Gluten Free Sugar Cookies
Make the BEST Gluten Free Sugar Cookies with my Mom's famous recipe! These thin and crispy cut out sugar cookies are easy to make and simple to decorate with a 3-ingredient confectioners' icing!
Ingredients
Gluten Free Sugar Cookies
- 3 cups gluten free flour, + more for dusting the work surface (see notes below)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Confectioners Icing
- 4 cups sifted confectioners sugar, also known as powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ cup milk
- food coloring, optional
Instructions
Gluten Free Sugar Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter and sugar.
- Use the stand mixer, or an electric hand mixer, to cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed for 2 minutes.
- Add the egg, milk and vanilla extract, continue mixing until the ingredients are combined.
- Add the flour mixture and continue mixing until well combined.
- Form the dough into a ball and place in the refrigerator to chill for 15 minutes.
- Dust a sheet of parchment paper with gluten free flour.
- Place 1/4 of the dough on the parchment paper and dust the dough with gluten free flour.
- Cover the dough with another sheet of parchment paper and use a rolling pin to roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness.
- Use cookie cutters to cut the dough into shapes. Place the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet, or baking stone.
- Place in the oven and bake for 5-8 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. (See note on baking times below.)
- Remove the cookies from the baking sheet as soon as they come out of the oven and allow them to cool completely on a wire baking rack.
- Repeat steps 9-13 until all of the cookie dough has been baked into cookies.
- Once the cookies are baked, either lightly dust them with granulated sugar or ice them.
Confectioners Icing
- Add the sifted confectioners sugar to a large mixing bowl.
- Add the vanilla extract and milk.
- Use a rubber spatula to mix the icing until it’s smooth and creamy.
- If you’d like to make colored icing, divide the icing into 3-4 bowls and add 2-3 drops of food coloring to make different colors. You can also add cocoa to make chocolate/brown icing.
Notes
Gluten Free Sugar Cookies Notes:
- Gluten Free Flour: the gluten free flour must contain xanthan gum, if it does not, you will need to add 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum to the recipe. I highly recommend Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Baking Flour. It’s the only flour we use to make these cookies every year. It contains a blend of flours and xanthan gum.
- Making the dough in advance. The sugar cookie dough can be made up to 3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container. If stored in the refrigerator for more than one hour, remove the dough from the refrigerator at least 15 minutes before rolling out the dough. Otherwise it will be too firm and very hard to roll out.
- Dough Thickness: Yes, it does say to roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness in the recipe! These are a thin, crispy gluten free sugar cookie, thus they should be rolled out thin before baking!
- Baking Times: When baking on a traditional baking sheet with parchment paper, these cookies baked in about 5 minutes. When baking on a baking stone, it took about 8 minutes. Because these cookies are so thin, they do bake fast. I recommend keeping an eye on them for the last 1-2 minutes of the baking process. As soon as the edges start to brown, it’s time to remove them from the oven.
- Cutting out the cookie dough: I always like to keep a butter knife and toothpicks handy when I’m cutting out the dough. The toothpicks help to poke out any smaller pieces in a cookie cutter, such as the reindeer antlers or legs. The butter knife helps if the dough starts to stick to the parchment paper. Simple slide the knife gently under the dough and lift it off and on to the baking sheet.
- Flouring the dough and work surface: Be sure you have plenty of extra gluten free flour to continue flouring the dough and work surface as you roll it out. This will prevent sticking and make rolling the dough and cutting out the cookies much easier. For reference, between preparing the cookie dough and flouring the surfaces, I used almost an entire 22 ounce bag of gluten free flour.
- Quick tip! If you run out of gluten free flour when rolling out the cookie dough, you can dust the work surface with cornstarch.
- If the icing becomes too thick and hard to spread on the cookies, add more milk, but only about 1 teaspoon at a time.
- If the icing becomes too runny, add more powdered sugar, 1/4 cup at a time.
- To sift the powdered sugar, you can use a flour sifter, or a fine mesh strainer.
- Since the measurement in the recipe is for sifted confectioners sugar, you’ll want to sift the sugar into a separate bowl, then measure it out for precise measurements.
Nutrition Facts
Calories 78kcal (4%)Carbohydrates 13g (4%)Protein 1g (2%)Fat 3g (5%)Saturated Fat 2g (10%)Cholesterol 9mg (3%)Sodium 18mg (1%)Potassium 12mgFiber 1g (4%)Sugar 10g (11%)Vitamin A 84mg (2%)Calcium 10mg (1%)Iron 1mg (6%)
Did you make this recipe?Tag @WhitneyBond on Instagram and hashtag it #WBRecipes!