The recipe for these soft, airy Gluten Free Sour Cream Sugar Cookies helps my family maintain a family tradition. And it’s all in the pink icing.
There is not much better than walking into a house and being embraced with the aroma of something baking. When the kids get home from a day at school, it is a special treat to have some fresh cookies waiting for them. I admit though, with the shortage of time that everyone has, my favorite kind of cookies to make are drop cookies. They still have the same great smell when baking, but they don’t require all the extra work of rolling out the dough. 😉
These Gluten Free Sour Cream Sugar Cookies can either be rolled in sugar before baking, or topped with icing once they have cooled. After scooping the dough onto the parchment lined baking pan, you can also freeze them and store the frozen cookie dough in a zipper seal bag to bake another day, making it even easier the next time you want some fresh baked cookies.
Gluten Free Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
The recipe for these soft, airy Gluten Free Sour Cream Sugar Cookies helps my family maintain a family tradition. And it’s all in the pink icing.
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 1/3 cup white rice flour
- 2/3 cup potato starch
- 2/3 cup tapioca starch
- 3 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Frosting
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar (icing sugar), sifted
- 1/4 cup softened unsalted butter
- pinch salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3-5 tablespoons heavy cream (enough to get the consistency you want)
- colour - optional
Instructions
Cookies
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line your baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the sour cream, oil, sugar, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until smooth. Set aside.
- Place all the remaining dry ingredients in a separate mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
- With the mixer running on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix on medium speed until completely blended.
- Scoop 2 teaspoons of dough on your baking sheet, leaving 2-inches between cookies to allow for them to expand while baking. Dampen your hands with a small amount of water and roll the scooped dough into a smooth ball. This will give your finished cookies a nice round shape.
- Bake cookies in preheated oven for 12-13 minutes, or until just slightly browned around the outside. Allow cookies to cool for a few minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Only frost cookies when they are completely cooled. I prefer to frost the cookies just before serving them, so that the icing does not cause a problem when storing them. Store cookies in an airtight container.
Frosting
- In a tall mixing bowl, beat all the ingredients with an electric mixer until smooth.
- Store in an airtight container until you are ready to frost the cookies.
Notes
Cookies can be rolled in sugar before baking. Just spoon the dough into a bowl of sugar, and roll dough to coat in sugar. Form dough into balls and bake as directed.
UPDATE: This recipe DID in fact win the My Cookies Are The Best Contest, and as a result I got to attend Canada’s first ever Food Bloggers Conference, which was amazing. Ellen Pruden from Manitoba Canola Growers also prepared my winning cookies on Great Tastes Manitoba! You can watch that HERE.
Marilyn says
Thank you for this recipe! Is it my imagination or could this be changed a tiny bit to make a sour cream Snickerdoodle cookie? My dear Aunt Fern used to make a sour cream Snickerdoodle but sadly didn’t leave any recipes. She was the best baker & teacher.
Jeanine says
I think they could! You could just roll them in a cinnamon/sugar mixture before baking! 🙂
Ellen says
Another great cookie recipe! I love the picture. It just makes me want to eat of of them, or maybe two!
THanks for entering the My cookies are the Best conference.
Betty says
These cookies look so pretty..I’m sure they disappeared quickly.
Heavy Hedonist says
Thanks for this– I’ve been looking for a special, but not stressful, cookie to make at my family’s holiday cookie bake. Which is stressful enough! And my niece is on a GF diet, so this is perfect. And looks delicious.
Ebony says
These turned out wonderfully! I did the little balls rolled in sugar for my first batch which were nice (tops were a bit cracked but cookie held together). For the next batch I went ahead and rolled them out and used cookie cutters (had to use a little water to moisten for the rolling out process) and they turned out perfectly even and smooth. My kids absolutely loved them. I’ll be frosting some for my son’s soccer team party this weekend since both he and his best friend are gluten free they can finally have a treat to enjoy. Thanks for this great recipe, we have our official holiday sugar cookie.
Janine says
Oh I am glad someone has tried with cookie cutters! Growing up one of our halloween and christmas traditions were making sugar cookies and cutting them out to holiday shapes, we would spend a night as a family icing and sprinkling them! I am excited to do this again! Thanks for the wonderful recipe Jeanine!
Brenda says
What is the texture of these cookies like? With traditional baking, I loved to make the soft, cake-like sour cream cookie. Last year, shortly after figuring out my gluten issues, I made the traditional ones for everyone else, but wound up with eczema on my hands from handling the dough. I’ve been looking for a gluten free recipe that would come close, since I don’t care for a crisp sugar cookie. I’m hoping the sour cream would lend the same properties to a gluten free cookie as a traditional wheat flour cookie. I would certainly appreciate some insight. Thanks!
Laura Drury says
Thank you so much for this recipe! I could not keep my kids away (and they can have gluten) My husband has not had a good sugar cookie in 12 years, until now!! Can’t wait to try other recipes on this site!
Joella says
Jeanine is making me a believer when it comes to gluten-free baked goods, and I’m not even a baker. It takes me forever to put everything together and actually get them done. I would rather “order” from her if she had a bakery. I have tried two cookie recipes (both delicious), and her biscuit recipe (love these), and look forward to her book. One of these days I might get brave enough to try the cinnamon rolls, she makes them look not so difficult.
Kendra says
How long can you freeze the dough for? Is it a good idea to form the dough into balls first and then freeze?
Jeanine Friesen says
Here’s some tips on freezing cookie dough from http://www.allrecipes.com
Freezing Cookie Dough
Most cookie doughs freeze extremely well and can be kept frozen for up to 4 or 6 weeks. Use these tips for freezing:
Double-wrap dough in plastic wrap to prevent freezer burn and absorption of odors from your freezer.
Write the type of cookie dough and the date it was frozen on the outside of the package.
When you are ready to bake, simply let the dough defrost in the refrigerator. This will take several hours, so plan ahead.
These cookie doughs freeze the best:
shortbreads
chocolate chip
peanut butter
refrigerator
sugar
brownies
Hope that helps, Kendra! I think if you scooped them into cookies and froze them, they may not have as long a freezer life as freezing the dough all together. More chance of them getting freezer burn.
Avoid freezing cake-like cookies and cookies that have a very liquidy batter, such as madeleines and tuiles.
Elaine says
Would it be possible to make these with a pre mixed GF baking flour like the brand Pamela’s? And if so, how much flour would I use?