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These Gluten Free Cut Out Cookies are the best for decorating holiday cookies! They are so simple to put together, can be rolled out immediately and decorated (or not) to celebrate any holiday! These versatile cookies are made with only 5 ingredients (plus a pinch of salt!) and are a great activity to do with the kids. We’ve included tips and tricks for decorating using an easy powdered sugar icing so you can get your holiday bake on now!
Gluten Free Cut Out Cookies
How cute are these Gluten Free Cut Out Cookies? They’re also easy to make, taste delicious and we’ve offered a few different flavor options so they’re customizable! They can be baked and left plain, or topped with good quality colored sugar, or they can be fully decorated to match the holiday you are celebrating!
We had SO MUCH FUN making them, and honestly it didn’t take long to come to a recipe that we were happy with. The best part about these cookies is that you don’t have to wait for them to chill before rolling out! Usually with sugar cookies the dough has to set up for a few hours in order to get great cookies, but we had amazing results with rolling the dough out immediately. You can also make the dough and then chill for a few hours to days if you want to break down the steps as well! Read below for some tips and tricks on how to make the cutest Gluten Free Cut Out Cookies!
Tips for Rolling Out Dough
We may be biased but we felt this dough was SO EASY to roll out! For us it went straight from the mixing bowl to being rolled out! We didn’t have any issues moving the cut out cookies from where we rolled them out to the baking tray. But if you are a beginner cut-out cookie maker follow these tips below for best results:
- Prepare a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper.
- Roll out dough between two sheets of parchment or plastic wrap.
- Stamp cookies out as close together as possible to get the most out of each time you roll out the dough.
- Using a small offset spatula or knife lift up cookies and transfer to baking sheet. If you are having trouble moving the cookies and having them keep there shape, place in the refrigerator to chill for a few minutes until they are stiff.
- You can re-roll the scraps as many times as you would like because there is no gluten in these cookies so they won’t be tough from re-rolling!
Tips for Decorating with Powdered Sugar Icing
As we said above, these cookies are delicious as is! But if you’d like to make decorative cookies at any time of the year we’ve included a recipe for a stiff powdered sugar icing. We chose this over a royal icing because it is a lot easier to make and the end result didn’t look too different. If you’d prefer to use royal icing, than feel free to use that instead.
- If you want to do more intricate decorating you’ll want to make two different consistency icings. One for piping, or borders, which is more thick. And a second for flooding a border, which is thinner.
- We tried out a few different types of artificial dye free food coloring (see below) to make the most festive cookies. Once you have mixed your base icings you can divide them into smaller bowls and add the natural food coloring.
- Pipe the border details first and let it dry briefly (10 minutes or so) before filling in the flooding icing.
- We piped ours using both piping bags and also tried using squeeze bottles. We didn’t use a tip in the piping bags we just cut a small hole! Squeeze bottles would be great to use with kids! We use these Piping Bags and these Mini Squeeze Bottles!
- Let the icing harden a bit before storing (a few hours, or until dry).
- Have fun with it!
Let’s talk about natural dye options:
We’ve talked about making your own food dye with food based powders this past year. While you certainly can frost there cookies with buttercream, it’s more traditional to use an icing so we tried out a bunch of different brands of artificial dye free food coloring. We actually loved them all, but they vary in price. We tried:
- Whole Foods Market 365 Brand: This one was the most economical and worked well, except for the red which tinted more towards pink. This brand most resembles traditional dye in the sense that it comes in little liquid squeeze bottles. It is under $10 for a few different colors and offers a guide on the package to mix additional colors.
- ColorKitchen Foods: This dye free coloring comes in powder form. You can mix it with your dry ingredients to hydrate, or add in a touch of water to hydrate before adding it in the icing (which is the method we used).This one was surprisingly very potent, but it’s on the pricier side. It comes in single use packets which can be either useful, or annoying if you don’t want to use the whole amount. At the time that we tried this brand they didn’t have a red color that we found, but since we developed this recipe they are offering a red velvet color (though we have not been able to try it yet).
- TruColor: This brand works magically, but it is expensive and harder to find. It also comes in powdered form but in small jars (depending on the amount you order) so you can store any leftover right in the container. You must store it in the refrigerator. Any red coloring that you see in this post uses TruColor, and does in fact make a brilliant red.
Don’t feel like stamping out designs with these cookies? No problem! The dough can also be formed into a log, placed in the refrigerator for about 1 hour (or more) and than sliced! Bake as directed. We’ve also included a couple of different flavor options in the post to include almond, citrus and mint!
Tools we used in this recipe:
- Stand Mixer
- Sheet Pan
- Silpat
- Offset Spatula
- Rolling Pin
- Piping Bags or Mini Squeeze Bottles
- Artificial Free Food Dye
- Cleaner Sprinkles
- Additional standard equipment: bowls, whisks, etc.
If you like this cookie recipe, check out these others:
- Gluten Free Carrot Cake Cookies
- Easy Maple Meringue Cookies
- Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Sea Salt Nutella Thumbprint Cookies
- Double Chocolate Chunk Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies
Watch the video:
Gluten Free Cut Out Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup grass fed butter room temperature (or butter alternative, or palm shortening)
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1-½ cup 190g almond flour
- ½ cup 60g tapioca flour
- Pinch of fine sea salt
Optional Flavors (choose one):
- 1/2 teaspoon mint
- 1 tablespoons orange zest
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
For Decorating:
- 1 cup organic powdered sugar
- 1-½ to 2-½ tablespoons almond milk
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
To Make Cookie Dough:
- In a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer cream butter, honey and vanilla, until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes
- In a medium bowl add almond flour, tapioca flour and salt and whisk to combine.
- Add dry ingredients to butter and combine. It may look crumbly at first, but continue to mix until the dough comes together.
- Roll out immediately (see directions below) or wrap in plastic wrap and keep in refrigerator until ready to roll, up to 3 days.
To Roll Out and Bake Cookies:
- Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat.
- Roll out dough between two sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap. Roll out to a thickness or 1/4" and stamp with cookie cutters. Carefully peel stamped cookies off parchment and place on baking sheet. They will not spread so you can spaces them as close as 1/4" apart.
- You can re roll scraps, chilling in between if dough is getting too warm.
- Bake for 7 minutes, until slightly golden around the edges.
- Let cool before decorating.
To Decorate:
- Whisk 1-1/2 tablespoons almond milk, vanilla and powdered sugar together until smooth. You want it to be thick enough to pipe. If you plan to flood the cookie you can make two smaller batches and add a touch more almond milk to want to make it thinner to floor the cookie in between the piping icing. Drop in some food coloring (see post for more info) depending on what color you'd like to make. Decorate using squeeze bottles of piping bags.
Notes
Decorating Party:
- Share a photo of your LCK Cut-Out Cookies on Instagram or in our Private Facebook Group with the hashtag #LCKCOOKIES to be entered to win a $100 Amazon Gift Card!
- Bonus entry: Leave a review below of how the recipe went for you!
- Winner picked 12/19 at 12pm EST.
- Note: Must be public on Instagram for us to see your entries!!
What other flour can be used instead of almond flour or coconut flour (allergies/sensitivity).
Thanks,
Nancy
This dough always comes out a bit too wet and difficult to work with for me. Not sure why – I bake a lot and can usually make a recipe work on the first try. With this, I keep having to add more dry ingredients to make it work. I finally gave up after trying the recipe a few times, and now I just use your other sugar cookie recipe, which holds up great for cutouts (and is also delicious).
We made these for Christmas cutout cookies and they were delicious. They weren’t gritty like some Ive tried. With the leftover dough we rolled them into balls and made those cookies where you press a chocolate kiss in the middle right when they come out of the oven. I just decided to make the chocolate kiss version for tomorrow for St Patrick’s Day for my family and use dye-free green sugar sprinkles I found over the holidays. Thanks for such a great sugar cookie recipe.
Would there be anyway to add cocoa powder to make these a chocolate sugar cookie? If so, how much and would it affect the overall dough?
I think you might be able to swap add in some cocoa powder (maybe try 1/4 cup) and then also add in more sweetener to account for the extra dry and the bitter that is added with cocoa. I honestly don’t know if it will work or not, so you’d have to up for some experimentation! Let us know if you do!
These are our favorite!! We used a mix from Pamela’s the other day and my son said he liked yours better. Perfect texture, so yummy. We love the ingredients ❤️
can we sub out agave or maple syrup for the honey Lexi?
Maple syrup will work!
Hi I would love to try these cookies but I’m. Allergic to almonds.
Can you suggest an alternative flour? Thanks.
So sorry–this recipe was developed specifically for almond flour so I can’t recommend a substitute. -Kelli
These are awesome! The cookies themselves aren’t too sweet which is nice. I topped the glaze with Christmas sprinkles and they are just perfect. It’s been so long since I’ve had cut out cookies!
Should it matter if I use a vegan butter substitute
Hi Julianna! Kelli here, part of the LCK team. We didn’t personally test it with vegan butter but one reader did use it with satisfactory results. Happy baking!
Our dough was a but soft and fussy to work with. I used almond extract in place of vanilla, but I don’t think that should make that much of a difference. Got any thoughts on why that might be? Thanks!
Hi Kim! Kelli here, part of the LCK team. We chatted a bit on Facebook, but replying here for others who are seeing your comment. If the dough was soft and fussy there may have been a measuring error in there somewhere, which can happen especially when you make 2x, 3x or 4x the dough like you did. You might not even have realized it either, which happens to everybody! The dough shouldn’t be soft, and if it is there may be too much fat (or conversely not enough of one of the flours). Chilling the dough for 5-10 minutes should also be sufficient if you are finding it tricky to move the cut out cookies while keeping there shape, but if that isn’t working there might be an error with measurements. Best of luck on the next batch!
I added orange zest to my dough and I am so thrilled with how they taste!
Hi Aubrey! Kelli here, part of the LCK team. WE are so thrilled you loved the cookies!
I’ve tried several paleo cut out recipes, and these are hands down the BEST! They have a nice chew, but also have a crisp to them that most other recipes lack. I used maple syrup for the honey and used vegan butter and had great success! I can’t say enough good things about this recipe, non-paleo family members loved them and had no clue they were a cleaner version of the classic!!
I just saw an online ad for a wooden rolling pin that had designs in it. You just roll it over your rolled out dough, cut with round or whatever cookie cutters and bake. They looked so pretty but I didn’t have a recipe for sugar cookies. Do you think this dough would hold up to something being pressed into it? I am lazy and while I love the look of frosted cookies, I would rather leave them plain. These look delicious and I would try them regardless.
We haven’t tried, but I don’t see why not!
These are going to make so many GF cookie dreams come true!
Decorated cut-outs are a MUST make every Christmas. Definitely worth the time and effort. Love all your tips!
I want a dozen!
These are SO CUTE! The fact that you iced these with plain powdered sugar icing (with a royal icing look) makes me want to give it a try! What type / size piping tip did you use? In one of the photos, it looks like you may have just snipped the end of the bag. Either way, any suggestions? Thanks.
Hi Carrie! Kelli here, part of the LCK team. As you guessed we didn’t even use a piping tip! We just cut a hole in the piping bag and decorated with that! It truly was simple, you just have to make sure to only add the amount of liquid to the powdered sugar as suggested and it works really well!