These gingerbread gluten free fudge puddles are lightly spiced miniature gingerbread cookie cups with a simple fudge filling. Sink your teeth into the best flavors of the season!
A new favorite
Fudge puddles are the sort of cookie that looks much more fussy to make than it actually is. I’m willing to put in some effort for an interesting cookie plate, and these aren’t as easy as drop cookies, but they’re still simpler than they look.
The cookie part is often made with a peanut butter flavor, but I went in a different direction. These are gingerbread gluten free fudge puddles, and they fit right in with all the gingerbread men, cakes, and houses that we already have in our recipe archive.
How to make a cookie cup
I’ve shared many recipes for cookie cups over the years, and I especially appreciate the ones made in a miniature muffin tin. Small is adorable, and it’s also less of a commitment for the eater.
Some methods are better than others, and I’ve found (through lots of failure) the easiest and most successful method. First, roll the portions of dough into a ball and place them in a greased miniature muffin tin.
Press a hole in the center of the ball of dough, pressing it up against the sides of the well. Bake for ¾ of the total baking time (here, 9 minutes) and remove the pan from the oven.
How to recreate the center hole
The holes you created will have swollen nearly shut, leaving a dimpled piece of risen cookie dough. Working quickly, press the underside of the bowl of a teaspoon into the center of each well to recreate the hole.
Instead of a teaspoon, you can use the bowl of a small ice cream scoop, if you have one. A small pestle from a mortar and pestle would also work.
Be sure to press down enough to create a significant hole, but don’t press all the way to the bottom of the muffin tin well. You could create a hole in the finished cookie cup.
Even though the hole closes up quite a bit in the first bit in the oven, creating it in the raw dough prevents the cookie cup from cracking on the edges when the hole is recreated. Baking for another few minutes afterward sets the hole properly.
The fudge filling
Since these are fudge puddles, I like to make an actual fudge filling to place inside each miniature cookie cup. I’ve included a recipe for the simplest fudge, made with only a few ingredients and without any sweetened condensed milk.
All you do is heat butter, chopped chocolate, and cream, stirring frequently until everything is melted and smooth. Remove the pan from the heat, add vanilla and confectioners’ sugar, and stir.
If you don’t sift the confectioners’ sugar, you will most likely see lumps in your fudge. To reduce or eliminate those lumps, you can beat the fudge filling with a hand mixer until it becomes smooth.
Be sure to pour the fudge while it’s still warm, or it will be difficult to pour. If it cools too much, try scooping it into small portions using a small ice cream scooper or melon ball.
If you’d prefer to make a similar fudge-like filling, simply make a chocolate ganache by pouring heated cream over chopped chocolate. The darker filling you see in some cups in the photos is chocolate ganache.
If you look closely, you’ll even see one or two cups with an unwrapped Hershey’s milk chocolate kiss in the center. It wasn’t my favorite filling, though, but it was fast!
Ingredients and substitutions
Dairy
If you can’t have dairy, be sure any chocolate you use is dairy-free. I really like Hu Kitchen brand chocolate, which is gluten free and dairy free.
In place of the butter in the cookie cups and in the fudge filling, I recommend trying vegan butter. Miyoko’s Kitchen brand and Melt brand are my favorites.
In place of the heavy whipping cream in the fudge filling, try using canned coconut cream (full fat). Otherwise, you can try using 2 tablespoons (28 g) more vegan butter, but reduce the confectioners’ sugar by a couple tablespoons.
Egg
Since there’s only one egg in this recipe, I think you should be able to replace it with a “chia egg.” Place 1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds and 1 tablespoon lukewarm water in a small bowl, mix, and allow to gel.
Corn
If you can’t have corn, be sure that your confectioners’ sugar is made without cornstarch. Most organic confectioners’ sugar is made with tapioca starch rather than cornstarch, but read labels carefully.
Molasses
There is only 1 tablespoon of molasses in these cookie cups, but it provides a ton of gingerbread-like flavor. You could try using honey in its place, but you’ll lose that flavor.
If you’re in a country like the U.K. in which molasses doesn’t seem to be very available, I understand that dark treacle has a similar flavor. Whatever you do, don’t use blackstrap molasses, which has an overpowering and rather bitter flavor.
HELLO! I’m Nicole! I make gluten-free food enjoyable & affordable. If they can make it with gluten, we can make it without. That’s a promise!
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We love your recipes, its great to be able to make such a wide range of GF goodies :)
A minor oversight in this one, the instructions don’t indicate when to add the molasses. I assume it goes with the butter, egg and vanilla.
A source of confusion is that the chocolate chips are specified in ounces. Is this a baking thing – Chocolate is always measured in ounces?. Since its chocolate I’d guess that’s a weight but other weights are in grams. Maybe its liquid ounces but then I’d expect it to say 3/4 of a cup. This also happens with the fluff measurement in your gluten-free-fluffernutter-sugar-cookies. Maybe special ingredients are all measured in mystery ounces? :)
Thanks for pointing that error out, Jeff. It’s fixed now. Since I don’t have an editor, there are bound to be minor errors like that.
Grams and ounces both measure weight. It’s merely a conversion. 1 ounce = 28 grams. Larger amounts tend to be measured in ounces, for the sake of simplicity, as are ingredients that are typically measured in ounces on the packaging. Fluid ounces are a volume measurement, and I never use it unless the measurement is for a liquid. The only substance for which 1 ounce (by weight) is equivalent to 1 fluid ounce (volume) is water.
Hi, these look great and I’m excited to make them! Just wanted to clarify – in the description above the recipe, it sounds like this is meant for a mini muffin tin, but the recipe doesn’t expressly state to use a mini pan. Should I use a mini or standard muffin tin? Thanks!
It specifies a 24-cup muffin tin, Ceci. I’ve never seen one of those that isn’t mini!
Made these today and absolutely fabulous. Reviewed directions, weighed ingredient’s (and I live at 6600 plus feet elevation, but made no adjustments since it was my first try) and followed recipe to the letter. I used a Zeroll size 100 scoop (.32 oz) and it was the perfect size for mini cupcake pans. Turned out great! My only comment is that I got 48 cookies instead of 24, my bonus! Maybe just a misprint that the recipe is supposed to be for 24. Will be making more of these gems, thanks Nicole!
There’s no misprint, Rhodamane. It sounds like you’re using a very, very small miniature muffin tin. There is no true standard for muffin tin sizes, and that’s especially true with miniature muffin tins. Glad you enjoyed the cookies.
Made these today and they are definitely going to be a regular around here!!
These look great, can’t wait to try them!
A new favorite for sure, Christine. I hope you love them.
merry christmas, nicole!
And the same to you, Karen!! ?
Hi Nicole, can you buy better batter flour in the grocery stores? I have Robin Hood and find it gritty here in Canada. And don’t really want to purchase a bunch of flours to combine. I would like it ready mixed.
I don’t think Better Batter is available in grocery stores. You’d need to purchase it online. I’m afraid there isn’t any grocery-store gluten free flour blend that is anything I could possibly recommend. For all of the information I can provide you here about gluten free flour blends, please click through to the gluten free flour blends page, linked every time a recipe calls for that as an ingredient.
If you can’t have corn, you need to know that xanthan gum is made from corn. Even though you don’t use very much xanthan gum, it may have an adverse effect on corn-free people.
That isn’t accurate. It is not made from corn, June. It is sometimes grown on corn, but does not contain any corn protein. Some people do react to xanthan gum, but it is usually because they are separately sensitive to it. It isn’t a corn-containing ingredient. As always, please safeguard your own health.
I have a problem with all of your recipes that go on to another page or so: the bottom part gets cut off and does not show up on the succeeding page.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Ruth. Perhaps the printable recipe? Nothing is cut off when you use the printer-friendly recipe function. The recipe often goes onto another page, and you may toggle on or off the Notes section and the image. I just double checked this printer-friendly recipe (you click the printer icon at the top or bottom of the page), and nothing is cut off.