Gluten free chocolate pizzelle cookies are perfect for cookie exchanges, Christmas bake sales, and neighborly gifts. They go well with coffee and are a sweet, light finish to a meal.
Make a batch in 40 minutes or so and they’ll be ready to serve immediately. Or make them ahead in a large batch and you’ll have these gluten free cookies ready to add to cookie tins, and gifts throughout the festive season.
Pizzelles are my favorite Christmas cookie. These light, crispy wafers, don’t lose anything when made gluten free. Other cookies tend to crumble and lose their structure but Pizzelles hold their light, crispy texture whether they are made traditionally with wheat flour or made with almond flour or other gluten free flours. Pizzelles are light wafer cookies that are baked in a special waffle cookie iron on a stovetop or counter. You don’t need an oven to make them. But you do need a special pizzelle maker or krumcake baker.
There are both electric and stovetop versions of the traditional pizzelle iron. Stovetop versions are a once in a lifetime investment. Electric versions should last years, but they do eventually wear out.
While you can eat pizzelles year-round gluten free chocolate pizzelles are most often served for special occasions, big family dinners, weddings, Christmas, and Easter. They will remind you of a waffle cone and not without reason. The original waffle cones were pizzelles rolled into a cone shape, around a wooden dowel, when hot from the waffle iron.
Gluten free chocolate pizzelles are versatile cookies. They can be used as cones for ice cream or cream cheese, horns for whipped cream, and rolls for stuffing with fruit and ricotta cheese. The flat chocolate cookies have been used as the structure for ice cream sandwiches, and stacked like a cake and served with layers of buttercream frosting between them. Pizzelles are thought to be the very first cookie and have a rich history in Italy, where the patterns on pizzelle irons were handed down in families.
Waffle cookies are a tradition worldwide
While the Italians have made waffle cookies famous, waffle cookies are made all over the world. Sweden has its stroopwafel. Norway has its krumkake. Russia has its trubochki. France and Belgium have their galettes. The Swiss have their bratseli. Poland has its mazurka wafers. Czech Republic has its pirouettes. The Spanish have their barquillos. The Chinese have their fortune cookies and the Malasians have their Kuih kapi (love letters)
Making traditional pizzelles gluten free
This gluten free chocolate pizzelle recipe uses two flours, almond flour and a gluten free 1 for 1 flour. (I used this brand) If you have your own special blend of gluten free flours that will also work. The recipe may be doubled successfully but allow more time for baking the pizzelles.
Your pizzelle iron will affect how long it takes to bake a batch. If you are using a stove top pizzelle iron and can only make one cookie at a time, add an additional 50% onto the time allotments for this recipe.
Gluten Free Chocolate Pizzelle Cookies for a Sweet, Light Finish
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 2 dozen 1x
- Category: Gluten free baking
- Method: waffle
- Cuisine: Italian
Description
This chocolate pizzelle recipe is gluten free and offers a sweet, light finish to a meal or a cup of rich coffee.
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter, melted
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¼ cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup almond flour
- ½ cup gluten-free flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- In a medium bowl mix together butter, eggs, and sugar. Beat with a whisk until fully blended. Add cocoa powder. Mix well until all the cocoa powder has been incorporated. Add almond flour , gluten-free flour blend, and baking powder. Mix well.
- Preheat pizzelle iron. The pizzelle iron is hot enough when water spinkled onto the surface dances. Grease the pizzelle iron with coconut oil using a silicone pastry brush.
- Using a tablespoon measure out the batter onto the preheated pizzelle iron. Place in the pizzelle batter on the waffle plate of the iron toward the back of center. Close the pizzelle iron. Bake for 2 minutes or until the pizzelle reaches the correct doneness for you.
Remove the pizzelle from the iron. Place on cooling rack to crisp and cool. Repeat with remaining dough. Once the pizzelle is cool, trim each waffle cookie to smooth the edges. - The waste trim may be used to make rum balls, or in other ways cookie crumbs are used.
- Store in airtight container. Will last for 1 week at room temperature. Freeze for longer storage. Will keep for 3 months in the freezer without loss of quality.
More gluten free pizzelle recipes for your Christmas cookie exchange
More Pizzelle Recipes
Traditional anise with wheat flour
Chocolate Mint Pizzelle Recipe
Master the art of pizzelle cookie baking
While baking pizzelles is not complicated, using a pizzelle iron can be a little challenging at first. Once you get in tune with the way your iron works you’ll easily create some amazing cookies and crackers that taste better and have better texture than any that you could buy in the store. Use these to make wafer cookies, ice cream sandwiches, stroop waffles, vanilla wafers, and other treats you thought you had to buy in a store. When you make them from scratch, you control the ingredients and don’t have to compromise health for good flavor. Don’t wait till next year to master these delectable festive cookies. Enjoy them year round with my ebook, “A Dozen Sweet & Savory Pizzelle, that are Perfect for Gifts” just $7.97US.
- Learn to make pizzelles for year round enjoyment.
- Recipes for both sweet and savory pizzelles are included.
- One savory gluten free recipe is included
- Pizzelles are made with a specialty waffle iron that makes thin, crispy wafer cookies
- Pizzelles are the basis for cream horns, ice cream waffle cones, and other cookies and crackers
Enjoy these pizzelle cookie recipes in one place so you won’t need to search the web to find your favorite.
Get my “A Dozen Sweet & Savory Pizzelle” cookbook with 12 recipes for both sweet and savory pizzelles now. Just $7.97, less than the cost of a batch of 30 store bought pizzelles. Get started on your pizzelle mastery now.
Good day… May I please have some help? Making your Chocolate Pizzelle
Almond flour (#ad ) what does (#ad) mean?
next is 1/2 gluten flour and 2 teaspoons baking power
would you please reply to my email..
thank you Ava
avagreenacres@gmail.com
(#ad) means its an affiliate link. If you click on it and purchase the item in the link, I might make a small commission.
Thank you for the great recipe and the chance to keep my daughter who has Celiac included in the holiday celebrations. My eggs probably threw off the ratio a little because I had to add an extra three tablespoons of the gluten free all purpose flour to get the dough to perform right with my pizzelle iron. Can’t wait to share these with her!