The Best (gluten free) Sugar Cookie Recipe

I can't believe that we're already in the month of November! Since the Holidays seem to be quickly approaching, I figured it's time to share a sugar cookie recipe.  Not just any sugar cookie recipe- the best sugar cookie recipe that happens to also be gluten free. I have a fantastic vegan, gluten free recipe as well that I will be sharing with all of you soon. The vegan version tastes great and it works even better for decorating purposes- since there is no egg or butter (only shortening) the cookies hold their shape remarkably well during cutting and baking.

One of my favorite cookie cutters that I own is the ice cream cutter that I used. It's kind of perfect because it's not difficult to add cute, professional looking detail and you only really need to make two colors of royal icing. One of the the things that I think is kind of a pain about sugar cookies is making multiple colors of royal icing and having to use a few different bags for piping. I suppose if you're making a whole day of decorating a bunch of cookies it's not a big deal, but these cookies in particular I pretty much baked because I had made the dough for Halloween and ended up not having time to bake them.

When I was a kid, it was a holiday tradition for my sister and I to visit our aunt at her very hip bachelorette apartment in Seal Beach to decorate sugar cookies for Christmas. I thought my aunt was the coolest. She was the quintessential fun aunt- she would joke around and tease us, would take us around the downtown area of Seal Beach, and had cool decorations in her apartment- for example, the chili pepper string lights hung in her living room. When we had our sugar cookie decorating marathons, there was always an array of different kinds of sprinkles and frosting colors. The silver ball sprinkles (now illegal in CA- haha) were my favorite.  

Whenever I bake sugar cookies around the holidays, I always think of my aunt. Now that I'm an aunt, that's a tradition I want to carry out with my nephew and future nephews/nieces.

If you're gluten free, I cannot recommend this recipe enough. The one piece of advice I would give is to make the dough the night before and let it chill in the refrigerator overnight. It will be so much easier to roll out and cut out.

For the Sugar Cookies:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 cup, plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup, plus 2 tbsp superfine sweet rice flour
1/2 cup plus 3 tbsp potato starch
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp oat flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar together in bowl of stand mixer. Add vanilla extract. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Combine the flours, baking powder and salt in a food processor and pulse until well combined. With mixer on low, add dry ingredients to the butter/egg/sugar mixture. Once combined, scrape dough out of bowl and form into a ball onto a large piece of saran wrap. Dough will be very soft and sticky, but will harden up a great deal after refrigerating overnight. Cover fully with saran wrap and refrigerate overnight.

 

Once dough has chilled, split ball into two and keep one half in the refrigerator chilling. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Take other half of dough and roll out on parchment paper or a silpat dusted with sweet rice flour. Dust rolling pin and cookie cutters with sweet rice flour as well to prevent sticking. Cut out shapes as desired.

Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. Allow cookies to cool fully before icing.

For the royal icing:

Combine pasteurized egg whites from 2 large eggs with 2 cups of confectioner's sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Using the whisk attachment for a stand mixer, beat whites and vanilla on medium speed until foamy. Reduce speed to low and add in sifted confectioner's sugar. Once all of the sugar is added, increase speed to high and beat until icing forms stiff peaks (6-7 minutes). Separate icing into as many bowls as you want colors. Color each icing as desired. Using a small round tip (wilton size 3 or 5 tip) fitted to a pastry bag, outline each cookie with the thick icing. Once all cookies are outlined, add a teaspoon of water to each bowl (and add more, if necessary) to thin the icing to "flood" the cookies. The icing should go on easily, but should not be runny. Allow cookies to dry overnight.

 If you would like to go an even easier route with decorating, try adding some details, but not all details to your cookies like I did above. A heart shape is easy because you can use only one color. The ice cream cone below is also cute, even without the waffle cone details.