Rolled Sugar Cookies For Cutouts

[KellyM]

Hi all. I tried rolled/cut out sugar cookies for the first time this weekend and used Annalise Roberts' recipe. The taste was fantastic (my non-celiac mother says she thinks they are better than her terrific gluten-filled ones) and the final product (bells and christmas trees) looked great, too.

So here is the problem I had: In order to get the cutouts off the wax paper (you have to roll dough between wax paper), the dough has to be really, really cold (Annalise states this in the recipe; you have to roll it out between the paper, then refrigerate until very cold before doing cuts). But the dough would warm up so fast (even after leaving it overnight) that I could only get about 3 shapes out (working quickly) before it was so warm that they wouldn't come off the paper--so I would re-roll and it would go back in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Needless to say, it was a LONG process for 3 dozen cookies. Lots of downtime and lots of turning the oven on and off.

any ideas? Any success stories?

[gadgetgirl]

I haven't tried that recipe but have had great success with others from that book. But one thing that comes to mind is whether you have a marble slab that you could refrigerate to use to keep the dough cold while doing your cutouts. I inherited from my father a marble slab (maybe 2'x2') and rolling pin - I'm sure he bought it from some mail order catalog that sells all those assorted household things (Harriet Carter??? Lillian Vernon???) I know it works great for regular pie crusts.

[Jestgar]

If you don't have a marble slab you could try rolling it on baking pans that you've put in the frig. You'd have to keep switching them out, but it might be quicker. You could also use the pan to put the rolled out dough back in the frig to chill between cuts.

[KellyM]

Great ideas! I didn't even know a "marble slab" existed! I'll put it on my christmas list--like I said, the end result is worth trying to reduce the time involved!!

[hez]

I would also try putting the dough in the freezer. I did this even with my old gluten filled cookies.

Hez

[rbh]

You could e-mail Annalise and ask her for a suggestion. Her e-mail is on her web site, The Food Philosopher. She is incredibly responsive to reader questions. I love her cookbook, and have made a number of items from it with great success. I used her book to bake brunch items for a brunch I was having for 60 people -- all gluten eaters -- and she was very nice in answering questions about which items would freeze well, etc.

[jennyj]

Can I get the recipe for sugar cookies, please

[Cheri A]

I would say to divide the dough in half or quarters and wrap/refrigerate. I read at a website a few months ago about this: take out the divided dough and roll between parchment paper on the baking sheet. Cut out shapes, BUT LEAVE THEM. Put the whole sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes. When you take it out, it's easier to separate and deal with the cookies. Transfer them to another baking sheet w/parchment paper and bake. You also need very little flour for rolling this way.

[jenvan]

I also say, work in very small batches of the dough. Putting down some flour won't hurt either.

[KellyM]

I would say to divide the dough in half or quarters and wrap/refrigerate. I read at a website a few months ago about this: take out the divided dough and roll between parchment paper on the baking sheet. Cut out shapes, BUT LEAVE THEM. Put the whole sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes. When you take it out, it's easier to separate and deal with the cookies. Transfer them to another baking sheet w/parchment paper and bake. You also need very little flour for rolling this way.

Thanks to everyone for the good advice! Cheri- I particularly like your idea about cutting the shapes and then putting the dough back in the fridge to remove shapes later; that would save some time.

[GFBetsy]

Another suggestion is to sprinkle some potato starch on your dough to keep it from being quite so sticky (just like using extra flour with wheat-based cookies). That's what I do with my recipe.