Fancy Gluten Free Scottish Shortbread Cookies

These cookies are a little high maintenance compared to some of our other recipe posts, and they are definitely a highly sugary treat. But we think that, for Christmas, they’re worth it. The red jam topping and white icing look very festive and fancy. You’ll need about 5 1/2 hours to devote to getting these beauties to turn out correctly. The 4 hours minimum chilling time is crucial to the texture and flavor of the cookies, so no cheating!

Ingredients: Cookies

• 1 cup unsalted grass-fed butter, softened to room temperature
• 2/3 cup natural cane sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups + 2 tbsp. gluten free baking mix
• 1/2 cup red colored jam of your choice

Icing

• 1 cup organic powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp. milk (dairy, almond, or other)

Directions:

1. Beat the butter until creamy, then mix in the vanilla and sugar. Add the flour and continue mixing until it turns into a soft, smooth dough. Transfer the dough to a bowl, cover it, and refrigerate it for at least 4 hours.
2. Once the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. Spoon out tablespoons of dough and roll them into smooth balls.
4. If at any point the dough begins to soften a little, pop it into the freezer for 15 minutes to firm back up. With these guys, soft dough equals flat, crispy cookie puddle in the oven. Not what we’re going for here.
5. Push the end of your thumb into each ball, making a small indentation about half the width and depth of the dough.
6. Fill each indentation with jam. However you get it in there is fine, butter knife, spoon, piping bag like you use for icing, whatever.
7. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes until lightly browned at the very edges, a minute or two less if you like soft cookies. Cool them on the baking sheet for at least 30 minutes before you put the icing on them.
8. To make the glaze, simply whisk together the powdered sugar and milk, chill it while the cookies cool, then drizzle lightly over the cookies with the end of a spoon dipped in glaze or a piping bag with a small, round tip attached.

The cookies can be stored in the fridge for two or three days if you need to keep them fresh.

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens  and © Sally’s Baking Addiction.

20 Dec This entry was published on December 20, 2014 at 7:44 pm. It’s filed under Holidays, Indulge, Recipes and tagged Food, Holidays, Recipes. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.