Rice Flour Sugar Cookies

As I mentioned in my last post, at 11 pm the night before my housewarming party, I decided I wanted to make cookies.  But I'd already made my favourite gluten-free chocolate chip coconut cookies three days earlier, and I didn't really feel like making another batch.  (Plus I was out of brown rice flour.)  Unfortunately, that was my one and only gluten-free cookie recipe, and I wasn't quite prepared to subject my body to spelt or wheat flour on a night when I knew I was probably going to eat other things I was allergic to (potlucks can be dangerous).  So what was a girl to do?  Turn to google, of course!

After searching through many rice flour cookie recipes (because the only flour I had on hand was white rice flour), I finally found this recipe for rice flour sugar cookies.  It was dairy-free but still had eggs, so I knew it was a gamble to make - but I was intrigued, so I figured I would take the challenge.

I started with the recipe pretty much as written, substitutions are indicated below:

1/2 cup dairy-free margarine (I used Fleschmann's, which was probably a bit soft for this application)

1/2 cup white sugar (I used closer to 1/3 cup)

1/2 cup brown sugar, loosely packed (I used around 1/3 cup)

1 egg, beaten (I used Ener-G egg replacer for 1 egg)

2 cups rice flour

few grains of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

1/2 cup raisins (I used sultana)

Once all the ingredients had been added together, the dough was really, really crumbly.  There was no way I could see it coming and holding together, even if I refrigerated it over night.  So I thought I'd add more liquid.  I started with half a lemon for flavour, but it still wasn't enough.  I then added a few pours of almond milk - still too crumbly.  Finally I figured with this much extra moisture I was probably losing binding, so I mixed up another egg equivalent of egg replacer and mixed that in as well.  The batter was still pure crumbs, but it seemed more moist, so I decided to run with it.  I poured it all out on a piece of parchment paper and rolled the dough into a log.  It sort of stayed together, and I figured with the night to firm up it might be bake-able in the morning.

The next morning I pulled out the dough and tried to slice it.  My log was roughly oval-shaped in cross-section, so in theory my pieces would come out looking like biscotti pieces.  Any time the knife met a raisin, the dough crumbled, and I ended up losing about 1/3 of each slice to crumbing.  My pieces ended up looking very non-uniform, but I went ahead and baked them anyway.  (I used parchment paper to reshape the lost crumbs and then made new cookies out of the new log).  I cooked them for 15 minutes (the recipe calls for 12-15), and they were very dark gold on the bottom but had a nice crispiness.  They were really tasty, kind of reminiscent of shortbread.  (Some shortbread recipes use part rice flour because it's so fine).  They also met with full approval from everyone at the party, which is always my prefered test.

Next time, I'll start with two equivalents of egg-replacer off the bat, and the juice of a full lemon.  I'll then add milk to approximate a good consistency.  I also want to zest part of the lemon for more flavour.  I think using currants instead of raisins would be tasty, and help the dough stick together better.  But for a first attempt at a new recipe that wasn't even veganized, the cookies turned out very, very well!

ETA: I made these cookies again a couple of weeks later, to celebrate a couple of birthdays.  This time, I made a recipe and a half, and I started with three egg-replacer eggs (two for the original recipe), the juice of a full lemon, and a couple teaspoons of vanilla.  This time I had the opposite problem as before - the batter was too moist!  I added a bit more rice flour to compensate, but ultimately just threw it in the fridge overnight and hoped.  And everything was fine!  The cookies came out a bit chewier than last time, but still delicious.  I officially declare this recipe good gluten-free baking starting territory, because I so far haven't managed to screw up the final product even with radically different issues with dough consistency.  (Also, I replaced the raisins with currants and finely chopped apricots, plus some chopped lemon zest.  Super tasty!)