Before my daughter was diagnosed, decorating sugar cookies was my "thing". I did it a little on the side for friends/acquaintances. I have turned down several jobs because I won't have something in my house that my daughter would obviously want and she can't have. (Dad's frosted miniwheats are OK because he is the only one who EVER wanted to eat them.)

I am looking for a relatively simple rolled sugar cookie recipe that I can use to decorate cookies again. I am not looking for something particularly labor intensive. One that I have has rolling the dough on the pan, cutting out shapes, refridgerating all of it, removing excess, cooking, blah, blah blah . . . too much! Each sheet of cookies would take way too much time. The decorating process is labor intensive enough!!

So here is my list of demands:

Relatively the SAME labor as gluten sugar cookies (I am expecting multiple flours!)
Hold up well (does not crumble) during the decorating process
Decent taste (Let's face it, by the time I'm done decorating, the cookies can be overwhelmed with icing but a bad tasting cookie would shine through, I'm sure)

Hope someone can help . . . Thanks!

Your wish is my command

These are really good--I think they taste like "regular" sugar cookies, and the prep is the same....

SUGAR COOKIES

1 cup shortening (I use Spectrum)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups rice flour blend (I simply use 2 cups of rice flour and one cup of potato starch--I'm intolerant to tapioca)
1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream shortening and sugar, add eggs and vanilla. When combined, add dry ingredients. Wrap dough (I also flatten it a little) and chill for about an hour. Roll out and cut as desired.

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Cool, frost and decorate.

This dough makes a great "crust" for a fruit pizza or tart. It also doubles very well.

Have fun!

Soft Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

INGREDIENTS
4 cups gluten free flour (I use this mix: 1 cup cornstarch, 1 cup tapioca flour, 1 cup rice flour, 1 TBSP potato flour)
3 teaspoons guar/xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream


DIRECTIONS
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg; set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg, vanilla and sour cream until well blended. Stir in the sifted ingredients. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/4 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 1/2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.



I got this recipe from allrecipes.com years ago, and it became "my" sugar cookie recipe. I modified it to take it gluten free. The cookies are incredibly soft, so much so that they even take a little longer to dry out than most gluten free cookies. I hope it works well for you.

My recipe is very similar except its skipping the nutmeg and replace the sour cream with jello vanilla pudding powder which can make it soft too.

I tried this recipe over the weekend with the added pudding powder that Glutenfreefamily recommended. After refrigerating the dough, I tried rolling it out and it crumbled all to pieces! I had to put it back in the mixer with a little milk to get it back to cookie dough consistency. I didn't re-refrigerate it, I just rolled it out at that point. The cookies were absolutely fantastic!! In the future, I don't think I'll refrigerate the dough at all because I think it dries it out too much. I also wondered if the pudding powder makes the dough a little dry as well and it might have needed the extra milk anyway. I just thought I'd share my experience in case anybody else had similar problems. Thanks for the recipe!

Yes, I'll bet the pudding powder dried out the dough. I've made these several times in the last two years, and the dough has never been dry--it's actually easier to work with than the one I used to make with wheat flour.

When using this recipe, I'd suggest going with the recipe as is

Preparation time: 45 min Baking time: 8 min
Yield: 3 1/2 dozen cookies


1 cup sugar
1 cup Butter, softened
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla
2 1/4 cups Gluten-Free Flour Blend (see below)
1/4 teaspoon salt


Combine sugar and butter in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add egg yolks and vanilla. Continue beating, scraping bowl often, until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour blend and salt. Beat until well mixed. Cover; refrigerate until firm (1 hour).

Heat oven to 350°F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface, one-half at a time (keeping remaining dough refrigerated), to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with 2 1/2-inch star-shaped cookie cutter. Place 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Let stand 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets. Cool completely.

Gluten-Free Flour Blend: To make Flour Blend, combine 2 cups rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca flour and 1 teaspoon xanthan gum. Store in container with tight-fitting lid; stir before using.

Looking for more gluten-free sugar cookies, gingerbread and other Christmas menu items see
my blog http://glutenfree123.blogspot.com/ -Glad to help, I've been there

RikkiTikki....is that from landolakes? I used that one and it's great. I rolled it between wax paper. Just make sure to get it to 1/4" or less b/c if it's too thick it spreads tooo much.

YUMMY though!

Yes it is from the landolakes recipes, I liked it, thanks for the tips!
Tavi

I just totally got your user name!!!!! Rikki Tikki TAVI!!! A favorite story of mine.

Okay...done...not trying to threadjack!

I made chocolate chip cookies for my boys and peanut butter cookies for me. The boys asked for sugar cookies. I told each of them to find me a gluten free sugar cookie. One did and this is what it was. Didn't take time at all to make, bake, cool and frost. They taste great, plain or frosted.

1 cup rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup Butter Flavor Crisco
1 egg or 1/4 cup liquid egg substitute
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup potato starch, for kneading

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Have on hand 2 ungreased cookie sheets.
2. In a small bowl, whish together the flour mix, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of your mixer, cream sugar and crisco. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients, mixing enough to combine. The dough will be a soft ball. With your hands, knead in enough of the potato starch to make the dough easy to handle and roll out.
4. Using about half at a time, place a piece of plastic wrap over the ball and roll out to about 1/8 inch thickness.
5. Cut into desired shapes and place on pan.
6. Decorate with coloured sugars before baking or use frosting to decorate after baking.
7. (With this dough, you can use all the scraps.) Just scrape them together and roll out again. They will not get tough.
8. Bake for about 13 minutes. Cool very slightly before removing from the pan.


Good luck

I just finished making Patti's Sugar Cookie recipe and they came out great! Thanks Patti.

The last few times I made sugar cookies, they spread. I guess I needed to use all shortening instead of half and half. The only modification I made was applesauce to replace the eggs. I also use a modified Carol Fenster flour blend with sorghum flour. I rolled the dough as soon as it was mixed between sheets of parchment paper and didn't have any problems.

I'll have to try some of these other recipes too.

This recipe was great--thanks for sharing. I substituted Earth Balance for the shortening. The dough was a bit sticky and hard to work with even after chilling so I put it in the freezer for a bit which helped. I think these could pass for "real" cookies.

THIS RECIPE CONTAINS DAIRY
Cream cheese cutouts
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
8-ounce package cream cheese
3 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I use gluten free pantry)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 12 cups sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Cream cheese frosting
4 ounces (1/2 package) cream cheese
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter or margarine
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound box confectioners sugar
2-4 tablespoons milk
food color optional

In a large mixing bowl, combine butter and cream cheese. Let stand at room temp. for 30 minutes.
Add sugar and beat until fluffy.
Add egg, vanilla and almond extracts.
Add flour mixture, baking powder, mix well.
Divide dough and chill (1 and 1/2 hour)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Roll dough 1/8 inch thick, cut out, place on ungreased cookie sheets.

Frosting: mix cream cheese and butter. Add almond and vanilla. Mix well. Add powdered sugar and milk.

This dough is really easy to work with. You can add cut scraps back into the dough without the dough getting too tough.

Laura

I just wanted to post that I made Patti's Easy Gluten Free Cookie recipe again on Valentines Day. I dyed the dough pink and cut them out with hearts. They came out spectacular! Everyone loved them, including gluten lovers.

My modifications are using a sorghum, potato starch, tapioca starch blend and using 1/4 cup of applesauce to sub for egg. I did not chill the dough either.

I will upload a photo soon!