Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookies

1 cup brown sugar or 1 cup Anthony’s monk fruit sweetener + 1 tsp molasses or 1 cup Swerve

   1:1 brown sugar substitute

1 ¼ cups butter

1 tsp GF vanilla

1 egg yolk

2¼ cups flour or 2¼ cups Trader Joe’s GF flour blend or 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 GF flour or 2¼ cups of your favorite GF flour blend + slightly heaping ½ tsp xanthan gum (omit if your flour already contains) (See Notes)

Beat brown sugar & butter until light & fluffy.

Add vanilla & egg yolk & blend well.

Whisk together flour(s) & xanthan gum. Add to butter mixture & mix until dough comes together.

Drop by teaspoonfuls or roll about teaspoon size piece of dough onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Cookies on the left are dropped, cookies on the right are rolled.

Bake at 350° for 10-15 mins.

Cool for 2 mins on pan, then gently move to wire racks to finish cooling. Cookies are a little fragile until they completely cool.

Notes:

I have been playing around with different flours for this recipe. Bob’s Red Mill works well, maybe just a little dense & my taste tester liked the flavor. But the favorite seems to be those made with Trader Joe’s flour - great flavor & perfect texture, light, but not too fragile!

If you are using brown sugar substitute, dough will be stiffer than if using regular brown sugar, so it is easy to roll into balls. But they will not spread much, so flatten them just a little – whether you are dropping or rolling into balls.

Cookies on the left are with regular brown sugar, cookies on the right are with brown sugar substitute.