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!

Soup, Soda Bread and Socks!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! This is one of my favorite holidays. Maybe it is the Irish in me or the great food or the great sense that we are all one people on this day (isn't everyone Irish today?! :)). So I thought I would share a tradition with you. Starting in college I made matzo ball soup and soda bread as my meal for this special day as I don't eat beef or pork, and wanted something simple. Tonight we will be having some leftover cream of chicken soup my mother made, but I will share with you the soup I made last night. It was shared a couple of weeks ago on It's a Keeper Thursday by Making Memories...One Fun Thing After Another. I think the next time we do it that I will only do one package of taco seasoning as it was just a bit much for us.


To go with our soup this St. Patrick's Day, I tried to make soda bread from a recipe by the Gluten Free Girl. It is posted on the Food Network-Healthy Eats. I am sad to say that while mine looked nice it was still a bit gooey on the inside even after extending the cooking time by 45 minutes, and hearing the hollowness. My sister has suggested that I try something glutenous to see if it is just the gluten free stuff or just everything that is destined to give me fits. I am inclined to believe that my gluten free bread making skills are the same as my candy making skills, i.e. non-existent. :P




And just because it is a tradition for me I am sharing my favorite pair of holiday socks with you. Yes, I am wearing them today with one of my many holiday shirts. :)

New Years Eve!

So, I have two recipes in the works for first recipe posts, but thought I would share our new years eve with you. Traditionally we have a two course meal of cheese fondue and empanadas followed by chocolate fondue. The cheese for the monkey this year was made with Daiya shreds, Mimic Creme and almond milk. He quite enjoyed it with his turkey sausages! I did not get photos unfortunately. I did get them of the dessert course! We ended our evening playing a round of Scooby Doo Monopoly. I love this night for its food and family traditions.

The monkey's plate included Coconut Apple Cake and GF Peanut Butter Cookies made by Auma

Yeah, he loved it! :)

What is your family tradition for New Year's Eve?

Secret Santa Exchanges

I am a little behind the times here, but I plead a bad cold and the insanity of Christmas week for the belatedness of this post. Or just my insanity? Whatever. :)

I had the pleasure of participating in two online Secret Santa Exchanges this year. The first through the Fred's, and the second was a blogger exchange put together by Tina over at Faith, Fitness, Fun. I loved picking out the gifts for the exchange and packaging them up. I think the blogger one was more challenging as I only knew my giftee (is that a word?) through her blog and a brief list of likes. The Fred's was a bit easier as I have been friends with my online group of name nerds for over 6 years!

Fred gift going out to my friend Kate (and her adorable daughters)

Blogger gift going out to Anna @Active Fingers

I received my Fred gift first. Who or what is Fred? I think I said before we are a group of name nerds brought together on Babycenter about 6 years ago. We decided to form a private group to be more intimate in our conversations. I don't think I could survive without these amazing women in my life. Backstory complete, onto the gift. I received from MJ a host of very cool items. I am in love with my new mug, and have consumed all the cookies. The m&m's have been hidden from others, and the books are in my tbr pile (to be read, if you need that!). Thank you so much MJ and Chewbacca who mailed the package! ;)

My second gift arrived just a couple of days later. The card and gift were from Jessica at The Process of Healing. She even thought of my son in the gift with a great new allergen free cookbook. We used the very cool new plate to put out our gluten free chocolate chip cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. I feel so blessed! Thank you Jessica!

The monkey wanted to help open our package (the lightsabre was his idea!)

He, also, wanted to take my photo opening the package

Candy already 1/2 gone, the plate is destined to be used for some food photo, and the monkey & boo have agreed to try something from the cookbook once a week

Christmas Foods

So, I have been plenty busy with baking and cooking this past few days as most of our family's traditional Christmas Eve/morning foods are not naturally gluten free or any other sort of free. This was our first year with someone in the family who has food allergies. I talked with the monkey and he decided that a french toast bake with blueberries and cranberries would be great for the morning. So, I made bread from a recipe by Carrie at gingerlemongirl to be our base.


It wasn't an all out success for me, but I have a good idea where I went a bit wrong. It was good enough for making the french toast bake, which turned out good. No recipe yet as I want to make some changes to the bake itself. The sauce however is beautiful all on its own, and I recommend heading to Simply Sugar & Gluten Free for the Cranberry-Clementine Sauce that was poured over the top.


The three of us (myself, monkey & boo, my nephew) made gluten free chocolate chip cookies to put out for Santa on Christmas Eve. We were going to do them in the monkey's new Easy Bake oven, but we had some issues so into the oven they went!

Boo

Monkey

I offered to provide dessert for Christmas Eve dinner, but what I had planned was made a bit tricky by the fact that I had to make cherry pie filling. Did you know that cherry pie filling had cornstarch in it? Now, I had no idea how they made it, but I don't think that corn ever occurred to me. I have discovered that pie filling and pudding may not be something I can make on a regular basis or at all like my lamented lack of talent in candy making. Sigh. Still it was tasty, and I will be eating on it for breakfast for the next couple of days.

Aloha Cake
(original recipe from an old church cookbook that called for the use of Oleo!)

Double batch (or two cans) of cherry pie filling
2 cans pineapple chunks, drained
1 recipe Homemade Gluten Free Cake Mix from gingerlemongirl
1/4 Cup unsalted butter
1/4 Cup chopped pecans, optional

My method of pie filling derived from the above linked recipe:
1. Place 2 cans of drained cherries in a pan with 3/4 Cup sugar, 1/3 Cup tapioca starch and 2 Tablespoons lemon juice.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
3. Reduce heat to a simmer, and continue stirring until thickened.
4. Remove from heat and cool.

Assembling the dump cake:

1. Drain cans of pineapple leaving just a bit of juice in them. Pour into an 8x8 pan, and spread evenly.
2. Pour the cherry pie filling over the top, and spread evenly.
3. Dump the cake mix over the pineapple and cherries.
4. Cut butter into small pieces and place all over the top. The 1/4 Cup is an approximate. Feel free to use up to a 1/3 Cup. Sprinkle chopped pecans over the top.
5. Bake in a 350 degree F oven for 30-40 minutes. Butter should be melted, the top should be cooked (no stray flour powder), and the cherry should be bubbling. Serve warm.

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!

Apple Cider Muffins

I have attempted to modify my mom's Favorite Muffin before (here) and it went horribly, horribly wrong. After doing some research on various recipes using apple cider, I discovered that I didn't have or couldn't use all of the ingredients included. So, I went back to the drawing board to create something that worked. I got lucky this time around, and everything came out just right. I was thankful since I needed them to work for an early morning call time for our family day trip to New York City yesterday to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City. I think they could only be made better by my mom's apple butter slathered on them.


Apple Cider Muffins

3 eggs
3/4-1 Cup apple cider
1/2 Cup applesauce
1/4 Cup canola oil
splash of vanilla extract (teaspoon or so)
450 grams Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All purpose flour
230 grams sugar
2 Teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons xanthan gum
2 Teaspoons apple pie spice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In stand mixer, combine eggs, 3/4 Cup apple cider, oil, and vanilla extract. Add flour to the wet mixture about 50 grams at a time. Add the xanthan gum, baking powder, and apple pie spice. Mixture should be a bit thin. If it is a bit on the thick side, add the extra 1/4 Cup apple cider. Grease mini-muffin tins with a non-stick spray. Bake for 40-5o minutes or until tops are golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.


P.S. I think these would be great as an accompaniment to a holiday brunch or pot luck! See more ideas at A Gluten Free Holiday!

Grandma Darling's Sugar Cookies

A friend is sharing family recipes today in honor of the holidays. My absolute favorite is my granny's carrot cake, but we have decided to keep that a secret. :) However, my great-grandmother had a fantastic recipe for sugar cookies that we make year round. Frost them or not is your preference. If you frost, simply use the recipe on the back of the powdered sugar and color according to the holiday or event. Enjoy!

Grandma Darling's Sugar Cookies

2/3 Cup butter (or margarine)
3/4 Cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel*
2 Cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 Tablespoons milk

Cream sugar and butter; add egg. Beat until mixture is light and fluffy. Add vanilla and orange peel. Mix thouroughly. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk. Divide in half, and chill one hour. Keep 1/2 chilled while you the other to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut and bake at 375 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. Watch carefully for a light brown around the edges.

*Fresh orange peel is best, but you can substitute dried orange zest.