Grandma Sally’s Soft Gluten Free Ginger Cookies

That title may be a mouthful, but you will not be happy until your mouth is filled with these tender, tasty ginger cookies!

My Grandma Sally was probably the strongest-willed, most stubborn, and frugal woman on the planet. Immigrating alone from Sweden to Minneapolis in the late-1920’s and then raising 3 boys through the Great Depression and World War II, she had to be all that, just to survive!

Some of the memories I have of Grandma’s frugality include:

• washing and saving wads of aluminum foil
• collecting a large ball of rubber bands in the kitchen drawer
• washing and reusing plastic bags
• patching those plastic bags with rubber bands or twist ties
• skimping on coffee so that “the heavenly beverage” was a golden brown instead of black
• forgoing purchased cookie cutters and using clean tuna and spam cans instead —- and that is where this cookie recipe is going.

Whenever we had lunch at her house, Grandma Sally served cold food. Sandwiches were made on homemade caraway bread just out of the freezer, covered in a layer of “spreading meat”, which we later learned was really called “liverwurst”, and topped with cold dill pickles. It’s a strange combination, but surprisingly tasty! Then she would bring some sort of dessert out of the freezer to serve along with watered down coffee.

Grandma always had a tin of these soft, rectangular ginger cookies in the freezer to pull out whenever a treat was needed. I can honestly say that they are my favorite cookies, especially when eaten cold.

Here is Grandma Sally’s original, handwritten recipe, and on the back is a newspaper clipping with the frosting. She must have made these cookies a hundred times. 😊

The gluten free cookie dough itself is pretty basic and simple to make. As always with gluten free flour, it’s best to allow the dough to refrigerate overnight. There are all sorts of scientific reasons for this, but suffice it to say:

• Dough will be better — less sticky.
• Cookies will be better — less gritty.

There you go.

When rolling out dough, tapioca starch is my “flour” of choice. It prevents sticking, but doesn’t make the cookies taste like sand. Keep the dough cold, and roll it thick.

Then there is the shape of these wonderful cookies. Yes, Grandma Sally would wash a SPAM can and use it as her cookie cutter. Why??? I don’t know the answer to that, but assume the appropriate response should be, “Why not?” They bake up soft and smooth, the perfect base for a very unusual frosting.

The frosting begins in a saucepan on the stove, with gelatin soaking in water. Eventually sugar is added and boiled. And then baking powder. Stick with me! The frosting has some unusual ingredients, but when it is spread on the cookies, it becomes a beautiful, glossy, almost crispy delight. These cookies cannot be married to any other frosting! It just won’t work. Don’t be shy with the frosting, either. The batch makes plenty to cover all 40 cookies.

Some adjustments had to be made to Grandma’s original recipe in order to make them gluten free, and not crumbly. I prefer using filmjölk as the liquid, but plain kefir or buttermilk will work just fine.

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