Poor and Gluten Free (with Oral Allergy Syndrome): Gluten Free Christmas Sugar Cookies

It's not always easy baking with kids, but I these gluten free spritz cookies are fast and simple enough that you can whip up a few dozen in enough time to keep a preschooler engaged. If you're doing this alone, it will go even faster!

A good, basic sugar cookie recipe can go a long way to making a variety of colours and styles of sugar cookies, and really create that wow factor for holiday gift giving. My basic spritz cookie recipe is simply divided into four and decorated differently.

My newly turned 4 year old helped me squeeze the cookie press and decorate. Granted, there was some licking of icing and devouring of sprinkles in the process, and he wandered off a couple of times, but over all, it was a successful baking venture.

Read on to find out how we did it!

These gluten free spritz cookies are far simpler than they look.

I whip up a full batch my simple icebox cookie recipe, then divide it roughly into 4 sections. You can make and bake these all at the same time (like I do), or freeze sections to complete separately as you have time.

To make the plain cookies with icing:

Heat oven to 400F.

* Chill a baking sheet in the fridge. This will keep your cookies from spreading in the oven. DO NOT use parchment paper or grease the sheet. The cookies will stick better to an ungreased baking sheet.

* Take 1 section of the cookie dough, choose your spritz cookie plate, and fill a spritz cookie press ( I use this Wilton Cookie Press )

* Press cookies onto the sheet. Bake for 8-12 minutes, until cookies are just starting to brown around the edges.

* Let cool on sheet for 1-2 minutes (no sooner, or the cookies will crumble a bit as you lift them, and no longer than 5 minutes, or they'll stick to the pan). Remove to a cooling rack.

For the Icing:

1/2 c icing sugar
1-2 Tbsp water - or lemon juice for a delicate lemon icing.

Sprinkles of decorations as desired (I used ones like these ).

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add water slowly, mixing until you get a consistency capable of drizzling, but not watery. Add sugar or water as needed.

Fill a piping bag or ziplock sandwich bag with the icing. Push icing to one corner. Trim a tiny bit off the corner so you can drizzle icing. Drizzle icing in a circle around and add your gold sprinkles (or whatever you've chosen). Continue to drizzle icing around edges of the flower cookie to create the petals, if desired.

To make the chocolate cookies dipped in chocolate:

Heat oven to 400F.

* Take 1 section of the cookie dough, and add 2 Tbsp cocoa powder. Add 1 Tbsp water, or more, as needed to maintain a soft consistency.

* Choose your spritz cookie plate, and fill a spritz cookie press ( I use this Wilton Cookie Press )

* Press cookies onto the sheet. Bake for 8-12 minutes, until cookies are just starting to brown around the edges, or are firm to the touch around the edges.

* Let cool on sheet for 1-2 minutes (no sooner, or the cookies will crumble a bit as you lift them, and no longer than 5 minutes, or they'll stick to the pan). Remove to a cooling rack.

To make the chocolate dip

Melt 1/2 cup of baking chocolate, chopped (I used Callebaut chocolate, like this ) You can do this in a double boiler OR in the microwave in 30sec increments, stirring in between

Dip cookies into the chocolate, then decorate as desired. The decorations I used came in a pre-purchased gingerbread house kit, but I found a similar sort here.

To make the red rose cookies

Heat oven to 400F.

* Take 1 section of the cookie dough, and mix in a few drops of red food colouring. Add 1 Tbsp water, or more, as needed to create a soft consistency to make it easier to pipe.

* Choose your tree spritz cookie plate, and fill a spritz cookie press ( I use this Wilton Cookie Press )

* Bake for 8-12 minutes, until cookies are just starting to brown around the edges, or are firm to the touch around the edges.

* Let cool on sheet for 1-2 minutes (no sooner, or the cookies will crumble a bit as you lift them, and no longer than 5 minutes, or they'll stick to the pan). Remove to a cooling rack.

Leave these plain, or drizzle with a little bit of icing sugar mixed with water.

To make the green tree cookies

Heat oven to 400F.

* Take 1 section of the cookie dough, and mix in a few drops of green food colouring.

* Fill a piping bag with the red dough. Use a 1M piping tip. Starting in the centre of the rose and circling outwards, pipe a rose. Repeat to finish the dough.

* Bake for 8-12 minutes, until cookies are just starting to brown around the edges, or are firm to the touch around the edges.

* Let cool on sheet for 1-2 minutes (no sooner, or the cookies will crumble a bit as you lift them, and no longer than 5 minutes, or they'll stick to the pan). Remove to a cooling rack.

For the Icing:

1/2 c icing sugar
1-2 Tbsp water - or lemon juice for a delicate lemon icing.

Sprinkles of decorations as desired

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add water slowly, mixing until you get a consistency capable of drizzling, but not watery. Add sugar or water as needed.

And that's it! All together, it took me under 2 hours to make and decorate about 100 cookies in multiple different ways.