RECIPE: Gluten-Free Lace Cookies for the Holidays

No one will ever guess how easy they are to make unless you tell them. So don't.

In a perfect world, I would be able to subsist on cookies, coffee, brioche, more coffee, and the occasional avocado. Okay, maybe a sheet cake. I don’t see a problem with that, except the part where I’m celiac and that’s distinctly unhealthy.

But aside from those pesky semantics, I would eat cookies every morning for breakfast, if I could. And then I’d chug an entire samovar of coffee.

Try and stop me.

At the top of that list of delicious cookies, holidays or no holidays, perhaps even edging out another favorite of mine, chocolate chip, would be lace cookies. Because those things are delicious.

Lace cookies are buttery but also crisp, sweet but also chewy. If lace cookies were a person, they’d be Idris Elba during his The Wire days, taking his shirt off. If lace cookies had prehensible fingers, which they don’t, they would twirl a baton, smoke a cigar, and speak Spanish, all at the same time. Lace cookies are your friend. Ask a lace cookie if your butt looks fat in these jeans, and the answer is always a resounding no.

So, here we go. The recipe is super easy. The result is extra fancy. And remember—they’re gluten-free! There aren’t that many ingredients or directions, which means fewer opportunities to screw it up.

Do I know how to inspire the troops or what?

Ingredients:

• cooking spray

• ½ cup unsalted butter

• ¾ cup white sugar

• 1 tsp honey (the good stuff—don’t scrimp on quality)

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1 cup quick cooking oats (e.g., Quaker oats, steel-cut oats, etc.)

• 1/4 cup almond flour (you can also use all-purpose flour, but then it won’t be gluten-free)

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon baking powder

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper and spray generously with cooking spray.

2. Melt butter and honey in a microwave until it starts to boil. Add sugar and stir, and then add beaten egg. Mix well. Stir in oats, flour, vanilla, salt, and baking powder.

3. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving plenty of room to spread. Leaving room is important because you want your cookies to be crispy and thin at the edge and chewy in the center.

4. Bake in the preheated oven until edges are golden brown, about 8 minutes. Don’t let yourself get distracted! Burn them, and they’re inedible. Let cool completely before removing cookies from foil, otherwise they will tear apart.

Buon appetito!