What’s your favorite Christmas cookie? Mine were always Grandma’s sugar cookies that she baked every December so my cousins and I could go to her house, decorate them, eat them, and spend time together. If your favorite Christmas cookies are cutout, frosted sugar cookies, get excited because these are THE best gluten-free ones! Of course, they’re based off of my Grandma’s recipe, they roll and cut out just like the regular gluten ones, and are so soft and scrumptious! The dough doesn’t require any chilling and the baking time is quite short. I love these cookies because they’re easy, so incredibly delicious, fun to decorate with friends or family, and perfect in Christmas cookie boxes! I hope you give the recipe a try, let me know how they turned out, and have a very merry Christmas!
This post contains affiliate links to some of my very favorite ingredients. This way it is easy for you to find the ingredients I used at the best price I’ve found. If you click one and purchase anything from Amazon, I will receive a very small percentage of the sale, to support what I do here. Thank you!
Link to my favorite gluten-free flour blend is here.
My favorite gel food coloring is linked here.
The brand of shortening I buy is linked here.
Gluten-free Frosted Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- Stand mixer
Ingredients
- 165 grams (¾ cup) sugar
- 226 grams (1 cup/2 sticks) soft unsalted butter
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 ½ tsps pure vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 371 grams (2 ¾ cups spooned and leveled) gluten-free 1:1 baking flour I used Bob's Red Mill (linked above this recipe card)
Frosting:
- 57 grams (¼ cup/½ stick) soft unsalted butter
- (¾ cup) palm shortening non hydrogenated is best (linked above)
- ¼ tsp salt
- 37 grams (⅙ cup) heavy cream
- ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
- ½ tsp almond extract
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 355 grams (2 ½+⅓ cups) powdered sugar
- Gluten-free food coloring of choice my favorite is linked above this recipe card
Instructions
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (204 C).
- In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream the sugar, butter, salt, and vanilla together until loosened up. Crack in the egg and beat on high until light and fluffy. Add the baking powder and GF flour and mix on low until barely combined, then turn the speed up to high and let it mix for a couple minutes.
- On a clean surface dusted with some GF flour, take half of the cookie dough and place it on the surface. Lightly flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thick. Using festive cookie cutters, cut out as many cookies as you can. Remove the edge pieces and transfer the cutout cookies, one by one to a prepared baking tray using a flat, metal serving spatula. Place each cookie about 1 inch apart from each other on the baking tray. Bake for 5-7 minutes on the middle rack, until the bottom of the cookies are ever so slightly golden brown. Remove from the oven and let them cool at least 10 minutes before removing from the warm pan.
- While one tray of cookies is baking, combine the leftover cutout dough with the remaining half of dough. Re-dust the surface and rolling pin with GF flour and repeat step 3 until as much of the cookie dough is cut into cookies as possible (you can eat any remaining or bake it in a random shape if you're scared of raw eggs). Let the cookies cool completely while making the frosting.
Frosting:
- In a clean stand mixer using the whisk attachment, whip the butter, shortening, salt, and cream together. Add the vanilla and almond extract and continue beating until light and fluffy. Measure out the powdered sugar in a bowl. Gradually add the powdered sugar, mixing well in between each addition, until all is combined. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula, add the lemon juice, and give the frosting one last good mix. Divide the frosting into separate smaller bowls and color each bowl with your desired food coloring.
Decorating:
- Transfer each color of frosting to it's own piping bag fitted with whatever shaped small piping tip of choice. Get creative, have fun, and decorate the cookies however you wish! Sprinkles and small candies make great additions to decorating also. Enjoy, merry Christmas!
Great content! Keep up the good work!