Christmas Cookie Recipes

[Jenerick13]

I am new to chat rooms in general but also new to cooking w/gluten-free flour. I have had celiac for 6 yrs but chose to give up foods rather than be open minded and try the gluten-free products. Wasn't working for me, fell off the wagon so to speak and my blood work is worse than ever. Any way, this year I have decided to use these products. I want to make Christmas Sugar cookies. I have Bob Red Mills gluten-free all purpose flour. I have used it before but my cookies are always soft & crumbly. I put Xantham Gum in but they are still soft & crumbly. What am I doing wrong? Can I simply subsitute the gluten-free flour in any recipe or do I need special recipes? Help...the holidays are here!

[ArtGirl]

I can't answer your specific question about the flours, but....

I did a search on this board for "sugar cookies" and several threads came up. You might want to do the same and browse the results for a recipe you think you'll like. Here's a recipe from JerseyAngle.

This is the recipe I used last year--they were excellent--

SUGAR COOKIES

2 cups shortening

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

6 cups rice flour blend

3 tsp. xanthan gum

4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

In large bowl, cream shortening and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add dry ingerdients and mix well. Divide in half, form dough into balls and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Roll out as desired. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

RICE FLOUR BLEND

6 cups rice flour

2 cups potato starch

1 cup tapioca flour

FROSTING

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

4 cups 10x sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Enough milk or substitute to get desired spreading consistancy

Beat butter and shortening. Add vanilla. Beat in sugar. Add milk a little at a time.

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Since that time, I've become sensitive to tapioca , so I plan to try them without it and see what happens.

[lorka150]

Instead of using 1 c. for 1 c., mix it with starch... I use Bob's All Purpose, and generally do half and half and with a starch. If your recipe calls for 1 c. flour, I'd do either half of All Purpose + half of tapioca / potato starch, or 1/2 amaranth + 1/2 starch.

[i canary]

My mother accidentally put sorghum flour in our gluten-free mixture once - it was la lot less crumbly. So now we add it to our recipes all the time. Still experimenting with the amount.