Gluten-Free Apple Cookies

Name: Gluten-Free Apple Cookies
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 37 min
Yield: 1 cookie
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups (250 g) Pamela's Gluten-Free 1:1 All-Purpose Flour; 1/4 cup (36 g) cornstarch; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar; 1 medium apple, peeled and grated to the core (about 80 g). We use Honeycrisp; 4 ounces white chocolate chips; 10 tablespoons (140 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled; 1 large egg (50 g out of the shell), at room temperature, beaten; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 3/4 cup (86 g) powdered sugar, for the glaze; 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, for the glaze; 1 tablespoon milk, for the glaze, plus more a quarter teaspoon at a time as needed

on Oct 13 2026

Table of Contents

Apple desserts have one problem and it is water. An apple is mostly water, and water in a cookie dough gives you something shaped like a cookie that tastes like a slice of cake.

The fix is grating the apple rather than reaching for applesauce. Applesauce adds moisture and a little structure but almost no flavor. A peeled, grated apple adds the flavor and distributes through the dough in small enough pieces that it does not wreck the texture.

What you get is a thick, domed cookie that spreads very little and browns gently at the edges, with white chocolate chips through it and a cinnamon glaze drizzled over the top. All the taste of apple pie without rolling any pastry.

Made with Pamela's 1:1 All-Purpose Flour, which is bound with guar gum, so there is no xanthan gum to add. Adapted from Nicole Hunn at Gluten Free on a Shoestring.

So good, no one will guess they are gluten-free, the way Pamela's has done it since 1988.

Grate the Apple, Do Not Use Applesauce

This is the technique the whole recipe turns on.

Peel one medium firm apple and grate it on the large holes of a box grater. You want 80 g, which is roughly a medium apple once peeled and cored.

If your grated apple looks very wet, squeeze some liquid out of it gently before weighing. A wetter apple means a stickier dough that is harder to handle and spreads more in the oven.

Mix the grated apple into the dry ingredients before the wet ones go in, working to separate the strands so they do not clump. That is what distributes the apple evenly rather than leaving pockets.

Do not substitute diced apple. Pieces large enough to see stay firm in a twelve-minute bake and leave wet spots in the crumb around them.

Which Apples Bake Best

You want an apple that holds its shape when heat hits it and has enough tartness to balance the sugar.

Honeycrisp is what we test these with, and it is the one we recommend. It is firm enough to hold up through the bake, sweet with enough acidity behind it, and it is in every grocery store.

Granny Smith is the other reliable answer. Tarter than Honeycrisp, very firm, and it holds up in anything.

Macintosh, Cortland, and Empire all work beautifully here and have more flavor than Granny Smith. The skin is thick enough that the apple pops when you bite it fresh, which tends to mean it bakes well too.

Golden Delicious works, with a caveat. The more blush color it has, the riper and softer it is, and a very ripe one breaks down faster in the oven.

Red Delicious is the one to avoid. It is a mealy apple bred to look good and travel well, and it goes to mush.

A mix of two varieties gives you more depth than any single one. If you are buying apples anyway, buy two kinds.

No Xanthan Gum to Add

Most gluten-free cookie recipes call for xanthan gum separately, because most flour blends do not include a binder.

Pamela's 1:1 All-Purpose Flour is bound with guar gum, already in the blend. There is nothing to add and nothing to measure.

The flour these are built on Pamela's Gluten-Free 1:1 All-Purpose Flour Rice-based, finely milled, nut-free, and bound with guar gum rather than xanthan. Substitutes one for one for wheat flour. GFCO-certified.

Adding xanthan on top of the guar would make the dough gummy and the baked cookie tight. If you are adapting another recipe to this flour, leave the gum out.

The cornstarch stays. It is not a binder, it is there to soften the crumb, and the cookies are noticeably more tender with it than without.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes

Total Time 37 minutes

Yield 14

Serving Size 1 cookie

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (250 g) Pamela's Gluten-Free 1:1 All-Purpose Flour
1/4 cup (36 g) cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
1 medium apple, peeled and grated to the core (about 80 g). We use Honeycrisp
4 ounces white chocolate chips
10 tablespoons (140 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg (50 g out of the shell), at room temperature, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup (86 g) powdered sugar, for the glaze
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, for the glaze
1 tablespoon milk, for the glaze, plus more a quarter teaspoon at a time as needed

Shop Gluten-Free 1:1 All-Purpose Flour, 4 lb.

Directions

Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and granulated sugar.
Add the grated apple and mix, working to separate the strands so they distribute evenly rather than clumping.
Add the white chocolate chips and mix again to distribute them.
Make a well in the center and add the melted butter, the beaten egg, and the vanilla. Mix until completely combined. The dough will be thick but soft.
Divide the dough into 14 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2 tablespoons. With wet hands and a light touch, roll each into a ball, then press into a disk about 1/2 inch thick. Place on the sheet about 2 inches apart.
Optional: chill the sheet in the refrigerator for 10 minutes before baking. These already spread very little, so this step matters less with our flour than with a lighter blend.
Bake 12 minutes, until the edges are very lightly golden. Cool completely on the baking sheet.
Make the glaze. Mix the powdered sugar, cinnamon, and 1 tablespoon of milk until a thick paste forms. Add more milk a quarter teaspoon at a time until the glaze falls off a spoon slowly in a thick but pourable stream. Add the milk slowly, since it is far easier to thin a glaze than to thicken it.
Drizzle over the cooled cookies and let set at room temperature.

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Gluten-Free 1:1 All-Purpose Flour, 4 lb.

Bake like you always have

Measure it 1:1 in place of wheat flour for cookies, cakes, muffins, pancakes, and pie crusts. Most recipes need no changes at all; if a batter thickens as it sits, thin it with a splash of liquid and keep going. The subtle flavor works in savory cooking too: thickening gravy, coating chicken, breading fish.

Yes, even yeast breads

Use 1 teaspoon of dry yeast per cup of flour and add water until the dough is a sticky batter, like banana bread. For a taller loaf, line the pan with a parchment collar 3 to 5 inches above the rim.

Never scoop the bottom of the bag

The 4 lb. bag keeps serious bakers stocked, and Subscribe & Save delivers a fresh bag on your schedule with 10% off every order. Pause or cancel anytime.

Brown Rice Flour, Tapioca Starch, White Rice Flour, Potato Starch, Sorghum Flour, Arrowroot Starch, Guar Gum, Sweet Rice Flour, Rice Bran.

Pamela's Products are manufactured in a Gluten-Free Certified Facility and peanut-free facility. Our products are produced on equipment that processes Tree Nuts, Coconut, Eggs, Soy, and Milk.

Recipe Tips & Notes

Measuring the Flour

Pamela's 1:1 All-Purpose Flour weighs about 167 g per cup, so the 1 1/2 cups in this recipe comes to 250 g.

That is heavier than most gluten-free blends, which run closer to 120 to 140 g per cup. It is worth knowing if you are adapting a recipe written for another flour, since measuring cup for cup will give you noticeably more flour than the original intended.

For this recipe, 1 1/2 cups is correct and the cookies come out thick and domed with very little spread. If you want a thinner, crisper cookie, reduce the flour to 1 1/4 cups.

If you do not have a scale, spoon the flour into the cup and level it with a knife rather than scooping the cup through the bag.

Storing and Freezing

Room temperature: 4 days in an airtight container, once the glaze has set.

Freezer, baked: up to 3 months. Freeze them unglazed, thaw at room temperature, and glaze after thawing. Glaze does not survive freezing well.

Freezer, raw: shape the disks, freeze them solid on a sheet pan, then bag. Bake from frozen at 325 degrees F, adding 2 to 3 minutes. This is the better option if you want fresh cookies later.

These freeze unusually well for a fruit cookie, which is worth knowing in apple season.

Ways to Change It Up

Apple pie spice instead of plain cinnamon, at the same teaspoon, if you like nutmeg and allspice.

Swap the white chocolate for butterscotch chips, chopped pecans, or dried cranberries at the same 4 ounces.

Caramel drizzle instead of the cinnamon glaze.

A pinch of flaky salt on top of the glaze before it sets.

Skip the glaze entirely. The cookies are not very sweet on their own, so the glaze is doing real work, but they are good without it.

Chill the dough the full 10 minutes if you want a thicker cookie. Skip it if you want them thinner and crisper at the edges.

What These Contain

These cookies contain milk and egg.

Milk comes from the butter, the white chocolate chips, and the milk in the glaze. White chocolate is made with dairy as a base, so there is no dairy-free version of it. The egg is structural.

Most white chocolate chips also contain soy lecithin. Check the bag if that matters to you.

The cornstarch is corn, so this recipe is not corn-free. Arrowroot, potato starch, or tapioca starch can replace it at the same quarter cup.

Pamela's 1:1 All-Purpose Flour is rice-based with no dairy, no eggs, and no nuts, so the allergens here come entirely from what you add.

Everything from Pamela's is certified by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization and made in a certified gluten-free, peanut-free facility.

Recipe FAQs

Honeycrisp is what we test these with and what we recommend: firm enough to hold up, sweet with acidity behind it, and widely available. Granny Smith is the tarter alternative. Macintosh, Cortland, and Empire all bake well too. Avoid Red Delicious, which is mealy and goes to mush.

Applesauce adds moisture and a little structure but almost no apple flavor. A peeled, grated apple gives you the flavor and distributes in pieces small enough that they do not leave wet spots in the crumb. It is what makes these taste like apple pie rather than like a plain cookie.

No. Pamela's 1:1 All-Purpose Flour is bound with guar gum already in the blend. Adding xanthan on top would make the dough gummy and the baked cookie tight. If you are adapting another gluten-free recipe to this flour, leave the gum out.

These are a thick, domed cookie that spreads very little with our flour, so spreading is rarely the problem. If yours do spread, you likely measured light. Pamela's 1:1 All-Purpose Flour is about 167 g per cup, so 1 1/2 cups should weigh around 250 g. Chilling the shaped cookies for 10 minutes also helps.

Yes, and they freeze unusually well for a fruit cookie. Freeze them baked and unglazed for up to 3 months, then glaze after thawing. You can also freeze the shaped raw disks and bake from frozen at 325 degrees F, adding 2 to 3 minutes.