I've been making desserts all my life, I even went to pastry school, but I can't even bake a "normal" cake or cookie for my son. This is the irony of my life. When my son was diagnosed with multiple food allergies, I thought I would never be able to make him all my favorite desserts and pastries. Key ingredients like flour, butter, milk and eggs were off-limits. I couldn't even look at tv commercials where the kids were helping their moms bake sugar cookies. It was heartbreaking because I wanted that moment with my son too.
Fortunately, my son outgrew his wheat and dairy allergies last year. I didn't get the chance to find a good egg-free cookie recipe in time for Christmas, but this year, I was able to modify one of my favorite sugar cookie recipes for him. These cookies are light, crispy and buttery. They taste perfect without any icing at all, but since I recently found a glace icing recipe from Our Best Bites, I wanted to try it out. In my gingerbread cookie post, I mentioned that I used food color markers and marshmallow fondant to decorate the cookies instead of royal icing. Now, I have this great icing to use for decorating as well! I added more powdered sugar so I could pipe it onto the cookies. When the icing was dry enough, I mixed a little bit of clear alcohol (lemon extract or vodka) with some food color gel and gold luster dust to paint it.
Egg-Free Christmas Sugar Cookies
Makes 4 dozen cookies, 3 inches in diameter
Allergy Note: contains dairy and wheat
1 1/2 cups flour
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
3/4 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Sift the flour, cornstarch and powdered sugar into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and vanilla extract; mix together to make a smooth dough. Divide in half, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate if needed. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/4 inches thick. Cut into shapes and transfer onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone baking mat. Bake for 15 minutes or until the golden brown.
Glacé Icing
recipe from Our Best Bites
Allergy Note: contains dairy ingredients
1lb powdered sugar (about 3 3/4 C)
6 Tbs. whole milk
6 Tbs. light corn syrup
1 tsp. extract (vanilla, almond, lemon, peppermint etc.)
food coloring (for best results, use gel or paste)
With a whisk, combine powdered sugar and milk until smooth. Then stir in corn syrup and extract. Add food coloring into the icing or paint it on afterwards like I did. You can adjust the consistency of the icing for piping by adding more powdered sugar.
Our Best Bites has a wonderful step-by-step tutorial on how to decorate cookies with glace icing so check it out.
Please check these Art of Dessert links for additional decorating tips and icing recipes:
Egg-Free Gingerbread Man (with dairy-free alternative)
Egg-Free Sugar Cookies with Egg-free Royal Icing
Egg-Free Gingerbread House(with dairy-free alternative)
10 comments:
I just found your blog and enjoy it very much! Small world, I live in San Diego, love Hans and Harry pastries (fruit and whipped cream cake, fruit strudel and raspberry cream cheese muffins!) and am filipino too! You make beautiful cakes, I'll continue to read and learn from you!
Oh how cute! I've never used luster dust before but I've always wanted to. Thanks for the tip!
This is soo cute :)
Your cookies look so pretty, I like how the frosting sparkles :).
So I was wondering if it was ok to use granulated sugar instead of confectioners? What will happen then?
So I made them suga-cookies of yours and I was saving the powdered sugar for the icing & I used granulated instead & it turned out great but I guess I should've chilled the dough 1st because some rose too much. Keep those recipes coming. I feel better that I didn't have to kill a couple of eggs to make a great batch of cookies. =) Oh, and I used some honey to substitute for the corn syrup since I didn't have any. Yeay, it worked for the glace icing.
I tried making this dough twice (once with granulated sugar and once with powdered sugar) and it was incredibly crumbly, to the point where I could not use it. Any chance the butter measurement (3/4 cup--1 1/2 sticks) is off?
Zach's mom: This dough is a bit on the crumbly side. It's almost like a shortbread dough. You can add a little bit of water to help it bind a little bit.
Found your blog and love your recipes.I tried the accidental buttercream but did not get it as smooth as that in the pictures, infact water was coming out of it and i could not form any design on the cake.Need your advice on how to solve this problem.Q:when you mentioned powdered sugar, would that be caster sugar or icing sugar or do i need to grind/powder the sugar fine before adding it to the butter.
Thank you and waiting in anticipation.
Anita Anthony
This recipe is AMAZING, yes, it's a bit crumbly but I added a bit more vanilla and a dash of water ... perfect!
I made these into star cookie wands for my son to take to school for his birthday (there is a child in his class allergic to nuts, sesame and eggs) I had no corn syrup so I used Golden Syrup, my icing turned out light golden brown so when they were dried I dusted them with edible gold glitter.... THANKYOU
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