As part of the 25th anniversary celebrations for Comic Relief, Sainsbury’s challenged its food blogger network (of which I am a member) to create some Red Nose Day themed cookies. As someone who is not very artistically inclined, I’m always up for a challenge to improve my skills!
I used a similar recipe to the “Iced Sugar Cookies” recipe featured in my book, Gluten-free Baking at Christmas. I absolutely adore that cookie recipe, and it gives me such consistent results. I used Dove’s Farm gluten-free plain white flour.
Gluten-free 'Red Nose Day' sugar cookies
By Published: February 26, 2013
Yummy gluten-free sugar cookies to celebrate Red Nose Day.
Ingredients
- 200 g butter at room temperature
- 200 g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 400 g gluten-free plain flour I use Dove's Farm gluten-free flour blend
- 3 or 4 boiled sweets crushed into dust
- 2 egg whites
- A squeeze lemon juice
- 300g icing sugar sifted
- 1-2 tsp water if needed
- Red food colouring
- Black food colouring
Instructions
- Beat butter, sugar and vanilla together until creamy.
- Add egg and mix in thoroughly.
- Add half the flour and mix together with a spoon. Add the other half and work very gently with your hands until it forms a ball of dough.
- Divide the dough into two and put into seperate freezer bags. Squash flat to form a disc.
- Refrigerate for at least an hour
- Roll out the dough between two pieces of baking parchment and cut out your shapes. I used a glass since I didn't have any round cookie cutters (What sort of food blogger doesn't have round cookie cutters?! Me, apparently). I used the end of a piping nozzle to get the smaller circle in the centre. Cut out some little round cookies if you want some separate red noses too. Place onto a lined baking tray.
- Preheat oven to 180C/350F
- Refrigerate the cookies again for up to half an hour. This will prevent the dough from spreading. I got impatient and did it for only 15 minutes, and mine spread a little, but not too much.
- Before transferring cookies to the oven, sprinkle the inner hole with the crushed boiled sweets until the hole is covered. This will melt and create a base for your icing in the centre.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes (or until browned around the edges), then remove from oven and leave to cool.
- To make the icing: Whisk the egg whites with a little lemon juice until soft peaks form. This is a great workout for your arms if you do it by hand! (I didn't - too lazy!)
- Add the icing sugar, a bit at a time, until you get a smooth and glossy icing.
- Transfer a little of the icing into a bowl and add the red food colouring. Using a nozzle or piping bag with a small hole in it, outline the little noses and leave to dry before flooding the centres.
- Transfer some more icing to another bowl and colour it black. Make the outlines to the eyes and mouths and leave to dry.
- Fill the eyes with the remaining white icing and dot the eyes black. Leave to dry before serving.
Hi do you use salted or unsalted butter for these and how long do they keep for?
Thanks 🙂
Generally always use unsalted butter for baking as you can then control the amount of salt you put in manually. These are best eaten within a couple of days, but can be frozen (probably best to freeze them without icing!)