Usually, the recipes that I post have some sort of redeeming quality – something that makes them healthy. This recipe has nothing. It is the gluten-free equivalent of out and out junk food. But, hey, these aren’t for me to eat. These aren’t even for my family to eat. These are for my son’s school’s annual carnival bake sale. And everyone needs a few bake sale standbys, right?

I realize I’ve already posted a recipe for sugar cookies. The advantage of this recipe is that it does not require any chilling time, and I was pressed for time when making these. They also result in a less crisp cookie than the other recipe. Of course, the advantage of the other recipe is that sorghum is a whole grain flour, whereas white rice flour is not.

The recipe is from Bette Hagman’s The Gluten-Free Gourmet Makes Dessert. She gives directions to use her featherlight flour blend. But, she also gives the recipe for making the flour blend, and I’ve done the math for you to break it down into its components (not perfectly so, but it worked).

Confession time: when I read the recipe for the featherlight flour mix, for some reason I read the 1 t. of potato flour/cup of other flour as 1 t. xanthan gum/cup. Yep, totally different things. I didn’t even realize that’s what I did until this morning while typing this up. So, if you want to try it her way, it should be 3.5 t. of potato flour and 2.5 t. of xanthan gum. Or, try it my way. It worked. Go figure.

A whole bunch o' sugar cookies

Dutch Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup + 2 T. rice flour
1/2 cup + 2 T. tapioca starch
1/2 cup + 2 T. corn starch
5 t. xanthan gum
1 T. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup Earth Balance margarine
1 egg or 1/4 cup liquid egg substitute
2 t. vanilla
1/4 cup (or more) potato starch for kneading

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a small bowl whisk together flours, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt. In a medium bowl cream together shortening and sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients. The dough will be a soft ball. With your hands, knead in enough of the potato starch to make the dough easy to handle and roll out. (Note: I didn’t do this – I chilled the dough while I did the dishes from making the dough, and then used generous amounts of sorghum flour while rolling out the dough.)

Roll out the dough. (She suggests plastic wrap over the dough while you roll it out if it’s too sticky. Again, I didn’t do this, I just used more sorghum flour if it stuck. It was an easy to handle dough, though.) Cut out into desired shapes and bake on ungreased cookie sheets for ~10 minutes or until just beginning to brown. (I use parchment on my baking sheets.)

Cool slightly before removing from pan. (I just slide the parchment off the pan and allow to cool on the counter on the parchment before picking them up.)