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!
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!
Even with some substitutions (Namaste GF flour blend in place of all 3 flours, raw sugar for cane sugar, corn starch for arrowroot, baking powder for baking soda)……ok sort of a lot of substitutions…….they turned out amazingly, which so seldom happens when fooling around with vegan/GF bakejobs!! Since the dough was quite wet I expected them to be melded into one sheet of deliciousness (soooo fine with that)///10 minutes later the doughballs were totally upright! Decided to mash them down with fork and bake for another 10 minutes, which was a good idea. Ended up with gorgeous crackled cinnamon sugar crust and a chewy inside! This is a stellar recipe I will be repeating and sharing. Thank you!
Hey, these are the first vegan cookies ive made, i had to sub some stuff, like swapping coconut oil for olive oil, and excluding a couple of ingredient i dont have at home. Also i added dark choc and olive oil to make a choc coating after they had cooled. Then they taste just like dark choc digestives. Amazing!! Thanks so much for putting the recipe on. Even though i couldnt follow it exactly, it still gives a great template to experiment with!
Hi. Like your website. I’m doing McDougall/Forks Over Knives & they use NO oil. Sometimes applesauce will work.
Can the snickerdoodles be made w/out oil or substituting something? Thanks.
I’ve made these a couple times and they are so good! I substituted the coconut oil for Earth Balance and the cookies turned out really good. What a wonderful recipe, Angela!
Are you suppose do or push down the cookies before baking them?
No they naturally spread ;)
Thank you for the recipe. I’m wondering if Earth Balance Soy Free Vegan sticks would work or Spectrum shortening (or possibly a combo of the 2). I made a GF, dairy free snickerdoodle recipe for my daughter, and I used coconut oil. She didn’t like it. She could taste too much coconut, and since she wasn’t diagnosed with food issues until she was 17, she knows the difference between her favorite snickerdoodle and all of my other attempts! Please, let me know if you have any suggestions. Thank you for the egg free recipe, too. We went egg free last Friday after more extensive testing.
In the snikerdoodl recipe can I leave out the flax seeds?
The ground flax and water are there as an egg replacement.
What does the asterisk after the oat flour mean? I cannot eat oats of any kind, and I wonder how many celiacs do. What could I use instead of oat flour. Nor can I afford any nut flours. The best I can do is put them in the food processor.
Thanks.
I cannot find sorghum flour anywhere. Is there something I can substitute? Thanks!
I had never heard of a snickerdoodle before. Looks delicious. I will need to check it out.
I never leave reviews but I HAD to. THESE COOKIES ARE THE BEST ALLERGY FRIENDLY COOKIES IVE EVER MADE/EATEN. Period. The freaking best. I did have to substitute raw turbandino? The kinda chunky one? And I used that , cinnamon, and beet sugar to roll cookies in because the consistency was closer to cane
Thank you for the review, Emma! This was so great to read. :) Happy to hear you enjoyed the cookies!!
Hi, I was wondering if I could use one flour instead of combining the flours? I don’t need a gluten free recipe so could I use all purpose flour? Thanks.
Hi Kathryn, if it was just oat flour, I would say that a 1:1 ratio is probably fine, but swapping almond flour is a bit trickier since it doesn’t behave like most flours. I would suggest using this recipe instead: http://ohsheglows.com/2010/11/24/my-favourite-snickerdoodles/. Hope this helps!!
I don’t have sorghum flour or arrowroot powder. All I have is oat flour, almond flour and tapioca flour. What can I use to substitute for those ingredients?
What about a substitution for the oat flour due to oat allergy? Need them to be gf.
Thanks!
-Liz
I just made a batch and they’re wonderful!! Perfect!! I followed the recipe exactly -except I substituted coconut flour for the sorghum. I only wish I had doubled the recipe! Off to make a second batch.
I hope you enjoy the second batch as well as the first, Janine! :)
Hi there!
I can’t wait to make these and I’m wondering if it’s ok to make them ahead of time and freeze them for a few weeks?? Just trying to organize for Christmas and get things done when I have the time.
Thanks! :)
Dawn
These were delicious, I baked them for 12 minutes without flattening them out first and they were soft inside and a bit crunchy on the outside.
Next time I will have to double the recipe. My yield was 10 cookies and they lasted less than 20 min.
My 3 year old loved rolling the balls of dough in the sugar/cinnamon mix.
Do you think I can sub sugar for maple syrup?
Hi Stacie, I haven’t tried that substitution myself, so I’m not positive. Often if you change from a dry to liquid sweetener it can throw off the wet/dry ratio in a baked good recipe, and other adjustments have to be made. But if you’re up for experimenting I’d love to know how it goes!
Looks delish haven’t had one since I was a hold as I’m vegan and GF so thank you!
One question though as I’m dying in suspense to know: where is the elusive “note” related to the sugar?
Hey Paula, I believe it’s this one in the tips at the bottom?
2) I don’t recommend subbing the cane sugar for coconut or Sucanat sugar – in my previous trials it came out too dry.
Hope this helps! :)
These look amazing! Wondering if I could freeze the dough in balls on a cookie sheet, then bake them when the craving for cookies strikes? Would that work, or would I need to change the time/temp? Can I substitute another gf flour for almond flour – I can’t have almonds . . .
Hey Sarah,
I can’t recall if I’ve tried freezing the dough balls before, but I have had success with other cookies (like my chewy molasses cookies). When I bake the frozen dough balls other cookies have needed around 3-5 minutes more bake time, but this will vary by the cookie I would imagine. Best to keep an eye on it! Subbing almond flour tends to be tricky. I would probably suggest using cashew flour if possible since they’ll behave in a similar way.