Dear friends,

Holiday cookie season always brings me back to the recipes that rely on simple techniques and good ingredients. This year, I’m starting with a new favorite: gluten-free orange and almond cookies. They’re crisp on the edges, tender in the center, and built on the kind of pantry staples many of us already keep around - brown rice flour, almond flour, a bit of orange, and just enough butter to hold everything together. The dough comes together without much effort and they are beautiful and versatile.

Alongside these, I’ll be making some of the classic cookies I bake every December, some of which, I have shared in the newsletters past.

Chocolate, Matcha, Raspberry Shortbread

Grain-Free Cranberry, Chocolate, Buckwheat Cookies

Amaretti Thumbprint Cookies with Quince Jam

Honey Tahini Cookies with Macadamia Nuts

Hazelnut Butter Toffee Chocolate Cookies

If you’re ready to start your holiday baking, these orange and almond cookies are a good place to begin. They set the tone for the season: simple, fragrant, and gluten-free. I will also be sharing a recipe for Hazelnut Praline and Latte Cream Shortbread Cookies soon. Stay tuned for that one. And I will also be making the Ginger Molasses Sourdough Cookies from The Art of Gluten-Free Bread.

With love,

Aran

Gluten-Free Orange & Almond Butter Cookies

These melt-in-your-mouth butter cookies are a nostalgic favorite - similar to the classic Danish cookies that came in a blue tin I grew up with. They’re perfect for holiday cookie boxes since the dough can be piped into different shapes, dipped in chocolate, or decorated with sprinkles. They even taste better after resting for a day.

Before you start:

• While volume measurements are included, weighing your ingredients is highly recommended. Even a small amount of extra flour makes the dough difficult to pipe, and too little can cause spreading.

• Feel free to keep the cookies plain, or top them with a bit of candied orange or chopped almonds (which I did). Dipping in melted chocolate is always a good idea.

• If you’re nut-free, you may be able to swap the almond flour for tiger nut flour (not actually a nut), though this hasn’t been tested.

• You can also pipe the dough into long strips and sandwich them with a bit of apricot jam after baked and cooled.

• I recommend you use a sturdy cloth pastry bag. In my experience, plastic pastry bags stretch too much when I apply pressure and the pastry tip might be ejected – it’s happened to me many times! If your dough seems too hard to pipe, add a touch more milk.

Makes 24 round cookies

1/2 cup (110 g) unsalted butter or vegan butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup (85 g) granulated sugar

1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest

1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons (80 g) superfine brown rice flour

3/4 cup (75 g) almond flour

1/2 cup (60 g) tapioca starch

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 tablespoons (35 g) whole milk or dairy-free milk (oat or almond)

1 teaspoon almond extract

• Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, and orange zest, on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Don’t beat too long or you might incorporate too much air and the cookies will spread.

• In a medium bowl, stir together the brown rice flour, almond flour, tapioca starch, and salt. Add the butter mixture and beat on medium speed until the dough starts to come together. Add the milk and almond extract and continue beating until your dough is very creamy, about one more minute.

• Transfer the dough into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip (mine is a number 7). Pipe rosettes that are about 1 inch in diameter. The cookies don’t spread too much but leave one inch in between.

• Bake the cookies for 15 to 17 minutes until lightly golden brown. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before picking up. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.