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Magical Ginger Cookies for the Holidays

Desserts, Holidays, Renal Diet Recipes

 

A Ginger Cookie You Can Really Really LOVE

All of us have some smells, flavors, sounds, etc… that pour holiday memories and warm feelings into out soul. Gingerbread is one of mine.  My mom’s gingerbread wasn’t the most incredible I’ve ever tasty – kind of spicy.  But the cookie dough was out of this world.  And the smell of gingerbread and a warm house in a very very cold town is the kind of smell that is as much Christmas to me as candy canes and sparkly lights.

How Come Gingerbread is on the Naughty List for Kidney Disease?

The problem with gingerbread for people with kidney disease is just one ingredient – molasses.  Molasses is why gingerbread ends up on a lot of “naughty” lists this time of year.  One (1) tablespoon of blackstrap molasses has 450 mg of sodium per NCCDB. Just one tablespoon has more potassium then almost 2 oranges.  Dark molasses and light molasses have less – around 300 mg each per tablespoon.  For either it is a significant amount of potassium.

low potassium renal diet holiday ginger cookie

More Kidney Friendly Substitutes for Molasses

The quintessential smell and flavor of ginger cookies doesn’t necessarily come from molasses. The spices are the key, especially the ginger (obviously). I love substituting out low potassium honey for all things molasses. You could also use dark corn syrup or for an interesting flavor fusion try maple syrup instead.  All are low in phosphorus, but the potassium content varies widely. If you MUST have molasses, then opt for something other than blackstrap.

1 Tbsp Serving Size

Potassium (mg) Phosphorus (mg)

Molasses, Blackstrap

450 mg

8.4 mg

Molasses, Dark or Light

308 mg 6.5 mg

Corn Syrup, dark

 9 mg

2 mg

Honey 11 mg

0.8 mg

Maple Syrup 42 mg

0.4 mg

low potassium renal diet holiday ginger cookie

Soft Ginger Cookie Recipe – Chewy Bite on Outside, Soft on Inside, Lower Potassium Too!

I used this Soft Ginger Cookie recipe from Davita since I had heard rave reviews about it.  When I did a cookie comparison last week for the gingerbread house we were making, I was surprised to see that this kidney-friendly cookie, on a cookie-for-cookie comparison, was a bit higher then a traditional gingerbread cookie. This isn’t listed in the chart below, but caloric content for one 2.5″ gingerbread cookie was 67 mg, while one soft ginger cookie was 142 mg.  That means either the soft ginger cookies from Davita were twice as big (making them fairly comparable to a traditional gingerbread cookie) or just more calorically dense.  I’m not sure, but for me it meant I could try pulling out the molasses and see if I still got a decent cookie.  Sodium could be cut back with less baking soda as well.  I didn’t fiddle with that part of the recipe.  Next time I will see if we can cut back the sodium some.

Cookies (per NCCDB) Phosphorus Potassium Sodium
Traditional Gingerbread Cookies (2 cookies) 26 mg 129 mg 55 mg
Davita Soft Ginger Cookie (2 Cookies) 32 mg 140 mg 118 mg
KidneyGrub Soft Ginger Cookies (2 cookies)   30 mg  47 mg 117 mg

low potassium renal diet holiday ginger cookie

Perfect Low Potassium Ginger Cookie Even Without Molasses

I swapped out the molasses for honey and still feel like I came away with a home-run cookie.  Soft on the inside and just a perfect on the outside.  I happened to have gold sugar on hand from the gingerbread/cookie house and rolled my cookies in that instead of traditional sugar.  Magic!  The gold sugar took a regular gingersnap to a true Christmas level.

low potassium renal diet holiday ginger cookie

Print

Magical Ginger Cookies for the Holidays

  • Yield: 24 cookies

Ingredients

  • 2-1/4 cups all-purpose white flour
  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 3/4 cup butter
  • 1-1/8 cups granulated sugar
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1/4 cup honey

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
  2. In a medium bowl combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves. Set aside.
  3. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Beat in 1 cup sugar.
  4. Add egg whites and honey; beat well.
  5. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture.
  6. Shape dough into 1-1/2″ balls, using about 1 heaping tablespoon of dough for each.
  7. Roll balls in the remaining sugar to coat.
  8. Place balls about 2-1/2″ apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
  9. Bake for 10 minutes or until light brown and still puffed. (Do not over bake.)
  10. Cool cookies on cookie sheet for 2 minutes then transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool.

Notes

Phos 15 mg | Potassium 24 mg

Did you make this recipe?

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Comments

  1. Barbara says

    December 3, 2018 at 7:54 pm

    are the saturated fat and unsaturated fat actually in mgs or grams?

    thanks

    Reply
    • Jsaville says

      December 3, 2018 at 9:39 pm

      Hey Barbara –
      Just fixed this. The program I used for the recipe input didn’t have phos and potassium when I first started using it. So I did some background coding to switch out the saturated fat and unsaturated fat columns for phos and potassium. Unfortunately, in a recent update all my coding was no longer valid so I have to go through all the recipes and change the “saturated fat” and “unsaturated fat” back to “phos” and “potassium”. I’m actually changing programs this upcoming year because of the glitch for some beautiful, clean labels on all the recipes to share with your patients that include all the renal parameters. Super excited about that! Thanks for the comment as I am still working through all the recipes.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Cookie House - Especially for Kids on Dialysis - Kidney RD says:
    December 23, 2018 at 6:19 am

    […] I grew up in a family where we made “gingerbread houses” every year with graham crackers, except Mom.  Mom always made a real one -with real gingerbread.  She always decorated like the church, and then all our little gingerbread shops and houses were the villages. The dough was the best part. As I look back, I wish I would’ve known about the magic of working with wafer cookies for gingerbread houses.  With a sharp knife they are easy to cut to perfect angles and stack perfectly.  Just so happens that wafer cookies are the lowest in potassium, phosphorus, and sodium (what ARE they made with anyways…?)  They are a perfect cookie to replace graham crackers or real gingerbread. But if you need real gingerbread, check out our magical gingerbread cookie here. […]

    Reply

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