Sugar Cookies

gluten free sugar cookies

This recipe is very similar to my pie crust recipe. The only difference is more sugar and part of the rice flour is substituted for tapioca starch. The tapioca starch isn't necessary, but I think it helps with the texture.

To avoid crumbling cookies, make them small and fairly thick. It also helps to use shapes that don't have small parts that stick out and can easily break off (like snow flakes or candy canes... mine broke). Christmas Trees, snow men or bells would probably work well.

some of my intact cookies... i had to icing-glue the candy cane back together

These cookies freeze nicely and are fun to decorate. I use a simple icing made from powdered sugar, milk and food colouring, but you can get fancy and do the royal icing thing.

(makes 30 to 40 cookies depending on the size)
Ingredients
1 cup Rice Flour
1/2 cup Tapioca Starch (or 1/2 cup rice flour)
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Guar Gum (or 1 tsp Xanthan Gum)
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 cup cold Margarine
1/2 - 3/4 cup Sugar (based on your preferences)
1 Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract


Directions

Mix together flour, starch, tartar, baking powder, guar gum, and salt.
Cut in margarine until it's small pea sized.
Beat sugar, egg and vanilla separately. Add to dry ingredients.
Mix dough until it forms a clump (use your hands)
Roll onto rice floured counter and cut into cookie shapes (smaller is better).
Bake on a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet at 350 for around 8 minutes or until just starting to brown on the bottom.
If you have trouble removing from pan after, wait until cookies are completely cool to remove.
Decorate with icing of your choice.

I use powdered sugar mixed with a little bit of milk and food colouring. You can dip the top of the cookies in the icing or use a little paint brush or knife/spoon to apply.

cut in butter and add wet ingredients to dry

roll out dough on floured surface

rolled out

cut out (maybe leave out the candy cane...)

place on greased cookie sheet

after baking

candy cane fail... it kind of exploded

decorate with icing

The gingerbread men and candy canes didn't hold their shape well. Probably because they were too big and had skinny parts that are easy to break off. You can see that the leg of the man is breaking in this picture. I glued it back together with icing, which worked fine, but it is much easier if you use smaller cookie cutters.

Next time I will try using parchment paper to line the cookie sheet to help with the breakage!