Allergy-Friendly Snowball Cookies

You’ll never miss what’s missing in these nostalgic favorites. Using gluten-free oats gives the cookies the texture you’d expect from snowball cookies, without adding nuts.

Makes: 3 dozen cookies
Free of: gluten and all top allergens

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups (350 mL) softened dairy-free, soy-free margarine (such as Earth Balance sticks)
  • 3/4 cups (175 mL) + 1 1/2 cups (350 mL) confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 3 cups (710 mL) Cat’s Gluten-Free Flour Blend (see below)
  • 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
  • 2 1/4 cup (535 mL) gluten-free oats

Recipe Tips

If your family can eat unsalted butter, it can be substituted for dairy-free margarine in the recipe above.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350° F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat margarine on medium for 2 minutes or until light and fluffy. Scrape down bowl.
  3. Beat in 3/4 cup sugar, then add vanilla, flour blend, salt and oats, mixing until well-blended.
  4. Roll balls of dough with your hands, each measuring about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Place on prepared baking sheets and bake on oven’s middle rack for 13-16 minutes or until very lightly browned around bottom edge.
  5. Meantime, sift about 3/4 cup of remaining confectioners’ sugar onto a dinner plate or pan; reserve the remaining sugar.
  6. Once cookies are baked, remove them from oven and using a spatula, carefully place each cookie onto the plate with confectioners’ sugar. While hot, sift some of the remaining sugar over cookies to create a nice thick layer of sugar. Allow cookies to cool completely before moving them to an airtight container, where they can be stored up to 7 days.
Cat Ruehle’s Gluten-Free Flour Blend

Makes: 4 cups
Ingredients

  • 2 cups sweet sorghum flour
  • 1 cup white rice flour
  • 1 cup potato starch (not potato flour)
Method
  1. In a large bowl, whisk the flours and potato starch together until well combined.
  2. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place up to 1 month. For longer storage, keep in the refrigerator up to 6 months or in the freezer up to 1 year. Before using, bring to room temperature. Just before measuring, whisk the flour blend to aerate. Sifting is not necessary if you whisk.

is a pastry chef and the author of the best-selling Let Us All Eat cake: Gluten-Free Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Cakes (Ten Speed Press). Find more recipes from Catherine Ruehle at http://www.catruehle.com