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These Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie Cut Outs are soft and taste amazing. Make easy gluten-free sugar cookie cut outs that keep their shape, perfect for decorated cookies. This is a no-chill recipe!

Welcome to my first gluten-free post!! I'm kicking things off with these amazingly delicious Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie Cut Outs!

I’ve been meaning to put up a gluten-free recipe for some time now as I know many people have gluten allergies or are living a gluten-free lifestyle. Successful gluten-free baking can be tricky and it can be difficult to replicate other recipes.

One of my favorite things during the holidays (and any time of year really) are cut out sugar cookies. If you’ve been following some of my other blog & Instagram posts, you guys know that I love decorating cookies. After a quick Google search, I realized there weren’t that many GF cut out recipes out there.

I wondered if my perfect sugar cookie cut out recipe could be replicated into a GREAT gluten-free cookie. Turns out, my recipe converted perfectly!

These cookies are the easiest and best gluten-free sugar cookie cut outs I’ve ever had (they're even better than some regular ones!).

I’m all about simple recipes, so making a GF version of my famous sugar cookies HAD to be easy. Many recipes call for more ingredients such as xanthan gum and a blend of a ton of different flours, which can be a lot to manage. It can also be very expensive since you have to buy so much more than just the butter and eggs.

Unless you're baking GF all the time, it may not be worth investing in all those flours and uncommon ingredients.

Easy gluten-free baking

The easiest way to gluten-free baking in my opinion is to pick up a GF flour blend; something that can be used 1:1 in place of all purpose flour.

I don’t bake GF often, but I have tried several GF flours in my day and boy oh boy, there are some bad ones out there. One of my biggest completes, is that a lot of them are gritty and horrible texture. The brand I settled on is King Arthur Flour This flour is the closest thing that I’ve found to regular all purpose flour.

While you can certainly use your favorite 1:1 flour blend, I definitely suggest trying King Arthur Flour's, Measure for Measure Flour (this is not a sponsored post, I'm just a really big fan!).It was important to me to keep this GF cookie recipe easy, therefore it does not require any other specialty ingredients. Just use the flour as you normally would!

While baking with GF flour can be easy, not every recipe can hold up to the GF change. I’m very excited to share that my famous sugar cookies stood up to the test to become gluten-free!

Gluten-free gold

These Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie Cut Outs are the best! They are extremely similar to my regular sugar cookie cut outs. Even my husband said that he could barely tell the difference between the two. I had just made a batch of the regular ones as well and we did a direct, side by side taste test.

This cookie passed with flying colors.

These cookies are tremendously soft and chewy. Let me say it again…these gluten-free cookies are SOFT. Baking GF does not mean you need to live with a dry crumbly cookie. These cookies have no “snap” to them; they have a soft, slow bend when you break it apart. Just as a sugar cookie should.

Now, I’ll be completely honest with you. I found the taste and chew of these cookies to be absolutely wonderful, but I did notice a subtle, bit more of a "flour-ey ness" due to the swap of flours. We did NOT find this to be unpleasant at all but it is slightly different in that way.

The most important thing about these cookies is, they hold their shape perfectly. I was beyond impressed with how well these cookies baked up given the GF flour swap. The edges are perfectly crisp and these cookies do not spread. This recipe is perfect for making decorated cookies.

The key to perfect gluten-free cookies

Because the flours absorb into the other ingredients so differently, you must be careful when baking your cookies. If you want soft, pillowy cookies, then ensuring the correct amount of bake time is key. These cookies can over bake easily and lead to a drier cookie. This happened to me for one of the trays I made.

Both cookies shown here are fully baked. The one on the right is I would say, light golden brown. Many bakers (including myself) keep cookies in the oven until seeing this color. However, for these GF cookies, the one on the right is too far gone. This cookie was dry and more crumbly. The cookie on the left, was beautifully soft. As you can see, there's hardly a hint of brown.

Be sure to keep an eye on these as over baking can lead to a dry cookie. I baked my cookies for about 12 minutes or so but be sure to do a test cookie for yourself as all ovens vary in the way they bake.

This is a no chill gluten-free sugar cookie recipe

Having a recipe that is no-chill is very important to me. It's rare you'll find any 'have to chill' recipe on my blog...I'm extremely impatient. 🙂 Especially when it comes to cookies! You do not need to chill the dough or the cookies before sending them off into the oven.

I do however, have to caveat that if the weather is 98 degrees and 90% humidity you might want to consider cooling your dough off in the fridge for a while. When it comes to high heat and high humidity, butter will react the only way butter knows how (melting into a mess and causing your dough to spread!). Some days, are just not good baking days. The recipe itself can only work so much magic!

Do you need xanthan gum for gluten-free sugar cookies?

Xanthan gum is a popular ingredient for gluten-free baking. Xanthan gum is basically an additive that helps thicken and stabilize recipes. While my recipe here does not call for xanthan gum, the King Arthur Gluten-free flour blend I used does contain xanthan gum. It is so nice having all the measuring done for you and blended into the flour already!

Can you freeze Gluten-free Sugar Cookies?

Yes, you can totally freeze these cookies! Super easy- just bake them off, stack them gently in a zip lock plastic bag and freeze for up to three months. Thaw on the counter for 2 hours before use.

Be sure to check out my other sugar cookie cut out post for more tips and instructions on making these cookies.

These cookies pair perfectly with my Famous Royal Icing recipe

(it's gluten-free too!)

Interested in making decorated cookies? The ingredients used for royal icing are naturally gluten-free, however, in my research I found that some powdered sugars may contain gluten. I would be cautious when shopping for that. Otherwise, the meringue powder, light corn syrup and extract are 100% gluten-free!

Using this recipe for Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie Cut Outs and my royal icing recipe, you can make delicious and easy gluten-free decorated cookies!

*Please note, I have only used the King Arthur Flour brand of gluten-free flour blend. This is the flour that I used and had success with this recipe. I cannot speak to other brands of flours or homemade blends.

I also checked that all of my other ingredients for the cookies AND royal icing were gluten-free. If you or the person consuming these cookies have gluten-allergies, please be aware and check ALL labels of ingredients to ensure they contain no gluten and were NOT made in a facility that manufactured products containing gluten. The label on the ingredients should clearly state this.

If you are making these in a "gluten household" for someone who has gluten allergies, be sure to properly wash and clean all utensils, bowls and counter tops which may have had contact with any gluten products before starting this recipe.

Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie Cut Outs

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4.5 from 2 reviews

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Ingredients

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2 ½ sticks butter (or, 1c & 4tbsp butter, softened at room temp. I always use salted butter because I prefer the flavor, but unsalted can be used)
1 c granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
3 c of 1:1 gluten-free flour blend (such as King Arthur Flour's Measure for Measure Flour)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp fine salt (feel free to omit if using salted butter)

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.
In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, beat the butter & sugar and light and fluffy.
Add in the egg, egg yolk & vanilla. Beat until well combined.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the gluten-free flour blend, baking powder & salt.
Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and gently mix. Once the flour is about absorbed, add the remainder of the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Do not over mix and be sure to thoroughly scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl while mixing.
Gather the dough into a ball. If you are ready to roll, start with about ¼ of the dough and roll out on a lightly floured surface (ensuring your rolling pin is also lightly floured). With the gluten-free flour blend, you need very little for this purpose. Avoid using too much of the flour on the rolling surface. Just a sprinkle on the board should do!
Roll to a ¼ inch thickness. Cut using your desired cookie cutters and place the cookies on the prepared tray. If you are decorating with sprinkles, this is when you would sprinkle your cookies.
Bake time for me has been about 10-12 minutes, but since all ovens vary, I suggest starting your timer with 10 minutes and see how they look. These cookies are done when there is a hint of brown hue on the edges. Over baked cookies can be dry.
Allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes and transfer to a baking rack to finish cooling. Decorate as desired.

Notes

Recipe by Owlbbaking.com

Please note, I have only used the King Arthur Flour brand of gluten-free flour blend. This is the flour that I used and had success with this recipe. I cannot speak to other brands of flours or homemade blends.

I also checked that all of my other ingredients were gluten-free. If you or the person consuming these cookies have gluten-allergies, please be aware and check ALL labels of ingredients to ensure they contain no gluten or were made in a facility that made products containing gluten. The label on the ingredients should clearly state this.

©2022 Owlbbaking, LLC. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from owner is strictly prohibited. Photography & video may not be used without consent (Click here for round-up feature consent).