Thursday, December 22, 2011

Gluten-Free Shortbread Cookie Cups

This post is sponsored by Fooducopia. For more details, see the tab at the top.


I don't do a whole lot of gluten-free baking, so when Fooducopia gave me gluten-free all purpose flour mix made by Outrageous Baking to work with, it was a challenge. I decided to use it in a recipe where gluten-development was pretty much undesirable - shortbread dough.

But even though gluten-free flour mixes are designed to mimic the properties and flavor of wheat flour, it's never an exact match. This dough felt different as I handled it. But in the end, it worked. And no one I gave them to thought they were unusual in any way. And that's all that counts.

Gluten-Free Shortbread Cookie Cups

1 cup Outrageous Baking Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour Mix
3/4 cup almond flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
1 stick cold butter

Cut the butter into several pieces, Put all the ingredients into your food processor and process until the mixture forms a coherent dough.

Remove the dough from the processor, wrap it in plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator until it firms up - about an hour; longer is fine.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces Place a piece into a mini-muffin tins and press the dough into the bottom and part way up the sides of the tins. If you have a tart tamper, you can use that to press the dough, or a shot glass with a flat bottom will do a fine job.

Bake at 325 degrees until the shortcake cups are lightly browned - about 12 minutes. Let the cups cool in the pans until the firm up - about 10 minutes. Remove the shortcake cups from the tins and let them cool completely on a rack.

To serve, fill the cups with a bit of jam or jelly or preserves, sweetened cream cheese, caramel, or whatever you like.
Yum