Half Birthday Dessert Pizza

The Monkey's birthday always falls around Thanksgiving. Last year with the move and  the craziness of December, we never got to the friend party. So we decided to host a half birthday party this past weekend. It was a beautiful day complete with a huge bounce house, pizza and eleven kids ranging in age from 4-10 plus one infant.

The Monkey had seen a dessert pizza in one of the cooking magazines that lay around our home. We ended up with something slightly different, but the results were phenomenal. I had kids asking for seconds and thirds. The base of it was Grandma Darling's Sugar Cookies pressed into three 9-inch pie plates. We were playing with it in this new form so really aren't sure how long to bake. Start with 10 minutes and add on until the edges start to turn golden. Cool and add white chocolate frosting, 2 tablespoons of corn free strawberry jam, and 4-5 strawberries cut like pepperoni. Coconut flakes are optional.

White Chocolate Frosting

1 stick butter, softened
4 oz. white chocolate baking bar, melted (I used Hershey's)
3 cups powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons almond milk

Beat butter until creamy. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave. Two minutes was just about right for just getting to the liquid phase. Again by 15 second intervals to ensure that you don't burn it. Add the powdered sugar by 1/2 cup increments. Beat in white chocolate. Milk should be added a tablespoon at a time until the frosting is creamy, but not soupy.

That's my green, jumping Monkey!

Rooty-Oat Breakfast Cookies

These cookies were an idea I had back in November when the SOS Kitchen Challenge ingredient was parsnips. Took me a couple of months, but Saturday's snow-in got them out of my head and into a bowl. The Monkey did not like them, and it didn't occur to me until my mom and sister pointed out that I did indeed put the coconut he accused me of in them. Yep, never occurred to me that the coconut oil would give a strong coconut flavor to these cookies. :)

These are a bit dry, which I think I will fix next time by adding an ounce more coconut oil. Or would you do that for me and let me know how it goes?!

Rooty-Oat Breakfast Cookies

4 ounces coconut oil, melted

2 ounces agave nectar

4 ounces (or 1/2 Cup) each grated sweet potato and parsnips or carrots

90 grams brown rice flour

45 grams tapioca starch

60 grams rolled oats

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 Cup each slivered almonds, Sun maid fruit bits, Enjoy Life chocolate chips

drizzle of vanilla

couple of shakes of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium sized bowl combine the coconut oil, agave, flours, and oats into a paste. Add the grated vegetables. Stir well. Then add fruits, chocolate chips and nuts. Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop out a dozen balls. Roll them and flatten slightly onto an un-greased baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until slightly crisp on the sides. Cool for 10 minutes on baking sheet and remove to a cooling rack. Makes approximately 2 dozen.

Chocolate Shortbread

Remember how I was working on a chocolate shortbread that didn't quite workout? Yeah, I perfected it just after Christmas. Due to issues with my computer and uploading of photos combined with having to pack for vacation, I haven't had a chance to get it to you until now. So, I will just let you have it.

Chocolate Shortbread with Candy Cane topping

60 grams teff flour

60 grams brown rice flour

30 grams arrowroot starch

30 grams cocoa powder

60 grams brown sugar

6 ounces butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and grease and 8x8 or 9x9 square pan with cooking spray (ignore the round pie plate. the cookies weren't as firm as I would like in that). Set aside. In a large mixing bowl (preferably a stand mixer), combine flours, cocoa and sugar. Keep the beater running on low while adding the butter a bit at a time. Dump the batter into the pan, and pat it out with your hands. It should be fairly even in thickness. Bake for 20-25 minutes or the edges look a bit crispy. The dough will still be a bit soft to the touch. Top with candy cane topping.

Candy Cane Topping

3/4 Cup white baking chips

2 crushed candy canes

Dump the baking chips onto the shortbread, and let sit for 5 minutes. Taking a knife or spatula spread the chips out until they are all melted and fairly even. Sprinkle with the crushed candy canes, and press them into the "frosting." Let cool for another 10-15 minutes, and then slice into 16 pieces. Enjoy!

Ratio Rally Cookies

A few weeks ago, my mother and I were discussing what cookies I could make for the cookie walk at our church's Snowflake Jubilee. I have made cookies for this event every year (this is the fourth year), and they rarely sell. Mom suggested a festive shortbread of some sort as she didn't have any shortbread yet. I do love shortbread, and needed something to play with for the ratio rally so I dove in.

The first batch was a by the book (Ratios) ratio of 3:2:1 (flour:fat:sugar) for a chocolate shortbread that was good, but not quite the flakiness that I look for in a shortbread cookie. Mom suggested increasing the butter/fat, and she was right. The new ratio was 3:3:1, and it makes the most heavenly cookie. So heavenly it shouldn't be in my house as I can't resist.

For more recipes from this month's Gluten Free Ratio Rally please go check out Caroline of The G-Spot.

Candy Cane Shortbread

60 grams coconut flour

60 grams white rice flour

30 grams arrowroot starch

60 grams powdered sugar

6 ounces butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and grease a 8x8 or 9x9 with cooking spray. Set aside. In your large mixing bowl (I used a stand mixer), combine flours and sugar. Keep the beater running on low while adding the butter a bit at a time. This is similar to how I make scones. Your batter should look like this....

Pat the batter down in the pan with your hands. It should be as even a thickness as you can manage. Bake for 20-25 minutes. The edges should be starting to turn brown. Don't worry that the dough feels a bit soft to the touch. It will be okay.

Candy Cane "Frosting"

3/4 Cup Andes Peppermint Crunch baking chips

Dump on top of the warm shortbread, and let sit for about 5 minutes. Taking a knife or spatula spread the chips out until they make a lovely variegated frosting.

Let cool for another 15 minutes. Cut into 16 pieces of roughly the same size. Don't eat them all at once!

Lenora Le Noire Adoption

I have been wanting to adopt a gluten free blogger for quite awhile, but was never quite sure how to go about it or just missed opportunities. I was skimming my twitter feed a bit ago when I saw a tweet from Celiacs in the House putting someone up for adoption. I jumped, and am ever so glad I did.

Adoptee--Lenora Le Noire: Fat and Glamorous in the Kitchen

Her blog name and twitter handle (fatglamkitchen) had me smiling from the first moment, and her blog matches them perfectly. I am so happy to have found Lenora, and will be visiting regularly to see what she is whipping up.

For purposes of this adoption, I chose to do her Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies and Avocado Chocolate Mousse. The cookies were a huge hit around here, though we did substitute our non-dairy chocolate chips for the semi-sweet chocolate. I was a bit skeptical about the mousse, in part as I am not a fan of avocados. She's right though. It is fabulous!e

The second dish I made had a substitution as well since I couldn't find millet. I used quinoa on the approval of Lenora. :) I think I probably needed to use a third sweet potato and a smaller pan. I used a 9 x 13, and probably a 9 x 11 or an 8 x 8 would have sufficed. Regardless the flavors were nummy, and I can't wait to consume leftovers tonight.

Please go check out Lenora!

Spicy Casserole

You get this photo of the sweet potatoes, because they are pretty!

Cookies and Mousse

Cookbook Review: Oatmeal Crispies

Here is number three in the series in the review of The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond. It is part of a mass cookbook review being hosted over at It's a Keeper. In case you are interested, there will be four in the series. :)

The recipe for these cookies can be found here on The Pioneer Woman site, and on pages 226-227 of the book. Have you noticed yet that I decided on using the King Arthur Gluten Free multipurpose flour for all these recipes? It seemed the simplest way to go without altering the recipes to much. I substituted butter for the shortening, added 1/4 teaspoon guar gum, and divided it in half.


As of this writing, I have only cooked up one of the rolls of cookie dough. It made about 18 cookies. So again, I am getting way more from a 1/2 recipe than the full recipe, which in this case is just 2 dozen. The cookies are nice and crisp just the way I like them. My sister disagrees, and thinks maybe we should reduce the cooking time on the next roll. I might indulge her soft cookie liking. I took some to our first Vacation Bible School meeting, and Pastor ate a few. Think these are definitely a keeper.

Cookbook Review: Angel Sugar Cookies

This is the second in my series of reviews from the cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond. It is part of a mass cookbook review being hosted over at It's a Keeper.

The recipe for these delightful cookies can be found here on The Pioneer Woman site, and on pages 236-237 of the book. Again I kept it simple and used the King Arthur Gluten Free multipurpose flour mix, and added a 1/4 teaspoon guar gum. Oh, and yes I did do a half recipe. It made about 2 1/2 dozen cookies, which is odd since the full recipe only makes 18 cookies. Maybe mine were a bit smaller?


These were made for St. Patrick's Day and served up as a special dessert for the Monkey and Boo. The frosting is just a traditional butter cream made from the package of powdered sugar with butter and a bit of almond milk and green food coloring. They were asking for the cookies two and three times a day.


These cookies are just as described in the book, "Light, crisp, and melt-in-your-mouth." They don't really travel well, but then they are meant to be eaten at home. Definitely a keeper!

Pineapple Crinkles

I picked up a tiny cookie cookbook at the Catholic Church yard sale this past year. I was excited about the possibilities of making "old fashioned" cookies! It is a Spry cookbook from 1953. What is Spry? I didn't know either. :) Apparently Spry was created to be competition for Crisco, and did fairly well. (Read more about it here.) After the monkey's diagnosis, I was excited to think that we could do a number of different cookie conversions.


The cookies that caught my eye were the Pineapple Crinkles as the monkey and I are big fans of pineapple, and I used to make this luscious little confection with pineapple that I wanted to recreate. I thought about the variety of ways I could alter them, and decided on a basic flour mix and a replacement of the Spry with butter. Then the SOS Kitchen Challenge January ingredient was posted, which is coconut oil. I thought, "Hey, I could replace the Spry with coconut oil."


It was a really great idea. The dough turned out lovely, and smelled great cooking up in the oven. I was so excited to taste them that I burned my tongue on one right out of the oven. The downside is that they aren't really all that pineappley even with the glaze of powdered sugar and pineapple juice that I added. That said, I think we will just go with Crinkle Cake Cookies as the name to avoid the wish for a strong pineapple flavor. I am going to keep working on a real pineapple cookie.


Crinkle Cake Cookies

1/2 Cup coconut oil
120 grams coconut palm sugar
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon orange peel, fresh or dried
1 egg or the equivalent egg substitute
1/2 Cup crushed pineapple, drained & reserved
110 grams sorghum flour
30 grams tapioca starch
30 grams arrowroot starch
60 grams white rice flour
1/2 Teaspoon xanthan gum
1 Teaspoon baking powder
1 Teaspoon baking soda

Combine coconut oil, palm sugar, salt, orange peel, and egg or egg equivalent in large mixing bowl. Beat thoroughly. Add crushed pineapple, and mix until just combined. In a medium bowl, combine all flours, starches, xanthan gum, baking powder, and baking soda. Pour a bit at a time into the wet mixture until completely combined. Drop by teaspoonfuls (I like my Pampered Chef small scoop) on a greased cooking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for about 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet to a wire rack over waxed paper for cooling. Pour glaze by tablespoons over the cookies while still a bit warm. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Glaze (optional): In small bowl combine 1 Cup powdered sugar and 4-6 teaspoons reserved pineapple juice. Drizzle over cookies.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Fancies

So, I had this recipe that I had cut out of a magazine for Pumpkin Oatmeal cookies. What magazine? I have no idea as it was at least 6 years ago that I cut it out thinking that they would be fun to make. I found the recipe again when I was looking for something else to make for the monkey, and use up the pumpkin we had around. The first time around I did them with Jules Gluten Free flour for the Gluten-Free Cookie Swap on Facebook. They were good, but unfortunately we can't use the flour blend regularly as it has cornstarch in it (corn being one of the monkey's allergens). So, I started thinking of what I could do flour wise, and came up with this variation. They are a bit softer a cookie than I like, but I know I am in the minority on liking super crisp cookies.

Please note: I am looking for a fun name for these cookies. Some have been suggested but nothing that really strikes me. Feel free to suggest in the comments section.


Pumpkin Oatmeal Fancies

4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
100 grams brown sugar
50 grams turbinado sugar
4 ounces fresh or canned pureed pumpkin
1 egg (or egg equivalent)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
50 grams sorghum flour
40 grams white rice flour
30 grams almond meal
40 grams arrowroot starch
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground all spice
100 grams rolled oats

dried cranberries, handful or so
Enjoy Life chocolate chips, handful or so


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream together butter and sugars. Add pumpkin, egg/egg equivalent and vanilla. Beat until combined. Mix in flour, baking soda and spices. Stir in oats, and cranberries and chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls (I like my Pampered Chef small scoop) on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 6 minutes, then flatten a bit, and bake for 6 more minutes. Let cool. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

P.S. Go check out loads of gluten free desserts at A Gluten Free Holiday!