Buttery Sugar Cookie Cutouts for Easy Holiday Baking – Grain-Free and Gluten-Free Recipe

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This is a simple buttery sugar cookie recipe that works great for precise cutout shapes. I like to make a big batch of this dough and use it as a base for all my holiday favorites. It’s great for icebox cookies, jam drops, snow ball / Russian tea cookie/ Mexican wedding cookie. These cookies are the right amount of structure, crispness and tenderness thanks to reliable cassava flour (I always use Otto’s cassava flour and I think choosing different ones can yield different results). The touch of almond flour adds flavor and tenderness. Until discovering cassava flour my cutouts and shortbread would never hold their shape – these are amazing!

These buttery sugar cookies are a slight tweak of the recipe at for sugar cookie cutouts an Otto’s naturals . Back when I could eat gluten, sigh, I would have made these cookies from baking goddess Stella Parks. I like her additions of almond extract and in her book, the nutmeg, they don’t stand out but rather give the cookies a well rounded flavor.

These sugar cookies are adaptable to a range of substitutions. Maple sugar is perfect, coconut sugar will yield a darker cookie with a stronger flavor but could probably work. Coconut oil works well, in fact subbing part coconut oil will make these cookies easier to work with and last longer. You don’t have to use the almond flour – substitute 1/3 cup of cassava flour for the almond flour if you can’t have it. Other flour substitutions that I haven’t tried: rice would probably work in place of cassava, and I’d consider using 1/4 cup coconut flour here if you want to add flavor but can’t have the almond flour.

This dough is the basis for whole bunch of sugar cookies – try these others for sweet fun filled holidays.  

Jam Drops

Russian Tea Cookies (AKA Snow Balls, Mexican Wedding Cookies)

Gingerbread Cut Out Cookies

Candy Cane Cookies

Grain Free Buttery Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs

Use this recipe for cutout sugar cookies and all the other cookies you ant to make at Christmas time.

 
  • 1 2/3 cups cassava flour (I use Otto’s Naturals) (8 oz)
  • ½ cup almond flour (2.5 oz.)
  • 1 cup granulated sugar (or maple sugar) (7 oz)
  • 1 cup salted butter (or coconut oil) (softened at room temperature)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ teaspoon Baking powder
  • ¼ tsp ground nutmeg (optional)
  • ¼ tsp almond extract (optional)
  • ½ tsp xanthan gum (optional – but really helps for cookies that you roll out and cut out)
  • ½ cup starch for rolling (I use arrowroot, corn, or potato starch)
  1. Cream butter until fluffy (I usually do this in mixer but the food processor works too). Add eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, nutmeg, baking powder, salt and xanthan gum if using. Scrape down and mix again.
  2. Add flours and mix, scraping down the bowl once mid mix.
  3. Pour dough onto starched parchment paper, top with a bit of starch and top with more parchment and press to ½ inchish thick.
  4. For shaped cookies: chill dough (I cut the dough in half so as not to warm up too much) then roll to 1/4 inch thick – starch the surface well and starch on top of the dough. Cut out shapes. Put on parchment covered baking sheet. I find they spread less and work better if I chill the cut out cookies on the baking sheets for a few minutes before baking. This dough rerolls well because lacking gluten it doesn’t get tough but it’s sticky so always chill between rolls.

  5. We like to decorate with sanding sugar – I brush with a little water on a pastry brush and sprinkle with sugar to help it stick.

 
Dessert
Bravetart, Cassava, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Otto’s Naturals, Paleo, Stella Parks


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