Welcome to Mr. Farmer’s Daughter’s 12 Days of Cookies!
Many years ago my parents began a 12 Days of Christmas tradition with my sister and me. It began on the 13th of December and ran through Christmas day. It was so great to spread out the love (and gifts) for that period of time. So, I’m passing the tradition on to you in the form of cookie recipes! I’m going to keep the posts short because it’s Christmas time and I can’t be writing book-long posts for 12 days in a row. I just don’t have it in me to put that many words on paper. Suffice it to say, some of the recipes are favorites of ours, some I’ve adapted to be more allergen friendly and some are just recipes that I’ve wanted to play around with. All of them will be delicious though. Merry Christmas!!!
Day 7!
Gluten-free Iced Sugar Cookies!
A staple of Christmas, this cookie is da bomb! Before being gluten-free, I made it with wheat flour. It originally came from my good friend, Amber, but I’ve since eliminated the margarine (omg, did I really use that stuff?) and tweaked the recipe to be gluten-free. It’s so simple I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it. And, if you use King Arthur’s measure for measure gluten-free flour, it will turn out perfect. I’ve had varying degrees of success with several other mixes, all edible, but none that are as sturdy and workable as the King Arthur version.
A few notes:
- I divide the dough into halves and wrap them separately to put into the refrigerator. That way you can work with half and keep the other half securely wrapped (which means moist.)
- You can easily roll this dough out on a floured board, cut the cookies and lift them without them falling apart. It’s that good.
- I used a basic royal icing recipe to make the icing. I used Color Kitchen’s real food coloring mixes. There are no chemical colorings is this house. I was so happy with the colors that these made!
- 1 ½ cup gluten-free flour
- ½ tsp. baking powder
- pinch of salt
- ⅔ cup sugar
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 2 small/medium eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- Combine first three ingredients and set aside.
- In a mixer, cream butter and sugar together.
- Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla and mix well.
- Add flour mixture and mix until it comes into a ball. If there is some flour left, mix by hand just until the mixture is smooth.
- Divide into two discs and cover with plastic wrap.
- Chill for at least 3 hours.
- Remove from refrigerator and allow to warm until dough can be worked. (20-30 min.)
- Roll each dough ball to ⅛ – ¼” thickness and cut with cookie cutters.
- Place cookies on parchment covered baking sheets. (At this point you could decorate with colored sugars, if you don’t want to ice them.)
- Bake until very light brown.
- Remove from oven and cool.
- Ice as desired.