Sugar Cookies . . . Finally

I love butter.  I love sugar.  I love flour.  I love vanilla.

Mix it all together, and the next logical deduction equals = I love sugar cookies!!

Simple to mix up, fulfilling to roll out, fun to cut, easy to bake, creative to decorate.  And that's before you even get to the eating!!  Sweet, tender, soft, chewy, and (with sprinkles or colored sugar) a little crunchy.  A world of delightful texture and taste.  Uncomplicated, unassuming, comforting.  Sugar cookies.

When this household suddenly went gluten-free, years ago, I thought sugar cookies were now extinct under this roof.

Trial runs with rice flours, and mixes incorporating bean flours of different types left us with unappetizing, thick, grainy, or heavy cookies.  You can only hide so much under a substantial layer of powdered sugar icing and sprinkles.  The experimental cookies usually sat neglected on the counter until they were so hard that I was doing us all a service by dumping them.  And yet again dumping the hope of a gluten-free sugar cookie that could be enjoyed.

 Enter the dear Silvana and her marvelous gluten-free flour mix that can be made right in your own kitchen (here).  Take a deep breath and exhale slowly.  It is more time-consuming to combine these flours; it is more costly to purchase these flours than the 5-pound bag of Gold Medal sitting on the market shelf.  However, this mix is gluten-free, and in cookie baking, the flour is a highly billed player!!  No compromises with the flour.

And so, this year we ended up with a chewy and delicious sugar cookie for the first time in years.  And if I ended up making 6 batches of these delights, I can hardly be blamed.

Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies

1/4 pound butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. cream or milk
1 1/4 cups Silvana's gluten-free flour mix (recipe here) - I leave the salt out of the flour mix!!
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder

Cream the butter.  Gradually add the sugar, beating until light.  Add the egg, vanilla, cream/milk and beat thoroughly.

Mix the flour mix, salt and baking powder together.  Add to the first mixture and blend well.  Add more flour mixture if the dough is too soft.  Sprinkle flour mix on the rolling surface, roll cookies to 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut out shapes and back for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Frosting:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp. milk
2 tsp. light corn syrup
1/4 tsp. vanilla 
food coloring

Stir powdered sugar and milk until smooth.  Beat in the corn syrup and vanilla until icing is smooth and glossy. If the frosting is too thick, add more corn syrup.  Divide icing into separate bowls and stir in food coloring as desired.