Brown Butter Snickerdoodles {Gluten Free, Egg Free}

Brown butter gluten free snickerdoodles are a must-make for your holiday cookie platter! Simple to make, egg free, and the dough is edible!

Christmas (holiday season in general) is the most wonderful time of the year, especially when one of your favorite holiday activities is baking gluten free Christmas cookies!

I think almost everyone has a favorite holiday cookie. These Vegan Christmas Cookies used to be my favorites, but then I fell in love with chocolate.

At that point, I became obsessed with Mexican Hot Chocolate Sugar Cookies. Everyone I gave them to begged for the recipe! But then, I had my first taste of snickerdoodles.

Gluten free snickerdoodles

Cinnamon and sugar in a soft, egg-free, gluten free Christmas cookie? What more could you ask for? Well, there IS something that makes them better. BROWN BUTTER.

Whether you bake them to give away to friends and family, or keep them for yourself, you simply MUST make a batch of these brown butter cookies. Why? Because the nutty flavor of brown butter will take your taste buds to a new dimension!

Recipe ingredients and substitutions

This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, and egg free. I have some suggestions below for making it vegan friendly as well.

Note: This is just a partial list of ingredients for the purposes of notes and substitutions. For a list of all ingredients and amounts, see the recipe card below.

• oat flour– if you make your own, be sure to use gluten-free rolled oats
• almond flour– Don’t use almond meal; you want to use fine ground almond flour
• raw sugar– You could also use coconut sugar, or any cup-for-cup sugar substitute of your choice.
• unsalted butter– If you only have salted on hand, just omit the salt listed in the recipe. Otherwise, your cookies will be overly salty.
• non-dairy milk– The type you use really doesn’t matter. However, I do think the flavor of almond milk or vanilla almond milk will give you the best tasting snickerdoodle cookies.
• apple cider vinegar– This acid will activate the baking soda. Other options are to use white vinegar or another acid, like lemon juice.

How to brown butter for cookies

If you don’t know how to make brown butter, don’t worry; it’s really easy. it’s just a simple cooking technique that is similar to making clarified butter. I use the same method that The Kitchn uses.

As the butter cooks over medium heat, the milk solids (lactose) cook out. A minute or so later, as it continues to cook, the yellow color of the melted butter will turn brown. It smells and tastes nutty and delicious!

1. Melt butter over medium heat. Use a pan with a light-colored bottom so you can see the color of the butter change.
2. Swirl the pan while the butter is cooking so it cooks evenly.
3. Watch the pot. The butter will begin to foam as it melts, then the color will change to a nutty-brown. When you smell the nutty aroma, take the pan off the heat and pour the browned butter into a glass bowl.

There will be some dark brown bits in the bottom of the pan. If you’d like, you can use those, too!

How to make brown butter cookies

If you want to watch the process from start to finish, check out this quick video!

After you brown the butter, it’s time to create the gluten free snickerdoodles cookie dough.

OH, by the way… the raw cookie dough is completely safe to eat, and it’s sinfully delicious. You have been warned! Haha.

1. Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl.
2. Combine the wet ingredients (minus the brown butter) in another bowl.
3. Add the bowl of dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

NOTE: At this point, depending on what type of gluten-free flour you use, you may find that the dough is too dry. If this is the case, just add a tiny bit of additional milk to thin it out.

4. Add brown butter to the cookie dough, then gently mix to combine.
5. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT! If you don’t allow the dough to firm up, your cookies will turn out very puffy and cake-like. Refrigeration will help the cookies to remain flatter, so they will bake up with perfectly crispy edges.

If the dough for your snickerdoodle cookies is thick enough to roll into dough balls, then you will not have to chill it for very long.

The longer you chill the batter the easier it will be to form into balls. Plus, crispier cookies.
For softer/puffier cookies, chill the batter for 1 hour or less, and use a cookie scoop to drop the dough balls onto the baking sheet. Then, sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar on top. *Feel free to get carried away with the cinnamon sugar.* hehe

6. Roll the cookie dough in cinnamon sugar, then place them onto a baking sheet and bake until they’re golden brown!

Recipe Notes for Gluten Free Snickerdoodles

Freezing the Dough

If you’d like to freeze the dough to bake at a later date, I suggest forming the dough into balls first. Place them on a sheet pan in the freezer and after they’re solid, transfer them to a plastic freezer bag.

Baking Brown Butter Cookies from Frozen Dough

To bake the cookie dough right from the freezer, reduce the oven temperature to 325°F. and increase the baking time by 2 or 3 minutes.

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This recipe post was originally published on November 30, 2016. The recipe was re-tested, and new photos and a video were added on November 23, 2020.

Have you ever made brown butter cookies? What’s are your favorite types of gluten free Christmas cookies? And go! 

Cheers friends!

LC