One of the things I miss most about gluten is simple cookie cutter cookies. When you are gluten free, as I’m sure you know, you can eat a whole lot of super chocolatey, super coconuty cookies, but there isn’t a whole lot in the way of simple, soft sugary cookies that don’t taste like garbanzo beans. I set out to remedy that! This is a recipe I came up with after a long afternoon of fiddling about with it. It produces soft, slightly snickerdoodle-y cookies. I’m very satisfied with them, but I’d love to hear variations.

And on to the recipe:

1 cup sugar, plus 1/2 cup for coating

5 Tbsp. butter flavored “Spectrum” palm shortening (or butter if you are so able)

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1 tsp. ground cinnamon, plus 1 tsp. for coating

generous 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg (bonus if it’s fresh, but it doesn’t need to be)

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.

In stand mixer (or by hand, I’m sure) cream the sugar and shortening.

Meanwhile, combine the almond meal, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking powder. Mix them together well.

Slowly, and with the mixer running, add the almond meal mixture to the sugar mixture. Allow everything to full mix before adding the egg and the vanilla extract. Once the egg and vanilla are fully incorporated, turn off the mixer.

The dough should be thick and maleable. Allow your creation to sit for a minute while you line a sheet pan with foil and spray it with canola oil. Transfer the dough to the sheet pan. Spread it so you have a thin, even layer about a quarter of an inch thick. If you have too much dough, just store the rest and use it later.

Place the pan in the oven and bake until the dough starts to brown ever so slightly. This will probably take about 10 minutes, but every oven is different. While the dough is baking, combine 1 tsp. of cinnamon and the 1/2 cup of sugar in a small bowl. Also use this time to choose your cookie cutter. I have found that small, not terribly detailed cookie cutters work best, but by all means try something else (I’d love to hear about it!).

Pull the sheet pan out of the oven and place it over the burners (or wherever is convenient to work on it). Cut as many cookies as you can with your cookie cutter. Don’t remove any of the dough. The cookie cutter will get pretty hot, so you may need to take a few breaks (or be cleverer than me and use some sort of glove or cloth).

Once all the cookies have been cut (but not removed!), sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar over them — in between bits as well as intended shapes! Put the sheet back in the oven and remove them when the cookies are browned and the sugar is starting to melt slightly. Start checking on the cookies every two minutes after the first five minutes. It’s important not to over bake them, as then they’re likely to lose their softness.

When the cookies have cooled (they need to be at least so cool that you can touch them comfortably), use a small offset spatula (or whatever you have, honestly) to remove them. Take care to keep the shapes intact, and also make sure you eat all the scraps in between them (this is important!). Move the cookies to a serving plate and enjoy! I keep mine on a domed cake platter and they kept for a day and a half. They will almost definitely keep longer than that, but my boyfriend ate them all by that point. Whoooops!