Lemon Drop Cookies- Free of Gluten, Grains, and Refined Sugar

These brightly flavored lemon drop cookies are simple to make, yet free of gluten, grains and refined sugar. Sweetened with honey and based on coconut, this healthy cookie recipe is good for the GAPS diet, too!

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A simple cookie recipe is so handy! Cookies come together quickly and are ready to eat before you know it. Perfect for busy days, unexpected company, and the occasional treat emergency.

These lemon drop cookies not only come together pretty fast and taste delicious, but also work for many special diets. I made them up to suit the GAPS diet, so they are free of gluten, grains, refined sugar, and starches. But they are good for anyone!

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What Makes Lemon Drop Cookies “Healthy”?

I am not going to claim that these cookies are a health food. Not exactly. They are a treat, and should be consumed in moderation! Dessert in general is not really a health food…

When you want a treat, though, it is pleasant to have something that isn’t working against you too much. Whether you are working on health goals, don’t like feeling bad after indulging, or simply are trying to maintain good health habits most of the time, indulgences that are reasonably healthy can be part of a happy life!

This recipe uses honey for sweetness. You don’t need much, though! Honey is not only unprocessed, but it is a little easier on our system. In its raw form, it offers many benefits– but we’re going to bake the cookies. No longer will the honey be raw.

However, honey is still one of the better sweeteners you can use. On the GAPS diet, it is one of the few approved sugars because, unlike most sugars, honey is a monosaccharide. In contrast to disaccharides, monosaccharides absorb easily and are less apt to feed pathogenic bacteria in our guts.

We also won’t need any sort of flour or starches in these lemon drop cookies. While grains and even starches aren’t “bad”, some of us don’t tolerate them very well. Especially if you are dealing with a health issue or trying to improve your health, you may temporarily limit them. Definitely they are excluded while on the GAPS diet.

For this recipe, we will use coconut butter, plus just a bit of coconut flour. The cookies don’t taste like coconut, though. Coconut butter is rich, nourishing, and delicious! If you are on the GAPS diet, the coconut flour is supposed to be freshly ground. (I admit, I buy organic coconut flour and don’t grind my own.)

But what is coconut butter?

Simply put, coconut butter is coconut that has been ground up until it forms a smooth paste. It’s like peanut or nut butters– you start with coconut flakes. Then grind for a good while through increasingly finer stages until the oils release and you have a “butter”.

Unlike coconut flour, which is usually a little more processed, the coconut in coconut butter is whole. Nothing has been removed.

You can buy coconut butter, also called coconut manna, in jars. It is smooth, rich, and will have a little layer of coconut oil at the top.

Coconut butter is too solid to use at room temperature. You need to soften it before using it.

Where can I buy coconut butter?

You will often find coconut butter in health food stores, even sometimes in ordinary grocery stores. Of course, you can purchase it online. Thrive Market carries it, and you can buy coconut butter on Amazon. I sometimes use this one, but I have used other brands with equal success.

How do you soften coconut butter?

There are different ways. Often, I stick the container in a larger container of hot water. That works, though it may take a few water changes, especially if the coconut butter is in a glass jar. It softens quickly in other packaging.

Another way is to set the jar in a very warm place half an hour before you need to scoop the coconut butter out. For example, I might set it on the back of my stove while the oven is on. Or I might set the jar up against a hot slow cooker, maybe turning the jar now and then.

It works to set the jar in an empty slow cooker and let it heat up inside, too.

In a pinch, I warm the jar gently in a saucepan of water on the stove. This is the fastest way to do it! Short of using the microwave, which would be faster. I don’t use a microwave, so I can’t tell you how long that would take. Probably you need to do it in short bursts and keep stirring to avoid overheating parts of the coconut butter.

Can I make my own coconut butter?

Yes! I do this often, and it works well. It is more economical, too. You need a food processor or a high-powered blender. Here is how to do it:

• Put coconut flakes in the bowl of a food processor or in a blender. You need a lot of coconut! I used a 5-oz. package of coconut flakes– 3 cups– and it yielded only 2/3 C coconut butter!
• Turn on the food processor or blender. You may need to stop it and scrape the coconut off the sides now and then. Expect the processing to take at least 5 minutes, and maybe more like 10 minutes. The coconut flakes will become smaller, then seem a bit like flour, and eventually look a bit oily before beginning to smooth out into an oily paste or butter. If your machine gets too hot, turn it off to cool, then resume the process.
• I find that my food processor never gets the coconut butter as smooth as the store bought kind. That is a problem for something like frosting. For cookies, though, a slightly grainy coconut butter is just fine. (If you have something like a Vitamix, you may get a smoother result.)
• If you make your own coconut butter just before making the cookies, you won’t have to soften it. The processing warms up the coconut and it will be soft-to-runny. Once I have it made and measured, I just mix the cookies up in the food processor without cleaning it first– no dirty bowl!

Here is my jar of freshly made coconut butter. You can see that it is a little grainy. This will not be noticeable in cookies.

How to Make Lemon Drop Cookies

If you are making your own coconut butter, do that first. If you are using store bought, soften it enough to stir the oil in and scoop out and measure half a cup.

Either way, bring your ingredients to room temperature, especially the butter. (You can use coconut oil instead of butter for a dairy free version.)

Next, zest an entire lemon. (Organic is good, since we are eating the peel; it’s still good to wash it before zesting.) I like to use the fine side of a box grater for this; it takes less than a minute. However, a knife or other zesting tool will work. (Save your poor, bald lemon and use the juice for something else.)

Now mix all your ingredients together in a bowl. While traditional cookie recipes call for creaming the sugar with the butter first, you don’t really have to do that with honey. The grains of sugar cut into butter to create part of the texture in a cookie or cake. Honey doesn’t offer that benefit, and I find it doesn’t matter much whether you cream it first or not. You can if you want, though!

Your cookie dough will be quite soft. After a few minutes, as the coconut absorbs moisture, it will thicken a bit. Let it do this before your bake the cookies! I like to chill the dough before baking, but it isn’t strictly necessary.

Scoop the dough out onto a baking sheet. I like lining it with parchment, as the cookies come out nicely, but you can bake them right on the sheet.

It is wise to bake a test cookie first! Better that little delay than having a whole batch turn out badly!

If you bake a cookie and it is too runny, add another tablespoon of coconut flour, let it absorb for a few minutes, and try again.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes at 350° F. Cool them for a few minutes before moving them to a rack, a plate, or your mouth.

Tweaks to Lemon Drop Cookies

• use coconut oil in place of butter for dairy free– definitely bake a test cookie, as it may make the dough too soft and require extra coconut flour!
• for more intense lemon flavor, use zest of 2 lemons, or add lemon extract or culinary lemon oil
• add a teaspoon of ground lavender buds
• try with herbs, like fresh rosemary or basil
• use orange zest instead of lemon

For more cookie recipes using coconut butter, try orange cardamom cookies or ginger walnut cookies.