Rosemary Blue Cheese Ice Box Cookies

When I saw this recipe for Rosemary Blue Cheese Ice Box Cookies in the December 2009 issue of The Nibble I had to make them. This is my first attempt at substituting GF flours in a recipe and they turned out lovely!

For this recipe, I used a flour mix that I had leftover from making Pumpkin Pie Bars. Jill Elise uses this mixture for her flour mix and it worked very well for this recipe:

1 cup white rice flour
1 cup brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch

Here are my alterations for the Rosemary Blue Cheese cookies.

2 1/4 cups flour mix (as above)
1 tsp. xanthan gum
3/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp. sea salt
12 ounces blue cheese, softened (I used St. Pete's Amablu)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup dried cranberries, finely chopped (you can do this in a food processor and it takes half the time)
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (again, I used my food processor to speed this up)
1 to 2 T fresh rosemary, leaves only
White or natural sugar (coarse)

Whisk together flour mix, cornstarch, xanthan gum and salt in a bowl; set aside. Cream together blue cheese and butter with an electric mixer. Add sugar and beat until fluffy.

Slowly add flour mixture to butter and cheese mixture; beat to combine. Add cranberries and mix together. The dough should be pretty cohesive, but you may need to use your hands to work it together once the flour has all been added. My mixer couldn't quite handle it and I ended up using my hands to do the final mixing after I added the cranberries.

Divide the dough into two pieces and shape them into two logs. Lay out two pieces of plastic wrap and sprinkle the chopped nuts evenly over logs. Roll the logs of dough in nuts until covered. Tightly wrap and seal the logs. Refrigerate until firm (at least two hours, though I refrigerated these overnight and that worked really well).

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Slice logs into 1/4 inch discs. Place 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Gently press about 3 rosemary leaves on each cookie. Sprinkle each cookie with sugar.

Bake on a middle rack until edges begin to brown and tops turn just golden; about 15 to 18 minutes. Cool on sheets 1 minute or so before transferring them to wire cooling racks. Store in an airtight container.