Yes, they exist – and yes, they’re amazing!
Around the holidays, I love to bake. I’m known for making heaps of gingerbreads, sugar cookies, cakes, and – sometimes, combinations thereof (like my gingerbread cakehouse or, as I lovingly referred to it, Sugar Shack)
But I digress.
This year there was no Sugar Shack but I did make a heap of cookies to give away as gifts. And, many more to enjoy with family and friends. Little Miss V was very excited to help me in the kitchen with mixing the dough, rolling it out and pressing festive shapes with cookie cutters.
The problem, of course, arose when she grabbed a fistful of dough and shoved it in her mouth.
Of course eating raw cookie dough is not a great thing to do anyway – but especially not when one is allergic to eggs, which all of the cookies we were making contained. I managed to grab the rest out of her hand pretty quickly but the damage was done and she had a red rash around her face in minutes. Thankfully she does not have an anaphylactic response to eggs *phewwwwww*, but it’s still a valid lesson… don’t trust toddlers with cookie dough!
Unless, of course, you make an egg-free dough that is perfectly safe to “accidentally” eat at room temperature.
As a mom and a dietitian, I don’t want my kid to miss out on the holidays just because she has an allergy. She deserves the chance to enjoy the flavours and fun of Christmas just as much as the rest of us. Of course I’m not going to give her all the cookies she wants because she is still a young toddler and can’t necessarily make decisions about balanced meals by herself yet (that’s still my job at this stage), but I feel ok about letting her try 1 or 2 cookies this season. Especially since she is like a cat when it comes to treats – she’ll sit and stare at you with big sad eyes, and possibly try to steal your food, if you are eating anything different than what’s on her plate (or sometimes, even if it’s the same food!)
I found this recipe on a Facebook group for people with egg allergies and parents of egg-allergic littles. It had gotten rave reviews from the group and was posted no fewer than ten thousand times. At the time of this posting I was unable to identify where the recipe had originated (I’d love to give credit where it is due!), so I am officially declaring that this is *not* my original recipe, but if you know who to credit I will gladly edit this post to include their info.
I made a batch of regular cookies and these egg-free ones, and they had the same colour, held the same shapes, and looked pretty well identical once they were decorated. Can you tell the difference?
I’m so happy that I was able to share these delicious cookies with my daughter and the whole family – they are so tasty that no one could tell that they were egg free! And, unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of her enjoying her first ever cookie – she gobbled it up so happily and quickly that I didn’t have a chance to grab my phone first!
Easy Egg Free Roll Out Sugar Cookies
Yield depends on size/shape of your cookie cutters, we made 62 small/medium cookies!
- 1 8oz package plain cream cheese, softened
- 3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
Directions:
- In a large bowl, mix together cream cheese and butter until well combined. Add sugar and vanilla, mix well.
- Add flour and baking powder. Mix until combined. The dough will be somewhat ragged and crumbly.
- Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Sprinkle flour lightly on your rolling surface and rolling pin. Roll dough to approximately 1/8″ thickness, and press out cookie shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies on baking sheets 2″ apart.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, transfer to cooling rack to cool completely before decorating.
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