Maple Sugar Cookie Recipe
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This maple sugar cookie recipe is a great healthy alternative to the refined sugar version. Add these to your Christmas cookie swap.
I don’t like to let holidays pass by without a dose of sugar cookies. A simple set of cookie cutters is all you need to make fun shapes for each special season.
This maple sugar cookie recipe is a real food version of the classic. The dough is easy to work with, so kids can help make these yummy treats.
Maple Sugar Cookies Tips
You can eat these maple sugar cookies plain or decorate them with whatever icing you like. I’m including a simple maple frosting recipe here. If you want to color the frosting, I recommend avoiding artificial food coloring. Derived from petroleum, artificial food dyes have been linked to long-term health problems and hyperactivity.
Instead of using those little dye bottles full of chemicals, you can color your maple sugar cookie frosting with natural dyes. My homemade Easter egg dye post will help give you some natural food coloring ideas. You can also find natural dyes at many grocery stores. 
The batter comes together quickly and easily.
Kids enjoy helping to make the shapes.
Bake for 8 minutes.
Have fun decorating the sugar cookies.
Try my dairy free sugar cookies and gluten free snickerdoodles for other allergy-friendly holiday desserts.
Maple Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies
- 1 1/4 cups gluten-free flour or white whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/3 cup melted coconut oil
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1 tbs. milk
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
For the icing
- 1/4 cup softened butter or palm oil shortening
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- To make the dough, combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl.
- In a large bowl, mix the melted coconut oil, maple syrup, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the large bowl and mix until a uniform dough forms. The dough will be a bit sticky at this point.
- Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in wax paper, and refrigerate for 45 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- After the dough solidifies a bit in the fridge, place it on a floured work surface. Roll the dough to a thickness of 1/8 to 1/4 inch. (Note: You’ll probably need to add a few tablespoons of flour to the dough if the dough is too sticky to roll. Don’t add too much, though, or the cookies will come out dry.)
- Cut the cookies into shapes using 3-inch cookie cutters (or similar).
- Place the cookies on a cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes, until the bottoms of the cookies begin to get brown. If the tops start to brown, they’ll be a bit dry.
- To make the frosting, whip the frosting ingredients in a mixer for about one minute. It should become smooth and the color should be uniform (light tan).
- When the cookies have cooled completely, decorate each one with a layer of frosting. Store the cookies in an airtight container.
Nutrition
Price Breakdown
This recipe yields about 24 cookies using 3-inch cookie cutter shapes, and it costs $3.50 to make ($.15 per cookie). This Maple Sugar Cookie recipe is a healthier alternative to typical, overly-sweetened sugar cookies, but these taste just as good.
What cookies do you like to make for holidays? Please share in the comments.
Prepared the batter as written. Soup. Thinner than pancake batter. I added probably a whole entire cup more flour before it looked like the dough in the photo. I get that adjustments are necessary when people are using different types of flours, but I can’t see this recipe working for anyone as is.
I’m not sure how that would have happened. I’ve made this recipe many times with success. I hope it worked well once you adjusted the flour.
What can I use as a sub for the coconut oil to make these also nut free? Thank you!!
You could try softened butter, or a butter substitute like Earth Balance.
The first time I made these cookies I only added 2 tsp. milk. The second time, I added 2 Tbsp. (per recipe) and regretted it, as they were even MORE sticky than the first time. So next time I’ll do tsp. milk again.
I don’t have patience rolling out this gluten-free dough and using cookie cutters, even though I added a tsp. of baking binder, so I’ve been taking about a tablespoon of dough and spreading it out in the bottom of muffin tins, then baking them for 8 minutes in the muffin tins. This is far easier for me and the cookies probably taste just as good. I’ve made some that are thicker than a cookie–more like a small tart. Either way, they pop right out of the tins when baked!
BTW, I’m on a very strict elimination diet–no gluten, very low histamines, no salicylates–and this is the only cookie recipe I could find that works with my diet restrictions. Thank you, Annemarie!