The holiday baking season has officially arrived! It’s finally acceptable to spend my weekends with my some headphones blaring a Christmas music station on Pandora while making make a huge mess in the kitchen. There’s nothing better than the smell of fresh baked Christmas cookies in the oven! Growing up, my grandmother would always make a bunch of different holiday cookies and keep an assortment on their hutch near the kitchen. Every year, I think I had a new favorite cookie – they were all too good to pick just one! As I try to come up with my own favorite holiday cookies, I have a feeling these gluten free Christmas sugar cookies are definitely going to make the cut.
Since you don’t have to decorate these cookies with royal icing, they are surprisingly simple to make. Honestly, the most difficult part of the process is waiting for the dough to chill before you can roll it out. To make the cookies, you’ll want to whip together your sugar and butter with a hand-held or stand mixer. Then, mix in your vanilla, almond extract, and egg.
Next up, add the flour, salt, and baking powder. I used Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking flour which combines finely ground brown rice flour, sweet white rice flour, whole grain sorghum flour, potato starch, and tapioca flour with a touch of xanthan gum—just enough xanthan gum to create chewy cookies and springy muffins. Mix until a crumbly dough forms. Then, dump the dough onto floured surface and roll your dough into a loaf shape, cover in plastic wrap and let it chill in the fridge for 2-3 hours. After, you’ll roll out the dough and cut into shapes with cookies cutters. (I kept it simple with a circle shaped cookie cutter!) Arrange the cookies on a baking sheet, sprinkle with colored sugar sprinkles, and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.
Transfer your cookies to a cooling rack after baking until completed cooled. Dip in white chocolate and sprinkle the chocolate with contrasting colored sprinkles. Allow white chocolate to harden on cookies and then pack in a sealed container to store.
Make a batch of these for your neighbors and friends! I bet none of them will be able to guess they are gluten free. 😉 I was very impressed with the Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 baking flour I used for these cookies. In fact, it is perfectly formulated for baked goods with terrific taste and texture – no additional specialty ingredients or custom recipes required! Make sure to grab a coupon for Bob’s Red Mill before you head to the store!
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These festive gluten free christmas sugar cookies are simple to make and decorate, but just as cute as a traditional cookie with royal icing.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 cups Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten Free Flour
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 11 oz. bag white chocolate chips
- Colored sprinkles
Instructions
- Beat together the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
- Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract. Mix again until well incorporated. Dough will be a bit crumbly.
- Use your hands to form the dough into a large ball and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for 2-3 hours.
- Once dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Divide the dough in half, lay out parchment paper, and roll dough out into a 1/4″ thin sheet with a rolling pin on the paper. Use cookie cutters to cut dough into shapes and transfer to a cookie sheet. Sprinkle each cookie with colored sugar/sprinkles. Lightly press the sprinkles into the top of the cookie.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange cut cookies on sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges of the cookies are lightly browned. Allow to cool for ~5-7 minutes on the cookie sheet then transfer each cookie to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- When the cookies are ready to be decorated, melt the white chocolate chips in a double boiler or the microwave. Stir frequently until all the chips are melted. Dip the cookies into the melted chocolate or use a spoon to spread some of the chocolate onto 1/3 of each cookie. Sprinkle with contrasting colored sprinkles and set aside to allow the chocolate to harden again. Repeat with all the cookies until finished.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
I am so glad it’s soon the time of the year where it is totally acceptable to bake cookies the entire weekend too 😀 These look so good – just like a perfect sugar cookie
So so festive! I just made sugar cookies today!!!
I don’t know if we did something terribly wrong, but these turned out terrible! They were saw-dusty and dry and fell apart once we got them out. Frosting, sprinkles, nothing helped! Yuck! In the trash they went. So sad!
Oh no!!!! I’m so sorry to hear the recipe didn’t work out for you, Cat. The gluten free flour does seem to make a more tender/delicate cookie than a regular flour. I also noticed that I forgot to say to bake them on parchment paper so I’ve fixed that. I’ll be testing these again!