These gluten-free St. Patrick's Day cookies are the perfect way to celebrate your Irish heritage!
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Butter cookies are crisp, light, and highly addictive. They are similar to sugar cookies, but not as sweet, and definitely more creamy. My aunt makes delicious butter cookies for most holidays, and they were a dessert I truly enjoyed growing up until my celiac diagnosis in 2009.
I've previously made these butter cookies in the shape of stars for New Year's Eve, and hearts for Valentine's Day. I feel like I'm just creating cookies in all the Lucky Charms marshmallow shapes at this point (haha), but decided to try my hand at shamrocks to celebrate my Irish ancestry.
Ingredient's You Will Need To Make These Cookies:
Gluten-Free Flour: I use Cup4Cup multi-purpose gluten-free flour for making these gluten-free St. Patrick's Day cookies. It is my #1 choice for cookies, pastries, and yeast-based baked goods. Cup4Cup has given me great success in the kitchen over the last eight years, helping me to create delicious empanadas, naan, chocolate chip cookies, croissants, and more. Please note if you use a different gluten-free flour your results may vary. Based on my own experience, I believe this recipe would also work well with Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Baking Flour or King Arthur Measure For Measure.
Other Ingredients You Will Need:
Unsalted Butter
White Sugar
Salt
Egg Yolks
Vanilla Extract
Confectioner's Sugar, Light Corn Syrup, Gluten-Free Food Coloring (for the icing, if desired, but they taste so light and perfect on their own!)
Tools & Tips For Making Gluten-Free Shamrock Cookies
Rolling Pin: This helps for both rolling out the cookie dough when it's time to shape!
Baking Sheets: I recommend these from Nordic Ware. I have them in multiple sizes!
Silicone Mats: Not required, but helpful and less wasteful than using parchment paper. I use SilPat because they last forever!
Bench scraper: A bench scraper, like this one, really helps when transferring cut out cookies to the baking sheets.
Decorations: Piping bags, tips, and gluten-free sprinkles are all super helpful to make these shamrocks even more festive.
Shamrock Cookie Cutters: I actually don't have a shamrock cookie cutter! Out of desperation and because I couldn't find one in time, I actually used a mini heart cookie cutter (in sets of 3) and drew my own stems. It worked out quite well. But to make things easier, I'd recommend ones like this from Michael's or Amazon!
The Icing: While you can leave the cookies plain (and they are still very tasty!), frosting or icing on top makes them even better. And this icing from Sally's Baking Addiction is phenomenal! It sets so quickly that you won't even see marks from your knife. I always refer to Sally for her baking tips and this is one that definitely came through. Using her recipe, I then added drops of gluten-free blue and yellow food coloring gel, to get the green I wanted.
How To Make St. Patrick's Day Cookies:
Prep the dough. The dough is mixed together and then refrigerated, to firm up.
Roll out the dough. The dough is rolled out with a rolling pin.
Cut out Cookies. Using cookie cutters, the dough is cut into different heart shapes.
Bake the Cookies. The cookies are baked in the oven for just over ten minutes.
Cool Completely. The cookies need to cool overnight for best results!
Make the glaze and frost. Once the cookies have cooled, the icing is made, and it's time to decorate!
How To Store Gluten-Free St. Patrick's Day Cookies
After decorating, store cookies in a sealed container at room temperature for 3-5 days. You can also try freezing them for up to one month, but I cannot comment on how well they will defrost.
Butter cookies like this never last long enough in our house to freeze!
Looking for more St. Patrick's Day recipes that are gluten-free?
Bake a loaf of my gluten-free Irish soda bread. Family recipe - trust me!
Get cozy with a bowl of hearty gluten-free beef stew and serve it with some homemade garlic bread.
Are you dairy free? Try this gluten and dairy free potato leek soup. You won't even be able to tell it's dairy-free, it's still so creamy!
Discover all 100+ gluten-free recipes on the blog here.
Here's how to make these gluten-free St. Patrick's Day cookies!
If you love this recipe, please leave a comment! Thank you so much!
Gluten-Free St. Patrick's Day Cookie Recipe
Gluten-Free St. Patrick's Day Cookies
Butter cookies so good you won't stop eating them!
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ⅔ cup of white sugar
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups gluten-free flour, like Cup4Cup, plus more for rolling out the dough
- For the Icing
- 1 and ½ cups (180g) confectioners’ sugar
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon light corn syrup*
- 2 – 2.5 Tablespoons (30-38ml) room temperature water
- ⅛ teaspoon of salt
- gluten-free food coloring, of color choice
Instructions
Into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or using a hand-held mixer), beat the butter, sugar, salt, egg yolks, and vanilla extract for 3 minutes on medium-low speed. The mixture should be creamy and a light yellow color. Using a large wooden spoon, slowly add in the flour. The dough may be crumbly, and this is okay. Once all of the flour has been added and mixed as best as possible with a spoon, turn the dough onto a lightly floured countertop.
Work the dough with your fingers, kneading as necessary to make everything incorporated and smooth. Shape the dough into a ball, then cut into quarters and wrap in plastic wrap (or bee's wrap for a greener alternative) and flatten with your hands, until they form a flat disk shape. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Allow the cookie dough to rest for 5-7 minutes at room temperature before rolling. Otherwise, it will crack.
Lightly flour a work surface with gluten-free flour. Roll out the dough until about ¼ inch thickness, then use cutters in shamrock shapes or other shapes of choice. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet or a cookie sheet lined with Silpat silicone baking liners. With the remaining scraps of dough, reroll and continue cutting out shapes until no more dough remains.
Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes but BE CAREFUL. Rotate the pans halfway through baking, and watch once you get to the 10-minute mark. They can turn dark and brown very quickly. We only want them to be lightly browned along the edges. As soon as you see that, remove them from the oven.
The cookies will be very delicate once removed. Allow them to sit on the baking sheet for another 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely overnight before frosting.
To make the icing, mix together the confectioners sugar, vanilla, corn syrup, and 2 tablespoons of water in a medium-sized bowl. Have another bowl out and handy if you plan to make different colors. The icing should be thick. If it is too thick to work with, add another ½ tablespoon of water and whisk again. If it seems too thin, and 2 more tablespoons of confectioner's sugar. Add food coloring as desired and pipe. Please check the recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction for more information.
Notes
Gluten-Free Flour: This recipe uses Cup4Cup gluten-free flour for the best results, and it is my #1 recommendation. You can also try Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Baking Flour which I believe would yield positive results. If you use another gluten-free flour, please note your results can vary.
Shapes: These cookies don't only have to be shamrocks! You can use whatever cookie cutters you have.
Icing: This icing recipe comes from Sally's Baking Addiction. I've linked the post in the recipe but you can find it here as well.
Storage: After decorating, store cookies in a sealed container at room temperature for 3-5 days. You can also try freezing them for up to one month, but I cannot comment on how well they will defrost. Butter cookies never last long enough in our house to freeze!
Nutrition Information
Yield 12 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 332Total Fat 18gSaturated Fat 9gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 7gCholesterol 61mgSodium 157mgCarbohydrates 40gFiber 1gSugar 14gProtein 3g
The nutrition information on each recipe card is provided as a courtesy and for your convenience. The data is calculated by Nutritionix. You are encouraged to make your own calculations based on your ingredients and preferred nutritional facts calculator. While I try to make sure they are accurate, I cannot guarantee the accuracy of these calculations.
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What's your favorite kind?
Tell me in the comments below!
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