Cut Out Cookies – Gluten Free and Vegan
These gluten free and vegan cut out cookies taste amazing and are super easy to make! They are the perfect treat to make for the Holidays!
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I absolutely LOVE making cut out cookies with my family. It’s quickly become one of my favorite Christmas Traditions!
I remember making Christmas cookies when I was growing up.
The thought of getting to help roll out the dough, cut out the cute little shapes, and then get to decorate the cookies was magical as a kid!
I knew that was a family tradition I wanted to share with my kids. My food allergies were going to make that a little bit tricky, but I was certain it could be done!
Making cut out cookies gluten free and vegan was surprisingly not very difficult at all. With most cookies, you can get away with using a good gluten free all purpose flour.
I typically use “Better Batter” for most of my cookie recipes. The next main component was butter. That wasn’t very tricky either because “Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks” work amazingly well for baking.
The part I had the hardest time with was all the sugar!! When I was growing up, cut out cookies were made with sugar cookie dough.
I can’t have much refined sugar anymore because it gives me headaches. So I was feeling a little stumped. My normal go to sugar substitute is coconut sugar, but I didn’t want to cookies to be brown.
I wanted them to resemble the cut out cookies I grew up with as much as possible.
It wasn’t until I came across a traditional shortbread cut out cookie recipe that the light bulbs started going off.
They used powdered sugar as the sweetener in their cut out cookies. I cant have refined cane sugar, but I can have an awesome powdered sugar substitute called “Swerve” sweetener.
That combined with a little maple syrup for additional flavor works perfectly to replace the sugar in these cookies and they taste WONDERFUL!
Of course if you don’t have issues with refined sugar, you are more than welcome to use regular powdered sugar. Either way works great! These cut out cookies have an amazing buttery flavor!
They are soft on the inside with a slight crisp on the outside, and have the perfect amount of sweetness.
My daughter and I had SO much fun decorating cookies this year and I can’t wait to make other festive cut out cookies for other holidays!
This year, we also made a 3D Christmas Tree using this cut out cookie dough and it was awesome!
My daughter loved it so much it took some convincing to get her to actually allow us to eat it!
Here are the cookie cutters we used to make the 3D Christmas Tree:
What are some of your favorite Christmas cookie recipes to make with your family? I can’t wait to hear about it and hope you love these gluten free and vegan cut out cookies as much as my family does!
♥ Don’t forget to rate this recipe and leave a comment below if you give this recipe a try! ♥
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Cut Out Cookies – Gluten Free and Vegan
- Prep Time: 1 hr
- Cook Time: 15 min
- Total Time: 1 hr 15 min
- Yield: 24 1x
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 1 cup vegan butter, softened (I use “Earth Balance Soy Free Vegan Buttery Sticks”)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar or substitute (I use “Swerve” brand sweetener)
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 1/4 cup Gluten free all purpose flour ( I use “Better Batter“)
- Dash of salt
For the Frosting:
- 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar or substitute ( I use “Swerve” brand sweetener)
- 2–2.5 tbsp. dairy free milk of choice (I use “So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk”)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- Food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the vegan butter until creamy. Add in the maple syrup, vanilla, and powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Add the flour and salt to the mixer and mix until a dough is formed.
- Wrap the dough in a piece of plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
- Unwrap the dough and transfer it to a piece of parchment paper.
- Roll out the dough to the desired thickness. These cookies do not spread or rise so however thick you roll out the dough is how thick the cookies will be. I typically roll mine out to about 1/2″.*
- Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut the dough into the desired shapes. Place the cookies on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.
- To make the frosting, combine the powdered sugar, 2 tbsp of milk, and vanilla in a wide bowl (so you have room to dip the cookies*) and stir to combine. Add the food coloring and mix until the icing is a solid color. Add more milk a tsp at a time until you have reached your desired frosting consistency.
- If you are dipping the cookies into the frosting, place a piece of parchment paper on a sheet tray and set a cooling wrack on top of it (to catch excess frosting that drips off). Dip the cookies into the frosting and set on the cooling wrack. Otherwise, pipe the frosting onto the cookies. I like to use these squeeze bottles to pipe on frosting.
- Optionally add sprinkles while the frosting is still wet.
Notes
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Good Morning,
I think you better check, but I believe the sprinkles have gluten in them as well. FYI
If gluten is not an issue, can these be made with regular all-purpose flour?
Hi Barbara, regular all-purpose flour should work for these cookies.