This light and flaky gluten-free vanilla shortbread is the perfect combination of light and sweet. Vanilla bean sugar gives it a lovely smooth flavor with melt in your mouth deliciousness and it’s even more festive dipped in chocolate for that extra hit of holiday cheer.
December 4th is National Cookie Day, and a perfect day to begin on the December baking. Whether you celebrate Christmas, or another holiday in December, these gluten-free vanilla shortbread are a light and delicious cookie that is well worth making.ย Once again this year I’m collaborating with my friends at The Sweetest Season Cookie Exchange. Check out the other festive cookie recipes in this collaboration through the links at the bottom of this post.
Making Vanilla Infused Sugar:
Vanilla infused sugar is the key ingredient, to help the real vanilla flavor really pop. For making your own natural vanilla infused sugar, you’ll need:
- 2 vanilla beans
- 2 cups sugar
Slice open the vanilla beans, carefully, and scrape out the seeds directly into two cups of sugar in a wide mouthed pint jar. Once both beans are scraped out, set the pods aside for another recipe or use. Stir the seeds into the sugar, cap securely, and set aside for several days to a week. After a few days you can taste test the sugar to see if the vanilla has infused it. I recommend a minimum of a 72 hour wait for the infused sugar to taste vanilla-y. The further you can make the sugar in advance, the better.
If you are in a hurry, simply combine the seeds from one scraped vanilla bean with one cup of sugar and omit the sugar for dusting. Let stand 1 hour in a warm spot to help the flavor spread through the sugar, before beginning the mixing process.
Festive Gluten-Free Vanilla Shortbread Cookies
Description
A simply delicious vanilla shortbread with real vanilla beans, and a perfectly light gluten free flour combination.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup of vanilla infused sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting
- 1 egg, free range
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
- ย 1 cup almond flour
- 1 cup coconut flour
- 1 cup of gluten free flour blend
Instructions
- n a large mixing bowl, add butter and sugar.ย Beat together until light and fluffy.
- Add egg, and optional vanilla. Beat to fully mix.
- Add almond flour, coconut flour and gluten free flour blend. Blend in with a spoon to make a stiff dough.ย Knead to make a smooth dough.
- Cover and chill for 1 hour.
- Prepare a baking sheet by greasing with butter and then sprinkling with additional gluten free flour. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Remove the dough from fridge.ย Divide dough into 3 portions.ย Flour a board with almond flour.
- Roll out each dough portion to 1/4 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters.ย Place each biscuit on the prepared baking sheet.ย Dough may be combined and re-rolled as often as needed.ย It will not get tough.
- Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.ย Transfer to cooling rack.
- Repeat till all the dough has been baked.
Gluten-Free Vanilla Shortbread Cookies Recipe
Makes up to 5 dozen, 1.5″ cookies.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup of vanilla infused sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting
- 1 egg, free range
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
- ย 1 cup almond flour
- 1 cup coconut flour
- 1 cup of gluten free flour blend
Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, add butter and sugar.ย Beat together until light and fluffy.ย Add egg, and vanilla. Beat to fully mix.ย Add almond flour, coconut flour and gluten free flour blend. Blend in with a spoon to make a stiff dough.ย Knead to make a smooth dough.ย Cover and chill for 1 hour.
Prepare a baking sheet by greasing with butter and then sprinkling with additional gluten free flour. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Remove the dough from fridge.ย Divide dough into 3 portions.ย Flour a board with almond flour.ย Roll out each dough portion to 1/4 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters.ย Place each biscuit on the prepared baking sheet.ย Dough may be combined and re-rolled as often as needed.ย It will not get tough like wheaten dough.
Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.ย Transfer to cooling rack.ย Repeat till all the dough has been baked.
Protips to make it better:
You can use a gluten free flour blend for all three cups of flour, if desired. My preferred blend contains buckwheat flour and I find the flavor overpower in sweet cookies. I found that using equal parts almond and coconut flour avoids any hint of a strong almond or coconut flavor, and also avoids the slight oiliness that can come from heavy use of almond flour.
Gluten free flour needs time to hydrate so its helpful to refrigerate the dough for at least one hour before rolling it out, giving the cookies a flakier texture and more consistency throughout the dough.
Chilling one hour, or overnight, helps make the dough easier to handle. If you form the dough into a roll in parchment paper, before chilling, you can slice it like a refrigerator cookie. This works as a good short cut if you were just planning on round cookies. If you want shapes and interesting shortbread designs, you’ll want to roll and cut the cookies after chilling the dough.
This dough holds the impression of cookie stamps well and doesn’t rise in the oven, so you can space them closer together on the baking sheet.ย This allows you to get more cookies at a time in the oven.
More Holiday Treats and Cookies:
There’s lots more gluten-free holiday treats around the Joybilee Farm blog, like this orange shortbread recipe. Or these gluten-free pizzelles, or even these delicious biscotti. If your family likes gingerbread, this gluten-free gingerbread recipe is well worth adding to the holiday list.
More information about our collaboration
Be sure to check out the links below for more festive cookie recipes for this special time of the year.
This recipe is part of The Sweetest Season, an annual virtual cookie swap co-hosted by Erin of The Speckled Palate and Susannah of Feast + West. Every year, food bloggers get together to share new holiday cookie recipes to make and to give.
This year we are raising money for Cookies 4 Kids’ Cancer, which is a recognized 501(c)3 non-profit organization, in the USA, dedicated to funding research for new, innovative and less-toxic treatments for childhood cancer.
Since 2008, Cookies for Kidsโ Cancer has granted nearly $18 million to pediatric cancer research in the form of 100+ research grants to leading pediatric cancer centers across the country. From these grants have stemmed 35+ treatments available to kids battling cancer today.
Help us raise money for this important cause! Donate through our fundraising page.
When you donate right now your gift will go further with matching gifts
Another exciting thing is that Cookies for Kidsโ Cancer is in a matching window with their friends at OXO, meaning OXO will be matching every dollar raised through the end of 2024, up to $100,000. Whatever money we raise will automatically double on our fundraising page!ย How cool is that! Go to the fundraising page to learn more about this worthwhile initiative and donate to a great cause.
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