Gluten-free Sugar Cookie Recipe (2024)

Both of my boys eat gluten-free 100% of the time. Zephan has celiac disease which I figured outimmediatelyupon introducing him to solid foods when he was a baby, and Asher has digestive issues that completely clear up when he eats gluten-free. I really should eat gluten-free 100% of the time, but I cheat and my digestive system lets me know every time that I do! The truth is I have a major sweet tooth and LOVE baked goods. If you’ve never had a gluten-free baked good, they aren’t bad at all but they aren’t as good as the “real deal” either. I typically buy boxed baked good mixes because the gluten-free flours are also expensive and tricky. Most homemade cookie recipes call for weird bean flours or bean curd or some other garbanza product that we just aren’t fans of. If you love all the beans in your gluten-free, more power to you. We’ve tried several and just don’t like the taste. So today I thought I’d experiment by taking a typical sugar cookie recipe and making it gluten free. Things didn’t go perfectly in execution (which I’ll tell you about below), but the end product turned out delicious and adorable!

I chilled my dough thoroughly but made the mistake of not rolling it out on a floured surface. Instead I simply rolled the dough into balls and baked them into a big mess! Ack! While they were still piping hot on the cookie sheets I grabbed a small mug and used it as a cookie cutter. This worked perfectly, but I don’t recommend this method. You’ll have a lot less wasted cookie if you simply do it right the first time.

If you want to make cute Santa cookies like the ones I featured fromSix Sister’s Stuff, follow the frosting recipe above. You will also need flaked coconut for the beard, red sugar for the hat, mini-marshmallows (I cut mine in half) for the ball, regular sized chocolate chips for the eyes, and red M&M’s for the nose! I like my frosting thick like those evil Loft-House sugar cookies that you pass in the grocery store and that somehow leap into your cart,so I place my frosting on the cookie in a bit of an unconventional manner. I whip the frosting to a “dough like” consistency, roll it into a ball and then flatten it like a pancake. I then plop my frosting pancake onto my sugar cookie and begin decorating. This method works much better for me than trying to obtain a smooth frosting finish with a knife. Do whatever works best for you!

I held a measuring cup over my cookie to create an “umbrella” for where I didn’t want the red sugar to end up. I also found it easier to flip my cookie upside down and roll the edge in red sugar for the hat. Neither of my boys are huge fans of coconut ,so I went a bit light on Santa’s beard :).

So how do they taste? They are delicious! Even without all of that fantastic frosting they taste great. More butter in your dough leads to a crisper cookie, so these cookies aren’t soft and chewy. They are firm to bite into. I typically like a soft sugar cookie but these get a thumbs up from me and I am super-duper picky. The cookie dough is yummy to eat as well but has that typical “grainy” texture to it that all gluten-free flours seem to have. But if you love to snack on the dough as you bake you won’t be disappointed. Enjoy and thanks again to Six Sister’s Stuff for the inspiration! If you want a non-gluten-free recipe for this cookie, be sure to check theirs out.