Elana's Pantry

New York Times Bestselling author Elana Amsterdam founded Elana’s Pantry, the go-to website for easy, healthy, grain-free, Paleo recipes, in 2006

star cookies

Star Cookies

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These gluten-free vegan holiday Star Cookies are a fun project for Hanukkah, Christmas, and Santa Lucia.

Last week, the boys’ Waldorf school, Shining Mountain had a Santa Lucia celebration. What is Santa Lucia, you ask – a pre-Christian feature of modern day Catholicism; a mid-winter festival of light on one of the longest nights of the year. Lucia translates to Lucy, which means light, as in lucid. She is the saint of radiant clarity.

Anyway, let me not digress into religious history and away from the most important aspect, to me at least, of any festival or holiday – food!

Star Cookies
Serves: 32 cookies
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. In a large bowl, combine almond flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon
  2. In a smaller bowl, mix together coconut oil, agave and vanilla
  3. Mix wet ingredients into dry
  4. Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper until ¼ thick
  5. Refrigerate for 1 hour
  6. Remove top piece of parchment paper and dust dough with almond flour
  7. Cut out cookies with a small star cutter
  8. Using a metal spatula, place stars on a parchment lined baking sheet
  9. Bake at 350°F until lightly browned around the edges, 5-8 minutes
  10. Cool completely prior to handling cookies

So, what is a gluten-free mom to do for a wheat-filled, sugar laden holiday celebration? I devised a holiday dessert recipe for the parents who had volunteered to bake star cookies. Then I assembled bags with the recipe, parchment paper, a cookie cutter and the ingredients.

The children dressed up in white robes and spent the entire day serving star cookies to everyone from ‘kindergarteners’ to high school seniors. And the five gluten-free kids in my son’s class? They were able to eat the cookies that they gave to others and break bread with the entire school. Now that’s Lucia magic.

My White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe is amazing on these Star Cookies!

Here are some of my other healthy Christmas cookie recipes:

Comments

  1. After baked and cooled, would these be ok to put in the freezer? Would like to make in advance, and freeze, then pull out to thaw for an event. Thoughts?

    Reply

  3. For the Star Cookies recipe, how do you store these after finished baking? In refrigerator? and for how long? Trying to figure out if I can make these 1-2 days ahead and then take to an event. Thank you!

    Reply

    • Kris, we gobble these up as soon as they’re made. They will keep nicely for 1-2 days if you leave them out, then package them up right before the event :-)

      Reply

  4. Has anyone tried making these cookies with Pyure or THM Sweet Blend? My grandson is T1D and can’t have honey or agave. Does butter work as well as coconut oil?

    Reply

  5. I just made these cookies and used Bob’s Almond Flour because it’s all the store had in stock. Having read the previous comments, I knew they might not turn out so well so I added an egg which helped to bind the dough together and they turned out great! Obviously this does not make them vegan friendly but that was ok for our crowd. Everyone loved them!

    Reply

  7. Boo. I wish that there would have been a note not to use Bob’s almond flour! After spending a near fortune on the ingredients I was really sad when they turned into a crumbly, oily blob when cooking! what a shame and a waste!!

    Reply

    • Dayna, thanks so much for your comment! I link to all of the ingredients and brands needed in the green text in the ingredients portion of the recipe :-)

      Reply

  8. We made the Star cookies with our grandsons and they were so oily from the amount of coconut oil you could squeeze the oil out of the dough. After baking them and putting them on parchment paper, they leave a very oily surface under the cookies. We were really disappointed with this recipe. I think that the amount of coconut oil is way too much.

    Reply

  9. These sound delicious! Do you think I could use maple syrup instead of honey or agave nectar? I can’t have either as I don’t tolerate fructose.
    Thanks for your help!

    Reply

  10. Thank you for this recipe! In addition to having a GF and DF free child in our class, our entire school is nut free. Is there a substitution for the almond flour? It would be so lovely if all the children could eat the same cookies.

    Reply

  11. It’s so comforting to me, spending so many years explaining my “weird school” to people, to see someone else who knows who Santa Lucia is. I once told a friend about it and she said it sounded like I went to a cult.

    Reply

  12. May be a silly question, but is there a good paleo “icing” recipe anyone can recommend to ice or decorate the cookies? I feel like that is where the sugar tornado happens when I let the kids “decorate” their own cookies with an inch of those toppings!

    Reply

  14. I just tried making the ginger shortbread cookies and the star cookies. The ginger shortbread swelled up to 3X’s their size, but they were also very sticky, I could not get them off the paper without them crumbling into pieces. The Star cookies also swelled and went from star shapes to flat round circles and were also impossible to get off parchment paper without completly falling apart. I’m not sure what went wrong…I followed the recipe exactly as it is printed. Has this happened to anyone else? Do you have any suggestions for me?
    I’m bummed I’ve been baking all morning, 5 hours to take these cookies to our family’s get-together tonight. My son is gluten free and I wanted him to have some desserts he could eat at the party…Oh well.

    Reply

  17. QUESTION! I really want make these with my little ones but I am allergic to almonds. What would a good alternative flour be? Thanks!

    Reply

  20. Is there anyway that I could use coconut flour instead of blanched almond flour as I would make this as an ordinary cookie for my kids to take to school but no nut products are allowed?

    Reply

  23. Mine totally flopped! :( Not sure what the issue was, but they spread like crazy in the oven and you couldn’t even tell what shape they had originally been intended for. Of course, they were still delicious, but my little girls were somewhat disappointed by the disappearance of their ducks and trees and snowmen. (Yeah, I let them go crazy with the cookie cutters.) We enjoyed eating them anyway. Next time, I will do the measuring instead of having my 12 year old niece and nephew help. Perhaps that was the difficulty?

    Reply

  24. Made today with my son. They came out wonderful. This was the first time making cut out cookies for both of us. Used maple syrup instead of honey. I wonder ifbthere might be a way to make with stevia.

    Reply

  25. Elana- I am thinking of having a few neighbor kids over to decorate cookies and wonder if you have any suggestions for frosting and decorations. I would love to make it fun and not a totally sugar driven event but that is half the fun. I went to my first gingerbread house party a few weeks ago and the kids had a blast. I thought decorating just cookies would be a fine substitute and within the realm of possibility for me. I imagine these cookies would work well but I am unfortunately avoiding almond flour since it seems our youngest has a sensitivity/allergy to nuts. It will probably mean i will need to substitute gluten free in another sugar cookie recipe but if you have any recommendations let me know! Thanks so much and Happy Holiday-
    Abi

    Reply

  26. Elana I just wanted to wish you and your family a wonderful Holiday Season and to thank you so much for your time and effort and great recipes you generously share with us. I pray for your good health and happiness for many years to come.

    God Bless You,

    Rosita

    Reply

  27. I’m so happy to see someone setting the record straight for our beloved Santa Lucia!
    More facts: she was Sicilian (as are we, not Swedish).
    She wore lighted candles or torches on her head to light her way up to the caves where hiding, persecuted Christians were starving; Her hands were needed to carry the food!

    Reply

  28. I made these today w my bigger kids (4 & 6) & they turned out really great. I subbed pure maple syrup for the agave & almond extract bc I was out of vanilla. The cutting was a little tricky but I remembered reading another gal had rolled & cut them individually which actually worked much better. I ended up splitting the dough & keeping one half in the fridge while I rolled & cut each cookie from the other half of dough. Cutting each one indivdually lets you just peel them off the parchment instead of trying to scrape them up w the spatula. They baked up great & if I wasn’t trying to save them for Santa, I’d let the kids eat more of them!

    Reply

  29. Just made these after trying 2 other sugar cookie recipes for heart shaped cookies…they worked! I’m still scratching my head about what went wrong with the other two but these are great! we just ate one still warm from the oven and holy cow delish! thanks Elana! You saved Valentines for us!

    Reply

  30. My daughter and I made these yesterday for Christmas cutout cookies. I used butter in place of coconut oil and left out the cinnamon. I doubled the vanilla. I used half the agave called for because I knew we were going to frost them with a sweet frosting.

    I refrigerated the dough, and rolled out a little more than enough dough for one cookie between wax paper. Each time I placed some dough on waxed paper, I put the bowl back in the refrigerator. I took the unused dough from the wax paper and put it back in the bowl and flattened it to the side, to chill faster. The chilled dough is easier to work with.

    I peeled off the top sheet of waxed paper, removed the unused dough, and flipped the waxed paper over onto the silicone baking sheet that I use instead of parchment paper. Thanks to Tracee, above, for this idea. : )

    Once the cookie sheet was full, I placed the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. This step is crucial when using butter, because it firms the dough back up and keeps the cookies from spreading and losing their shape.

    Today, we made Royal Icing and frosted the cookies and decorated them. They turned out beautifully, and are delicious too.

    Reply

  31. Yes, exactly in the way you describe above. Doesn’t hold together, turns into a big blob and oh so many other problems that I won’t even go into right now –like to stay focused on what does work :-)

    Reply

    • Thanks, Elena. I just wanted to make sure the symptoms I was having was actually from the flour and not some other error I might have made. Altho, reading below, it sounds like this could’ve worked for me, too. I, too, used butter (my family does NOT appreciate good coconut oil) and I would take half the dough to roll out. The outer edges would hold together OK but by the time I got to the middle, it was “goo-ing” out… Perhaps I just expected too much from the butter. The taste was good; i’d highly recommend keeping the cinnamon in.

      Reply

  32. Hi Elana,

    I ordered natural almond flour from Honeyville and not until I re-read your almond flour information (after a failed try at a bread recipe) did I realize I had made a mistake by not ordering blanched almond flour. Is this 5lb bag destined to stay on my pantry shelf, or is there a way to salvage?

    Thank you.

    Bridgett

    Reply

    • You can use the natural almond flour to bread chicken tenders or pork chops, or to make salmon patties, for example. The blanched works best in baked items. Hope that helps.

      Reply

    • I use whole almond flour in most of my baking recipes – like pumpkin whoopie pies and chocolate chip cookies, even muffins – with no problem. I can see that it probably wouldn’t work for “sugar” cookies, but I’ve had lots of success in other things

      Reply

  33. Hi elana, thank you so much for this cookie recipe! I love your ideas and creations and love recreating them in my own kitchen. I am allergic to eggs as well as gluten, so I was thrilled that these don´t call for eggs! Have a wonderful day and thanks again!

    Reply

  34. I made these at our Thanksgiving party and made some variations: I put in 2 egg whites, used 1/4 cup coconut oil and only 3 TBSP of agave, I also added an extra TBSP of vanilla :)

    They were DELICIOUS! In my husband’s words “the best cookies, ever”.

    Cheers!
    Scarlet

    Reply

  35. Hi there – for any other UK dwellers you may have tapping into your wonderful blog – we have ‘baking powder’ which sometimes contains wheat flour (so just check the label, I’ve not found a supermarket that doesnt have a choice), and ‘bicarbonate of soda’ which doesnt. From what I can make out ‘baking powder’ = ‘baking soda’. If anyone else has some clarity on that I’m very happy to be corrected as it is a bit confusing!! :o) Claire

    Reply

    • Claire – In the U.S. baking powder is a mixture of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) cornstarch, and either or both calcium phosphate or sodium phosphate.

      Reply

  37. Elana,

    These cookies are WONDERFUL! I LOOOOVE all the recipes I have tried from your website!! Zucchini Carpaccio, kale, etc. I can’t wait to try them all. I will enjoy these cookies by the fire during the expected blizzard in Boulder tomorrow. :-)

    Thank You SO MUCH for posting all your wonderful recipes!

    Happy Holidays,
    Brandy

    Reply

  39. That made me laugh :-)
    I couldn’t agree more! I wish these companies would cut it out because when I see products that are naturally gluten free labeled as such, it puts doubt into my mind; “wait?! this could have gluten in it? I didn’t think it could!?” and then I worry. Because as you know, the pain of eating gluten is just NOT worth it.
    I know shopping at Whole Foods isn’t exactly the best choice either but so far my area hasn’t really taken to the idea of organic and healthy so it’s usually the only store (and I drive 40 minutes to the nearest one!) I can find things I can eat. I hope one day we can move to a climate (and have a yard!) where I can grow my own food!! Oh the options would be endless.
    Anyway, thank you!

    Reply

    • Hi! I’m about to try these with my kids. I, too, live in a small town that has very few options in the gluten free/natural realm. Only 1 store carries anything organic. I find myself ordering a lot of dry goods from Amazon. Free 2 day shipping with prime, bulk is cheaper than a lot of stores like whole food, and I avoid driving an hour each way to a store that might have what I need, not to mention toting 3 kids on that hour long drive & the gas used by my minivan. Now for the cookies!

      Reply

  40. Emily,

    Thanks for your comment and question. Great question, by the way.

    I have my box of (oh so cheap) Arm & Hammer baking soda sitting in front of me. The only ingredient listed on the label is sodium bicarbonate. I think that the folks at Bob’s are just good marketers, like the ones at Whole Foods. Next thing you know, we’ll find apples labeled “gluten-free” in the produce aisle.

    Have fun with the cookies.

    Elana

    Reply

  41. Hello Miss Elana and friends!
    So- since going gluten free, I haven’t done any baking what so ever (because of other allergies I didn’t think it was possible). After discovering almond flour (thank you Elana!) I am so anxious to bake everything imaginable! Including some cookies! Please forgive me if this is naive, but can baking soda possibly contain gluten?
    I was under the impression it does not, but at Whole Foods today I found 3 different brands. One was called Pure Baking Soda, Arm and Hammer’s brand, and Bob’s Red Mill. Bob’s Red Mill was 3 dollars more than the other 2 brands but it was labeled aluminum and gluten free. This confused me!! I purchased the least expensive “Pure Baking Soda” but am wondering if I should be concerned it could have aluminum and gluten in it?!
    What do you use?
    Thank you for helping me with this!

    Reply

  42. Tracee,

    Thanks for your sweet words. I really appreciate that you shared your substitutions with us; my favorite part of your comment was, “They are not too sweet so I let him have three.”

    Thanks Again!
    Elana

    Reply

  43. My 3 year old and I made these last night. I used butter instead of coconut oil (due to a food allergy)and honey in place of agave (to stick to the SCDiet). They came out lovely. Trying to tranfer the cut out dough with a metal spatula just wasn’t working. So I rolled a golf ball sized dough between two 6″ x 6″ pieces of wax paper, peeled the top sheet off, cut out the cookie, flipped it onto the parchment lined cookie sheet, and then peeled off the other sheet. They were adorable. The theme this semester in my child’s Kindermusik class is “milk and cookies” so he was excited to make cookies. He enjoyed picking out the shapes, so we had airplanes and stars. When he took a bite of the first one he said “mmmmm”. They are not too sweet so I let him have three.

    Reply

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