of hockey!!! hah. I’m not sure when I will be posting a recipe next, but if you’d like to see what we’re up to you can follow my weekly posts on the Baby blog until then (you can also follow @theglowspot and @ohsheglows on Instagram). And of course, take a peek at my recipe archives – there are about 500 vegan recipes to chose from.
Anyway, I’m really excited for 2015 and have some fun news coming your way in the New Year! I’m so thankful for your support this year, and every year. It’s definitely been a year I will never forget. I hope you all have an amazing holiday surrounded by family, friends, great food, and good cheer!
yay! A cookie I can make for my gf and vegan friends! Thanks for all of your work recipe testing :)
Happy holidays!
Will make these for my sister……she loves snickerdoodles. Although her diet is somewhat complicated because of her numerous allergies and issues, most of the ingredients you use she can eat. This ingredient list is super impressive! Thanks for doing the “legwork’ for us =)
Can you believe I didn’t have my first snickerdoodle until last year? I am SO HOOKED now. Can’t wait to try this recipe out!
In 30 minutes or less I can be eating these? Whoa. Marvelous fat swap you did with the butter….who’s not trying to save a few calories this time of year? I try to loose a few pounds before Christmas so I can “indulge” a bit more closer to the day. I mean, I want to start the New Year off right!
I definitely like snickerdoodles, so this is well timed. My husband and I just moved into a new condo in Chicago over the weekend and I am so happy to have all my kitchen stuff back and settled. My first order of business is definitely some kind of cookie!
Erin, I want to hop over to Chicago when you make the cookies!! :-) :-) Nice running into you here although I’m not surprised! Hope you guys are settling in and enjoying your new digs!!
I absolutely love using oat flour and almond flour in recipes. These look incredible light and fluffy in spite of not having an AP flour in them! Pinned :)
Snickerdoodles are my husband’s absolute favorite cookies! I can’t wait to make these for him and now I can enjoy them too!!
My husband loves this dish like you
Oh yesssss! I’ll try these yummi cookies for my girlfriends…and for me;-))
Thanks for sharing!
I can’t wait to try these! Is there something I can sub for sorghum flour? I don’t have any on hand.
I’ve used brown rice flour and finely ground oat flour successfully in place of sorghum. Also, if you don’t need to keep this gluten-free, all purpose flour would work too (maybe even a gf all purpose flour if you have it!).
could you sub buckwheat flour for the sorghum or is it necessary to get the snickerdoodle texture right? sorghum does have a unique texture…
I am wondering a substitute for the sorghum, too. I was thinking of trying brown rice flour. I will let you know how it turns out if I whip some up tonight!
I’d love to know too! I have brown rice flour…
I would probably just try using 1/4 cup more oat flour! I haven’t tried it, but I think it would be fine. :) Rice flour might too – just watch out for a gritty texture – superfine might be the way to go.
I just made these (OMG Yum!!!!) with sweet brown rice flour. The dough seemed nice and moist, but they came out a bit dry and crumbly. I also subbed coconut sugar for the cane sugar, so they were barely sweet inside. Still amazing, but for those using the rice flour, maybe mash a date or two into paste and add to the wet ingredients so the finished product holds together better.
thanks for your feedback!
I think the coconut sugar could be the drying culprit – in my previous snickerdoodle recipe on the blog I tried coconut sugar and they came out way too dry. It tends to be more drying than cane sugar unfortunately. Glad you still enjoyed them! :)
Aha! There’s that mystery solved. The cookies were delicious but let’s be honest, it’s the chewiness we’re really after in snickerdoodles. I’ll give it another go sans coconut sugar. Thanks, Angela, you rock!
I just made these and subbed coconut flour for the sorghum flour. Otherwise followed directions exactly, for once! They positively fall apart, melt in mouth, puffy pillows of air goodness, with like a creme brûlée crust is the only thing I can think to compare it to right now. I never thought a cookie would remind me of creme brûlée. I’m not gluten free but these are the best snickerdoodles I’ve ever had and I am a hopeless snickerdoodle junkie. I made the non gluten free ones too awhile back and I think I like these more, texture-wise at least.
Anyway, just wanted to chime in with my sorghum sub because I wasn’t sure about that one either and let you know that it worked!
Hi Jody,
I know this is waaaay after the fact (two years!), but thanks for sharing that. I make this recipe a lot and you’ve just given me a way to use up my coconut flour. I basically only ever use it for Angela’s Peanut Better Balls recipe, and even that one calls for very little coconut flour.
OH MY GOD YES.
Wow! These are by far the yummiest-looking cookies I’ve seen this year, definitely trying these! Wonder what I could substitute sorghum flour for? Would amaranth or buckwheat flour be ok? And could potato starch (local equivalent of corn starch) go for arrowroot powder? Greetings from Poland!
lovely cookies! Can’t wait to whip these up for Christmas!
I was first introduced to snickerdoodles in 6th grade home and careers class and fell in love (I’m from a chocolate chip house!)…thanks for the memories, these look so delish :)
These look gorgeous Angela! I always make my Snickerdoodle Protein Bites this time of year now, but I need to add these as well! They sound yummy!
YES! My absolute favorite cookie healthified. Today is the day for these guys. Thanks!
These look delicious! Any recommendations for sorghum flour? I’ve never purchased or used it before.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I would probably try using 1/4 cup more oat flour in its place. I’ll update if I try it out!
Oooh that crackly surface is so enticing – they look fantastic Angela!.
My favourite flours for gluten-free baking are also almond and oat.
Looks great! Do you have any subs for almond flour? My husband is allergic but is ok with other types of nuts. I’ve used sunflower seed meal in some of your recipes that call for almond meal but not sure about the ones that call for flour…
hmm subbing almond flour is a tricky one for sure! It has such a unique texture. I’ll let you know if I think of anything. It’s really trial and error when it comes to v + gf baking!
I just tried subbing almond flour with ground up sunflower seeds! Worked well! I couldn’t tell the difference! Great recipe they turned out great!
I usually sub almond flour for sweet white sorghum flour with lots of success!
Would regular whole wheat flour work to replace the oat flour in the recipe?
In my experience WWF can be quite drying, so I’m not sure it would work in this exact recipe. You might have better luck making the version I shared a few years back?
http://ohsheglows.com/2010/11/24/my-favourite-snickerdoodles/
Clearly I’ve been missing something in my life because I don’t think I’ve ever had a Snickerdoodle before … (for some reason the name of them always reminds me of some kind of dog, haha!). But considering these could be ready in about 30 minutes, I might go preheat my oven now ;)
Thanks for sharing, Angela! Wishing you and your family (and your beautiful baby girl!) a wonderful Christmas and holiday season.
xx Kathryn
http://www.throughthethicket.ca
This recipe came up in my Facebook feed and I couldn’t resist making them! I didn’t have any arrowroot flour or cane sugar in the house, so I substituted potato starch and coconut sugar, respectively. I did not add the optional almond milk. The resulting cookies came out great! I did not flatten them at all and baked them for 10 minutes exactly. My cookies are more like muffin tops, they did not spread like the cookies in Angela’s pictures, but this is probably due to my substitutions and amateur baking skills. I have already eaten 4 and have had to put them away so I didn’t keep eating! Great recipe!