BEST Gluten Free Sugar Cookies Recipe! (2024)

FAQs

How do you make gluten-free cookies less gritty? ›

Let the batter or dough "rest" 30 minutes before baking. This gives the flours time to absorb moisture and soften, minimizing that gritty texture. Baking time and temperature can vary. Start on the low end of baking time and add minutes as needed.

You need a binding agent in your gluten-free cookies recipe; otherwise, your cookies will fall apart. Some flour blends may already contain a binding agent, so double-check the list of ingredients. If it doesn't, you can add flaxseeds, xanthan gum, or guar gum.

Chilling helps the flours and xanthan gum absorb liquid, which makes the dough sturdier and easier to handle. Without a proper rest, your cookies are likely to crumble. Think of mix-ins as the Spanx of the cookie world. They are a sly way to ensure that your cookies look like cookies, not misshapen gluten-free blobs.

2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of gluten-free flour is necessary to ensure proper leavening. Baking soda and buttermilk can be used to leaven instead of baking powder, but 1-1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar should be added for each 1/2 teaspoon baking soda used.

Oat Flour. With its creamy, earthy flavor and delicate texture, gluten-free oat flour is a staple of my gluten-free baking recipes. It bakes up soft and smooth, adding necessary starch to many GF baked goods and keeping them moist and tender due to its high fat content and stable protein structure.

Use a Binder. Binders like xanthan gum and guar gum provide structure in gluten-free baking to make up for the missing gluten. This prevents cookies from being too crumbly plus it also helps with freshness.

Gluten-free cookie dough is stickier than standard cookie dough, but chilling it can help. This is because cold dough is less sticky, and it doesn't spread as easily, too.

Using xanthan gum helps provide some of the stickiness that gluten free goods lack, replacing some elasticity. Xanthan gum mimics some of gluten's most essential properties by sticking to flour and its moisture. This helps create moist goods that hold their shape after being baked.

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

Add more fat or liquid: It might just be that you need a bit more moisture in your recipe, especially if you're converting a regular “gluten-ful” recipe to gluten-free. Try adding anywhere from ¼ to ½ cup of liquid or fat to the recipe and see if that helps.

Why are gluten-free cookies so hard? ›

Another reason is that gluten-free flours, such as almond flour or coconut flour, can behave differently than wheat flour in baking. They may absorb more liquid, for example, which can result in dry or crumbly cookies.

The holes trick

There's also a new technique going around when preventing craters in a second layer of icing: poke holes in the base flood (under the area you'll cover with a second layer of icing). You can even do this when the first layer flood has completely dried!

Texture and Rise: Gluten-free baking often requires a bit of finesse to achieve the desired rise and texture. Baking soda's reaction with an acid can help achieve that necessary lift, while baking powder provides an extra boost when the batter or dough is exposed to heat.

A: Yes, cream of tartar can be used in gluten-free bread recipes to improve dough stability and rise.

Gluten-free baked goods have earned the reputation of being dry and gritty. That grit—that evil grit! —is the result of gluten-free flours that are often high in starches and rice flour, which take longer to absorb moisture than regular “gluten” flour.

Let the dough sit overnight. The granulated sugar will 'dissolve' in the dough and the cookies won't have that granulated texture. Cause of gritty sugar texture: Baking immediately after mixing dough instead of wrapping/covering it chilling and waiting at least 1 hour, 2 hours for best results.

Add xanthan gum to gluten-free flour. It enhances elastic qualities that gluten-free flours lack, making it easier to work with and less likely to crumble. Add plenty of water to the gluten-free flour to prevent the pastry from becoming too dry when rolling out.

Besides eggs, which are protein-based, two starch-based products often used to bind and thicken gluten-free baked products are guar gum and xanthan gum. These products are largely interchangeable and are used in small amounts (1/2 to 1 teaspoon per cup of flour) to add volume and texture to baked goods.