Gluten-Free Shortbread

This gluten-free shortbread uses rice flour and cornstarch in place of wheat flour, and honestly, you might prefer it. The rice flour and cornstarch combination produces an incredibly fine, sandy texture that crumbles and melts the moment it hits your tongue.

Mix the dough with your hands until it comes together into a soft ball. There’s no water or eggs in this recipe, so the butter is doing all the binding. If it feels too crumbly, your butter might be too cold. Let it warm up slightly and keep working it.

Chilling the dough for an hour firms up the butter so the cookies hold their shape during baking. Roll into small balls, flatten with a fork, and bake low and slow until the edges just start to turn golden.

Pro Tips

• Sift the dry ingredients before adding the butter. Rice flour and cornstarch clump easily, and lumps in shortbread show up as floury pockets in the finished cookie.
• Bake at a low temperature and watch closely. These go from pale to overbaked fast. Pull them when the edges are barely golden.
• Let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheet. They’re fragile when warm and firm up as they cool.

Variations

• Press your thumb into each ball and fill the indent with raspberry or apricot jam for thumbprint cookies.
• Roll the balls in crushed nuts or corn flakes before baking for a crunchy coating.
• Mix finely chopped candied citrus peel into the dough for a festive, fragrant version.