These sugar cookies with glossy royal icing, easily made dairy-free and egg-free, are perfect in so many ways.
No extra chill time so you have cookies baked and cooling in an hour. However, they don’t spread out while baking and definitely keep the cute shapes you cut them into.
Plus, with our glossy icing, you’ll be able to stack your edible works of art with no problem. No cream of tarter, no egg white necessary.
These taste and look so lovely, that nobody will know they are allergy-friendly.
See our recipe and helpful tips below.
Holidays, celebrations, parties…nothing says a good time like festive sugar cookies.
And at our house, making sugar cookies is like baking AND art class all rolled in one…
because my kids absolutely love decorating them. Less work for me!
But for a few years, as a milk and egg allergy mom, I thought these were completely out for us.
Until I discovered flax eggs! At that moment our world was revolutionized.
Sugar cookies,French toast, cinnamon rolls.
Flax eggs saved the day. It was game on, for sure.
See our perfect sugar cookie AND glossy icing recipes below!
For a time, this recipe had disappeared from our site, and we didn’t know until emails started coming in.
“Where is your sugar cookie recipe? It’s our favorite!”
Y’all know how to make a girl feel loved.
Thanks for loving this recipe as much as we do!
Obviously, we got it back on the site.
And we hope many more food allergy families will come to love it, as a safe and delicious tradition.
SUGAR COOKIE REVIEW
“The best allergy friendly sugar cookie recipe! I’ve made it twice now using the Ener-G Egg Replacer and it works great and tastes amazing! Thanks for sharing this recipe!” Elizabeth
HOW TO MAKE PERFECT SUGAR COOKIES
1. Roll the dough out on granulated sugar, not flour, so the cookies don’t get stiff.
2. Pull the cookies out of the oven just as they start to turn brown so they stay soft and chewy.
3. Use corn syrup in the icing so the colors will be vibrant and so the icing hardens for stacking. Recipe below.
HOW TO AVOID CHILLING DOUGH FOR AN HOUR
Not sure about you, but I can be impatient in the kitchen.
If I’m making fun cut-out sugar cookies, I usually want to get to the decorating (and eating) as soon as possible.
So I’ve tested this out.
Does cut-out sugar cookie dough really need to chill in my refrigerator for an hour before I can roll it, cut shapes, and bake?
Surprisingly, no.
Here’s what can be done, instead, to chill the dough enough to work with and to yield cookies that still keep their shape when baking.
1. Use chilled dairy-free butter sticks cut into one inch pieces before mixing.
2. Make the dough pretty quickly, roll out, cut shapes. Then put your cut-out dough on your large cookie sheet, cover the cut out dough with wax paper, and put the cookie sheet in the freezer.
3. THEN preheat the oven. Once it’s at 325, your cookies are chilled and ready to bake!
No extra one-hour chill time necessary. Just let the cut-out cookie dough chill while the oven heats.
DO I HAVE TO MAKE THE ICING
Of course not.
You can skip icing altogether, these cookies are that good.
Or frost with your favorite icing from a tub.
Store-bought frosting just won’t set and harden like homemade glossy icing will so be sure to store them accordingly once they are frosted. Perhaps in a single layer, in an airtight container.
Now here’s the cookie recipe below.
SUGAR COOKIES DAIRY & EGG FREE
Makes approximately 16-18 cookies.
Don’t preheat oven until the cookies are cut out.
SUGAR COOKIE INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold salted dairy-free butter sticks
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg or 1 flax egg
extra granulated sugar for cutting board
Here’s how to easily make a flax egg.
SUGAR COOKIE DIRECTIONS
Prepare 1 flax egg if using egg replacer.
In a medium bowl, combine 2 c. flour and 1/4 tsp. salt with a wire whisk.
In a large mixing bowl, cream 3/4 c. dairy-free butter and 3/4 c. sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed.
Add 1 egg or 1 flax egg and 1 tsp. vanilla to the large bowl and beat on medium speed until well blended.
Then add the flour mixture to the large mixing bowl. Blend on low speed, scraping down the sides, just until combined. Don’t over mix.
Gather dough into a ball with clean hands. On a lightly sugared surface, place the ball of dough on the and flatten into a 1-inch disk. Using a rolling pin, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Don’t roll too thin. Rub sugar on rolling pin as needed to keep the dough from sticking.
With cookie cutters, cut dough into desired shapes and carefully move to a large ungreased cookie sheet with a spatula. Keep the cookies at least a half inch apart. Cover the cookies with wax paper and place cookie sheet in the freezer. Now heat the oven.
Heat oven to 325 degrees. When oven is heated, pull cookie sheet from freezer and bake for 14-16 minutes. Pull the cookies out of the oven as they start to brown and completely lose their wet shine on top.
Let cool 10-15 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack carefully with a spatula. Cool cookies completely before icing.
See our royal icing recipe below.
GLOSSY ICING RECIPE
This recipe is a mini batch of icing so you can create several different colors if you’d like.
If you just want one color of icing for all the cookies, you’ll want to 3x this icing recipe to cover all 16-18 cookies.
This icing can be used for spreading or piping.
ICING INGREDIENTS
1/2 + 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon dairy-free milk
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
liquid food coloring
Here’s organic corn syrup you may like (affiliate).
Here’s a favorite organic vanilla extract (affiliate).
ICING DIRECTIONS
When the sugar cookies are cooled, start making your icing.
In a small bowl, mix the first 1/2 cup confectioners sugar and 1 tbs. dairy-free milk with a spoon until smooth.
Then stir in 1 tbs. corn syrup and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract until icing is smooth and glossy.
Slowly add the second 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar until smooth. It’ll be thick.
Last, stir in liquid food coloring to your desired color.
If the icing is too thick, add 1/4 teaspoon of dairy-free milk at a time, up to 1 teaspoon…just until it’s runny enough to easily squirt out of the corner of a snipped baggy and flows off a spoon like honey.
Make second and third colors in separate small bowls, in the same way.
HOW TO PIPE GLOSSY ICING
1. Place a thick quart-size freezer baggie into a tall glass cup (to steady it). Fill the baggie with the icing.
2. Remove bag from glass cup and snip one corner of the baggie.
3. To icing the whole top of a cookie, first outline it and then fill it in to keep icing from running off the edge. Spread icing to missed spots with a toothpick while it’s still wet.
4. If using two colors, try this technique. First cover the cookie in one solid color. Then accent with a second color while the first is still wet. The second color will set into the first for a really cool look. Add a third color layer, while the first two colors are also wet, if you want.
5. Once the cookies are iced, let the icing harden and set before eating or storing.The cookies should be able to stack on one another for storing, but you can use wax paper between the cookies for good measure.
Hope you enjoy these dairy and egg free sugar cookies with glossy royal icing as much as we do!
This was originally posted December 2010.
