Chocolate Sugar Cookies

In December the girls really wanted to make cookies using the Christmas cookie cutters they got as a present last year. Well, that meant I needed to find a sugar cookie recipe that did not include any eggs or butter, but that still resulted in cookies that tasted and looked like sugar cookies should. I tried a couple of recipes, but they didn't work well with gluten-free flour: they tasted either beany (due to using bean flour) or gritty (due to using rice flour).

I was feeling a little discouraged until I came across a recipe for chocolate sugar cookies. Why hadn't I thought of that before? To be honest, I've never liked regular sugar cookies all that much since they just taste like a lot of sugar. Chocolate sugar cookies sounded so much better. And, fortunately, they tasted a lot better, too. After playing around with the recipe a few times, the girls and I came up with a chocolate sugar cookie that we think any chocolate lover would enjoy. Besides the taste, the other thing I like about these cookies is that the dough doesn't need to be refrigerated before being rolled out and cut into cookies. So you can enjoy eating your cookies much sooner than you could with regular sugar cookies.

My next project (maybe for next December) is to find a recipe for a white or chocolate icing to go on top of the sugar cookies. The challenge will be to find one that does not contain any egg white or butter, but that still hardens like sugar cookie icing is supposed to. We'll see what I'm able to come up with.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies
makes about 18 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill gluten-free flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa. I use Ghirardelli brand.
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon or Starbucks Instant Decaf Via
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup and 1 Tbsp. canola oil
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract. Use Trader Joe's alcohol-free vanilla extract or another vanilla extract that does not have corn syrup and is preferably alcohol-free, since the alcohol could be derived from corn. Recently I have been using Rodelle Vanilla Flavor alcohol free all natural extract, which I found at Stop and Shop.
• dairy-free semi-sweet chocolate chips. I recommend Ghirardelli, Trader Joe's, or Enjoy Life brand.
• sprinkles -- the girls can have regular sprinkles, but if you want them to be corn-free, at Whole Foods I found India Tree brand sprinkles that are made with cane-sugar crystals.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa, cinnamon (or instant coffee), sea salt, and baking soda. In a separate small bowl stir together the sugar, applesauce, canola oil, and vanilla. Then pour the liquid ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir to combine.

Spread a large piece of parchment paper on a flat surface. Separate the dough into two evenly-sized balls. Place one of the balls of dough on the parchment paper. With a rolling pin, roll the dough until it is 1/4" thick. (If the dough begins to stick to the rolling pin, sprinkle a little cocoa powder onto the dough and the rolling pin.) The rolled dough should be big enough to make 5 cookies using cookie cutters that are about 3 inches tall and 2 to 3 inches wide. Roll the remaining dough a couple more times to make 4 more cookies.

Place the cut-out cookies onto the baking sheet. Add sprinkles and chocolate chips (or other candies) for decoration. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies rest on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Repeat the procedure with the second ball of dough to make another sheet of cookies.