I made these cookies for the first time a couple of months ago as a thank you gift to my supervisor. She’s on a wheat-free diet so I had to adapt to that. Gluten plays an important role in baking – it is a binding agent that helps give a nice chewy texture. Without gluten in cookies, the dough tends to get very hard and dry. The cookie would be very different (likely to be harder in texture) if I were to substitute the flour in my usual cookie dough recipe with gluten-free flour. So I decided to adapt my melting moment cookies recipe to make these gluten free cinnamon cookies.

Making these gluten-free cookies were quite challenging. Simply because the dough was dry and crumbly which makes it difficult to roll out. When baking, the cookies remained pale in colour so to determine if they are done, just use your fingers and press down the middle. If the cookie is hard that means it is over-baked; it should be slightly soft in the middle.

The first time I made these cookies, I used potato starch instead of cornflour. But the second time I made it, I used cornflour. I remembered that the texture was smoother using potato starch but if you have difficulties finding potato starch, just use cornflour instead. These cookies are melt in your mouth and simply irresistible!

Ingredients

1. 150g unsalted butter (room temperature)
2. 40g icing sugar
3. 1 tsp vanilla extract
4. 1 tsp cinnamon powder
5. 125g potato starch or cornflour
6. 80g gluten-free flour
7. 30g white chocolate chips

Directions

Preparation time: 10min
Baking time: 15-20min or when the cookie turns golden brown

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper
2. In a mixing bowl, beat butter, powdered sugar until creamy, light and fluffy
3. Add in the vanilla extract and stir well
4. Fold in the potato starch, gluten-free flour and cinnamon powder and mix well until a soft dough is formed
5. Add in the white chocolate chips
6. Use your palms to shape them into small balls
7. Place baking sheet in the bottom part of the oven
8. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cookies turn slightly soft in the middle
9. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 5 minutes

There you have it – gluten-free cinnamon cookies