Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

As part of my bloggy Oktoberfest week, I thought I’d share a recipe for yummy sugar cookies (that your little ones may beg to help bake and decorate). Since I was (wrongly) under the impression that one of the kiddos in our homeschool playgroup had a gluten allergy, I followed the following gluten free sugar cookie recipe at celiac.com. As it turned out, he has a dairy, egg, and nut allergy, so his mom decided he would sit this one out (sorry!). Now I’m on the lookout for a baking day that includes all of our kids.

To set up for this fun cookie baking and decorating activity, I actually prepared the dough before everyone arrived so that it could cool for a few minutes. I also covered our kitchen table with easy to wipe table cloths because baking, when done well, gets messy. When everyone arrived and was ready to get baking, I sprinkled a bit of the leftover gluten-free flour in front of each child and myself. Then, I distributed a small dough and either a roller or a Mason can (which makes a fine roller in a pinch) to each child. I showed our children how to spread the flour (describing the sensory aspects of feeling the flour), flatten the dough, and roll the dough with their rollers. The other parents assisted their children and modeled how to use cookie cutters to create shapes and fall themed cookies.

We also whipped up our own frosting using powdered sugar (3 cups), melted gluten free butter (1/4 cup), and lemon juice (3 tbsp.). Some of the kids chose to experiment with food coloring, others chose to eat the frosting straight out of the bowl, and everyone else focused on eating their sugar cookies.

Later that day, I used the leftover dough to bake my own sugar cookies and decorate them (hey, I’m a kid at heart). My cookies are pictured in this post. For more photos from our cookie baking with the kids, go here. Scroll down to the boy with the drum; the cookie baking photos begin there.