These Gluten-free Butter cookies are a classic simple recipe that can be made during any time of the year but are special to us during the winter holiday season. We adapted one of our family’s recipes to make our butter cookies gluten and dairy free. The cookies still have the same buttery rich flavor from the ghee (clarified butter) without the lactose or casein.
Butter cookies can be known to be a bit dense so for our recipe we really recommend you mix the butter and sugars together until they are light and fluffy. It may take 3-5 minutes to get to that fluffy consistency that we are looking for so we recommend using a stand mixer if you have one and a hand mixer will also work for this recipe. Room temperature ingredients are important with this recipe. Having the butter and egg yolks at room temperature helps the dough come together with the coconut sugar.
If you can’t find ghee at your local grocery store, we have a recipe to make your own ghee at home and it is so easy and worth your time to make a batch to have on hand. Using a high quality organic butter (pasture-raised if you can find it) is optimal when making ghee. If you do not have dairy sensitivity you can for sure use regular high quality butter in this recipe it swaps very easily.
Decorating cookies around the holiday brings back some great memories. I mean who doesn’t love fancy colored sprinkles and peppermint chunks all over the counters! This cookies recipe is very kid-friendly and honestly, super fun for every age that wants to join in on the decorating.
Some recipes you need to be crazy precise when baking, that’s why I love this recipe. The hardest part about this is taking the time to sit your butter and egg yolks out to get them to room temperature. This recipe only uses a few ingredients and makes a ton of cookies.
This recipe does make about 4 dozen cookies, which makes if perfect for a cookie swap, gifting to family friends and neighbors, or just having a stash in the freezer to eat one with a cup of tea in the afternoon.
While it may seem like the recipe calls for a lot of sugar in these cookies, but it also calls for 5 1⁄2 cups of flour and it makes about 4 dozen so do not worry these are not overly sweet and sugary. They are light yet decadent.
How to Make Gluten-free Butter Cookies
Once you have your dough ready to go, using a cookie scoop or tablespoon scoop out about a tablespoon of dough and place on the prepared baking sheets. Use the back side of a spoon or your fingers to gently press down gently on the cookies to flatten out the roundness. The cookies do not spread that much so you can place them 1-2 inches apart without worry.
Decorate with whatever festive sprinkles you have, some crushed up peppermint sticks or candies, leave plain, or break up a bar of Tasty Yummies new chocolate in a few of the cookies. The sky is the limit when it comes to decorating these cookies.
Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. If using butter instead of ghee check at 12 minutes but you may need another 2-3 to get the edges golden before removing from the oven. Allow cookies to cool on the rack which we know is HARD but it allows the cookie to set up, so it is not crumbly.
Once all the cookies are cool, store them in an airtight container on the counter for 1 week, in your fridge for 2 weeks and they will stay good in your freezer up to 3 months.
We hope this recipe brings you joy when you’re baking, and we can’t wait for you to share photos with us! Happy holidays and happy baking!
Gluten-free Butter Cookies (dairy-free)
Ingredients
- 1- pound ghee or butter room temperature
- 1 cup coconut sugar
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 2 egg yolks room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla, vanilla bean paste works well too
- ½ cup orange juice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 5 ½ cup gluten free flour, Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 gluten free flour works the best
- Sprinkles for decorating
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with avocado oil spray.
- Cream ghee, coconut sugar, and maple for 3-5 minutes or until light and fluffy using stand mixer or hand mixer. Ghee needs to be soft not melted and not straight from the fridge. Coconut sugar takes longer to incorporate so this step is very important.
- Add in egg yolks, vanilla, and orange juice. Mix until combined.
- Sift flour so there are no clumps. Add salt and the flour 1 cup at a time.
- Do not over mix the dough. Once all the flour is absorbed grab your cookie scoop or tablespoon.
- Scoop cookie balls and place on tray. One standard size baking sheet will fit a dozen cookies.
- Gentle using the round end of a spoon or your fingers, press down on the cookies to flatten
- slightly.
- Decorate with whatever festive sprinkles you want to use and then bake 12-15 minutes.
- Allow to cool on tray for 5 minutes then move cookies to a cooling rack.
- Cookies will stay fresh in an airtight container on the counter for 1 week, in the refrigerator for 2
- weeks, and in the freezer for up to 3 months.
2 Responses
I halved the recipe and replaced the ghee with Mykonos vegan butter, taste/sweetness are spot on (I don’t like anything overly sweet)–but mine are a bit granular/dry. I used King Arthur’s GF 1:1. I wonder what the culprit is.
Hi Kayla. Glad to hear the taste and sweetness was good. Unfortunately we haven’t tested with vegan butter or that particular flour blend, so it’s honestly hard to say what the culprit was for the dryness. Vegan butter doesn’t always behave the same, so it’s possible it’s that. Sorry I don’t have more feedback, allergen-friendly baking can be tricky.