Gluten Free Christmas Tree + Snowman Shortbread Recipe (Gift Idea).
Merry Christmas season to you all and hope you are doing well! Nothing feels more festive to me than baking Christmas cookies and giving them out to all the gluten free VIPs in my life (and some non-gluten free VIPs who also happen to love cookies). So, without further ado, this week I am my sharing my Gluten Free Christmas Tree + Snowman Shortbread Recipe.
Shortbread is of course a Scottish treat traditionally baked around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. As we are now onto the 2nd Monday of December (where does the time go?), I felt that this was just the recipe to share this week. Enjoy! 🙂
For Those Only Wanting To Make Plain 3 Ingredients Only Shortbread Cookies
Note: I have split this recipe into two stages, Making The Shortbread Cookies and Decorating The Shortbread Cookies. It goes without saying that if you only want to bake the shortbread cookies with 3 ingredients only and leave them plain, then you only need to look at the Shortbread Dough ingredients and follow the method until Stage 1. If you want to be more adventurous and use 4 ingredients, you can include 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, but this is optional.
Now… drum roll… onto the recipe…. 🙂
Recipe Sheet
Gluten Free Christmas Tree + Snowman Shortbread Recipe
Ingredients
Shortbread Dough
- 130 g of unsalted butter
- 60 g of caster sugar
- 230 g of gluten free all-purpose plain flour
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract optional
Decorations
- 35 g of gluten free white chocolate
- 70 g of gluten free dark chocolate
- 50 g of gluten free jelly beans
Instructions
Stage 1 – Making the Shortbread Cookies
- Beat the butter and the sugar into the mixing bowl ensuring the mixture is consistent.
- Add the flour (and vanilla extract if you choose to) into the mixing bowl and mix the dough thoroughly.
- For the best results, refrigerate the dough for at least a couple of hours, preferably overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan/ gas 6).
- Cut out shapes in the dough using your Christmas tree and snowman cookie cutters.
- Place the shaped cookies onto baking tray/s keeping them at least 2 ½ cm apart.
- Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes.
- Check to see if the cookies are fully cooked by placing a wooden pick/ cake tester into the middle of each. If they come out clean, then you are good to go onto the next step!
- Let the cookies cool in the baking tray for about 5 minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack and leave them until they are fully cooled.
Stage 2 – Decorating the Shortbread Cookies
- For the Christmas tree shaped cookies, spread melted dark chocolate across the cookie. Then cut up any colour of jelly beans you like and shape them into small balls. Stick these balls of jelly beans onto the tree in bowed lines as colourful decorations.
- For the snowman shaped cookies, spread melted white chocolate across the body. Apply melted dark chocolate to the hat shaped part of the cookie and to make the eyes and mouth. Cut up half an orange jelly bean to stick onto each cookie to represent a carrot nose. Using whatever colour of jelly beans you like, cut and shape the jelly bean into small balls to decorate the hat and make the buttons.
- Enjoy! 😊
Ingredients
Shortbread Dough
- 130g of unsalted butter
- 60g of caster sugar
- 230g of gluten free all-purpose plain flour
- 1tsp of vanilla extract optional
Decorations
- 35g of gluten free white chocolate
- 70g of gluten free dark chocolate
- 50g of gluten free jelly beans
Method
Stage 1 – Making The Shortbread Cookies
- Beat the butter and the sugar into the mixing bowl ensuring the mixture is consistent.
- Add the flour (and vanilla extract if you choose to) into the mixing bowl and mix the dough thoroughly.
- For the best results, refrigerate the dough for at least a couple of hours, preferably overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan/ gas 6).
- Cut out shapes in the dough using your Christmas tree and snowman cookie cutters.
- Place the shaped cookies onto baking tray/s keeping them at least 2 ½ cm apart.
- Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes.
- Check to see if the cookies are fully cooked by placing a wooden pick/ cake tester into the middle of each. If they come out clean, then you are good to go onto the next step!
- Let the cookies cool in the baking tray for about 5 minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack and leave them until they are fully cooled.
Stage 2 – Decorating The Shortbread Cookies
- For the Christmas tree shaped cookies, spread melted dark chocolate across the cookie. Then cut up any colour of jelly beans you like and shape them into small balls. Stick these balls of jelly beans onto the tree in bowed lines as colourful decorations.
- For the snowman shaped cookies, spread melted white chocolate across the body. Apply melted dark chocolate to the hat shaped part of the cookie and to make the eyes and mouth. Cut up half an orange jelly bean to stick onto each cookie to represent a carrot nose. Using whatever colour of jelly beans you like, cut and shape the jelly bean into small balls to decorate the hat and make the buttons.
- Enjoy! 😊
Tips and Tricks
- Bring the butter out of the fridge about 15 minutes in advance of its use in both respective steps. The butter will be softer therefore easier to mix, especially if you don’t have an electric whisk, electric mixer or food processor.
- If you want to, you can sieve ingredients like the flour and the sugars to have a smoother batter.
- Cover your baking trays in parchment paper/ tin foil to prevent the uncooked shaped cookie dough from sticking to your baking trays.
- Remember this is a quick bake (12 minutes long), so keep a thorough eye on the oven when cooking, as they can easily burn if you are not careful.
- If you want to add toppings or use any substitutes for the jelly beans that you desire then feel free to do so. 🙂
Whether to Add Vanilla Extract….
I personally like to add vanilla extract to my shortbread dough, as I really like the flavour. However, if you want to stay truer to traditional shortbread cookies when baking/ don’t have vanilla extract in the cupboard, that’s also fine. From experience, I can attest they still taste delicious.
Storage
- The sugar cookies can be stored for 3 days when left out at room temperature and stored in an air-tight container. If you store them in a fridge, they can potentially last up to a week.
- Additionally, this is just guidance. So, if it looks a bit dodgy, you don’t like the look of it or if it has been out for a while, then unfortunately, I think that is one for the bin. When it comes to cooking and baking a bit of common sense will go a long way. It is always better to be safe than sorry. Additionally, when storing always use an air-tight container, otherwise these times do not apply.
Thank You For Reading! 🙂
Thank you so much for reading my Gluten Free Christmas Tree + Snowman Shortbread Recipe. Hopefully, you will give my recipe a try and get to experience what it is like to eat the food of VIPs. Be sure to comment and tell me how the recipe went.
Stay tuned for more Christmasy content over the next few weeks as the big day gets nearer. If you are interested in making more gluten free Christmas cookies, feel free to peruse my Gluten Free Xanthan Gum Free Gingerbread Man Cookies Recipe.
For reviews of Christmas sweet treats, look at my Gluten Free Vegan Advent Calendars Review/ Gift Ideas 2024 and my Gluten Free Winter Christmas Chocolate Gift Ideas/ Review 2024.
Gluten Free VIPs
<3 <3 <3
xxx
P.S. This recipe makes 13 cookies, but feel free to double up the ingredients if you want 26 cookies etc… 🙂 Merry Christmas!!! 🙂