Gluten Free Brown Butter Shortbread Cookies
Servings Prep Time
24cookies 10minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
5minutes 30minutes
Servings Prep Time
24cookies 10minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
5minutes 30minutes
Ingredients
Brown Butter
  • 1 1/4sticks salty butter
For Cookies
  • 1/2cup Muscovado or Piloncillo (extra dark brown sugar)firmly packed
  • 1tablespoon lemon zest
  • Brown Butter
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 1/3cups Cup 4 Cup Gluten Free Flour
  • Sanding Sugarfor rolling
Instructions
Brown Butter
  1. Cut butter into four or five pieces and cook butter in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until it has a nutty fragrance and flecks on bottom of pan turn a light brown, anywhere from 4 to 7 minutes. It helps to frequently scrape the solids off the bottom of the pan in the last couple minutes to ensure even browning. Transfer butter to a bowl and chill until just firm, about 1 hour in refrigerator or ½ hour in freezer.
To make cookies
  1. Beat together lemon zest and sugar for a few seconds.
  2. Add cooled butter and beat using the paddle of a stand mixture (or an electric mixer) until the sugar lightens in color a bit and gets a little fluffy. If you’re using piloncillo or Muscovado don’t’ worry if you have a few beads of sugar that don’t completely mix into the butter. They will add great texture.
  3. Add lemon juice and beat to mix.
  4. Add flour and mix well at medium speed. Dough might remain somewhat crumbly.
  5. Dump dough (or crumbly dough) onto a sheet of wax paper or parchment. If your dough is crumbly simply squeeze it together. Your flour has no gluten so you don’t need to worry about overworking it. Make a log about 1 1/2″ thick. Roll the log in coarse sugar, pressing the granules into the dough.
  6. Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.
  7. Wrap the cylinder in wax paper and chill until firm, about 1 hour.
  8. Slice dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
  9. Bake cookies until the edges take on color approximately 15 -20 minutes. Let them cool on the pan before moving. They’ll firm up as they cool.
Recipe Notes

I used gold sanding sugar left from the Angeli pastry dept.  Everyone asked about it.