These buttery, melt in your mouth Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies with Cinnamon & Clementine are the perfect Christmas cookies. They’re so easy to make with just a few ingredients, and you can decorate them however you like (or even not at all!). The flavours are totally divine with hints of caramel, and the festive holiday flavours of cinnamon and clementine. Use round cookie cutters or other fun shapes and you can make these Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies all year round!
These Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies with Cinnamon & Clementine might just be my new favourite Christmas cookies (although they have real tough competition with my Gluten Free Eggnog Cookies in the running). The idea for these Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies was actually born from another idea. I had these grand plans to make a Christmassy layer cake with indulgent frostings and dripping boozy sauces, and I was going to decorate it with festive flavoured Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies. Well, the cake was a total bust – it definitely has potential once I get the recipe right, but unfortunately I don’t have any time left to get that done before Santa arrives, so it will have to wait until next year. Even though I had no cake to decorate, I decided to make the Shortbread Cookies anyway, and I’m so glad I did!
These Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies are so buttery and soft, they melt in your mouth like a dream. They’re full of the festive flavours of cinnamon and clementine, a match made in heaven – warm spice and fresh citrus, the perfect Christmas treat for sure! They’re also made with dark brown sugar to give them a really rich caramel flavour – you will not be able to get enough of these Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies. I made these over the weekend at my mums, and half were gone before the weekend was out just between me and my mum – and that was us restraining ourselves! These Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies with Cinnamon & Clementine are definitely hard to resist. 
They’re so easy to make as well, like ridiculously easy! There’s only a few ingredients that make up these divine Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies – butter, dark brown sugar, flour, and the flavourings. I made these Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies into adorable Christmas Cookies by using festive cookie cutters and decorating them with royal icing. I know to a lot of people think royal icing can be a bit scary, I know I usually tend to avoid it because my decorating skills leave a lot to be desired! But I was actually really happy with how these came out, and it was really quite simple to do, I promise! Royal icing is just three ingredients, mixed into a thick but spreadable icing, then all you need is a piping bag, some food colouring, and a small round tip! You can decorate them any way you please too, just go with your imagination and creativity. Or leave off the icing all together and enjoy these Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies as they come, totally delicious.
More Christmas Cookies – GF Eggnog Cookies!
While I obviously made these Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies with Cinnamon & Clementine for Christmas, they’ll be great all year round! Just use round cookie cutters or other seasonal shapes and boom, Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies for all occasions! I absolutely love these as Christmas cookies though, not only are they cute and festive, but they’re perfect for gifting as they’re so quick and easy to make – you can make big batches in no time at all! As with most homemade shortbread, these Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies are quite delicate so they won’t be ideal for shipping – but if you’re hand delivering cookies these are definitely the one! Got a Christmas bake sale or pot luck coming up? These Shortbread Cookies will be the first to disappear from the table, they’re too adorable to say no to and too delicious to only have one! So, let’s get baking Christmas cookies!
Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies with Cinnamon & Clementine
Prep
Cook
Inactive
Total
Yield 24 cookies
Buttery, melt in your mouth gluten free shortbread cookies flavoured with cinnamon and clementine, and decorated with royal icing
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 1 cup (230g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 1/3 packed cups + 1 tbsp (140g) soft dark brown sugar
- 3.5 cups (430g) gluten free all purpose (plain) flour blend*, plus more for dusting
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp clementine zest (about 1 clementine)
- 1.5 tbsp clementine juice (about 1 clementine)
For the royal icing:
- 1 cup (240g) confectioners sugar (icing sugar)
- 2-3 tsp lemon juice
- 1 large egg white
- food colouring gels
Instructions
To make the cookies:
- Using your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric beater), beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add the flour, salt, cinnamon, and clementine zest and juice and beat on a low speed until it just comes together.
- Turn out onto a floured surface and form into a ball, the dough will be very crumbly. Wrap in clingfilm and put in fridge to chill for 30 minutes
- Flour your surface again and roll out the chilled dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out your shapes out using your cookie cutters (I used cutters about 3.5 inches tall). Put on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Chill in the fridge for another 30-60 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 350F/180C. Bake cookies for 15 minutes, until golden brown. Baking time make take less or more time, depending on the size of your cookie cutters*
- Leave to cool on a wire rack.
To make the royal icing:
- Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add 2 tsp of the lemon juice and stir to combine.
- Stir in a little of the egg white at a time, until your icing is the right consistency - it should be smooth, and thick but pipeable. Let it drip off a spoon, it should melt back into itself in about 7 seconds. If you run out of egg whites and it's still too thick add the extra tsp of lemon juice a little at a time. If it goes too thin, add more sifted icing sugar.
- Separate into different bowls to add your various food colouring of choice. Gels are best, as they don't change the consistency and give you a good colour with a small amount.
- Spoon into a piping bag with a small round (1mm) nozzle.
- Pipe your designs on your cookies
Notes
* I use Dove's Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour blend which I love (does not contain xanthan gum), but I believe it's only available in the UK. If you're in the US I've heard good things about Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 baking GF flour blend but have not tried it myself.
My cookie cutters for this baking time were about 3.5 inches tall. I also did some smaller ones, about 2 inches tall, and they took about 12 minutes to bake.
Pipe your decorations however you like, use your imagination. If you've never used royal icing before and are a bit intimidated by it youtube has some great tutorials. Pinterest is a great place to find design inspiration too.
Calorie information is generated using an app and may not be accurate
Courses Dessert
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 cookie
Amount Per Serving | ||
|---|---|---|
Calories 132 | ||
% Daily Value |
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
These are so cute! Perfect for the festive season!
Aww thank you!
Absolutely adorable! These cookies would bring a smile to anyone’s face. Love the light pastel colors.
Thank you!
I love how colourful these cookies are. Such a change from the usual red and green and it really makes stand out from the crowd. So great that you’ve switched out orange juice for sweeter clementine flavours too.
Thank you, Jane! I fancied shaking things up a little for these, and love how they’re still festive but a little different!
It’s Nov 2021, I know this blog is from a few years ago. Can you omit the spices and do a plain butter flavor?
Hi Jan – sorry for the delay in getting back to you!
You can definitely omit the spices for regular shortbread!