Delicious Gingerbread Cookies!! And by the way, they are gluten free.

It is not unusual for people to turn up their nose when I mention gluten-free desserts. I am not sure why, perhaps it is because they feel that something must be missing; that they have to sacrifice taste or decadence, because the tasty treat has not been made with wheat flour.

That is certainly not the case! In fact, many delicious deserts are traditionally made without flour – think Pavlova – or without wheat flour, such as Scottish shortbread where rice flour is used.

This recipe does not forgo flour to be celiac friendly, but takes advantage of a great gluten-free flour mix from Bob’s Red Mill. I can’t compare this to other gluten-free flour mixes, as this is the only one I have tried, but I really love its light brown colour.

I made these cookies last year as part of the Christmas cookie pack that I give out to my friends and they all loved them.

The inspiration to spend the afternoon baking a batch of cookies comes from my dear friend who is half way through the National Novel Writing Month.  She has signed up for the challenge of writing of 50, 000 words over the month of November and, yes, she has a full-time job as well!  I figured she needed a few cookies to get her over the halfway point.

I found this recipe on the Canadian Living Website, so I have included the link for you. I did make a few changes: I subbed butter for the shortening and didn’t bother with the icing.  I also added 3/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum as suggested on the back of the flour mix (easy to find at your local health food store).  In addition, the recipe also works well as a drop cookie!

Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookie recipe

All in a day’s work: The Best Granola (so far) and Flourless Oatmeal Cookies

Well, I got tired of store-bought cereal again, so I decided to make some granola.

This time, I did not follow a recipe. I took the method from my Mom’s granola recipe and added whatever nuts and seeds I had lying around. I added dried blueberries instead of the usual raisins and took advantage of the rich buckwheat honey I picked up from Lola Canola’s booth at the Downtown Farmer’s Market.

Delicious: what a treat the blueberries were and adding buckwheat honey gave the granola a subtle touch of  caramel-like sweetness.

This is definitely the best granola I have ever made!

Having The Best Granola for breakfast on Tuesday morning will make the end of the long weekend a bit easier to bear.

Since I had so much luck with oats Sunday morning, I decided to make some oatmeal cookies in the evening (I was in a baking mood, so I whipped up a batch of Carob Cashew Brownies too!)

The oatmeal cookies were delicious and very filling.  I tried to eat two, but I had to struggle through the second one.  I figure this cookie will make a great (and fairly healthy) afternoon snack.  It will satisfy a sweet craving, without being too sweet and fill me up until dinner.

Although the recipe calls for wheat bran, you may be able to make these celiac friendly by substituting in Only Oats oat bran in place of the wheat bran.  I haven’t tried it, so I can’t say for sure, but if you do try it let me know.

Being flourless, these are not a doughy cookie.  You need to form and flatten the cookies with moistened hands, so it requires a bit more work that the traditional dollop on a cookie sheet, but they are still nice and chewy – even more so, because there isn’t any flour to get in the way of the oats.

The Best Granola (so far)

6 cups of large flake oats (not instant or quick oats)
2 cups of barley flakes
1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/3 cup sesame seeds
2/3 cup of coarsely chopped whole almonds with the skins still on
1/3 cup of raw cashews coarsely chopped
1/3 cup of oat bran
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Grated zest of one orange
1/4 cup of oil
1/2 cup of honey (approximate)
1 cup of dried blueberries

• Preheat oven to 350°C
• In a large baking dish combine barley flakes, oatmeal, oat bran, cinnamon, seeds and nuts.
• Add orange zest and stir
• Pour oil into measuring cup up to 1/4 cup measure.  Top up with honey to 2/3 cup measure.
• Stir well to mix.
• Optional: Take some of the mixture and place on a cookie sheet about 1 layer thick (this will give you some granola that is extra brown and crispy).
• Bake for 15 minutes at 350°C.  Remove from the oven and stir.
• Bake for 10 minutes more and stir again.
• Add blueberries and bake for 5 minutes more.
• Let cool and store in an air-tight container.

Click to print

Flourless Oatmeal Cookies – adapted from Uprisings: the whole grain bakers’ book

3 eggs
3/4 cup of warmed honey (I heated it on the stove top for a few minutes)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup applesauce
4 1/2 cups large flake oats (not instant)
1 1/4 cups wheat germ
3/4 cup milk powder
3/4 cup medium unsweetened coconut flakes
1/3 cup of chopped walnuts
1/3 cup chopped raw cashews
2/3 cup currants
Grated zest of one orange

• In a medium bowl beat together 3 eggs.
• Add oil and applesauce and stir together.
• In a large bowl add oats, wheat germ, milk powder, coconut, nuts, currants, and orange rind.
• Stir mixture and let sit for 25 minutes.  This will help the cookies stick together.
• Preheat the oven to 325°C
• Using your hands, roll the dough into a ball and shape into a flat cookie about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick and press onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet,  firming up the cookie edges if needed.
• Bake at 325°C for 15 minutes until lightly brown

Click to print

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

I love cookies, especially peanut butter ones.

I had some time on Sunday afternoon, so I thought why not whip up a batch of chewy cookies.

Why not, indeed!

I really enjoy having cookies around the house.  I use to be terrible and gobble almost all of them up within a day or two of my baking them, terrible only because I would quickly be out of cookies.  Now that I am older and, I hope, wiser I tuck the cookies into a tin and stick them in the freezer.  That way I can grab a couple on my way out the door in the morning and they will be perfectly defrosted when I am looking for something sweet after lunch.

The nice thing about these cookies, and with all the baking I do out of my Uprisings cookbook, is that you get a satisfying treat that is not half bad for you.  These cookies boast butter, honey, natural peanut butter, whole wheat flour, oatmeal and raisins.  I have made these once before and substituted carob chips for the raisins, but chocolate chips would work too.

How can you go wrong with ingredients like that?

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies – makes 15-20 cookies

1/3 cup softened butter
1/3 cup natural peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1/2 tablespoon of vanilla
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup milk powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup large flake rolled oats (not instant)
3/4 cup raisins

• Preheat oven to 325°C (not 350°C)
• In a large bowl cream butter, peanut butter, honey and vanilla until blended
• In a small bowl stir together flour, milk powder, baking powder, baking soda and oats.
• Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until combined.
• Spoon on an oiled, or parchment paper lined, cookie sheet and flatten with a fork.
• Bake at 325°C for 15-20 minutes.  These cookies brown quickly, so check after 15 minutes.

Click to print

Cookies, Cookbooks and Printable Recipes!

Oh joy!

What a great week for receiving packages of cookbooks in the mail.

On Wednesday EPC and I received our much-anticipated “Christmas Chapter’s gift card” cookbooks. Then on Saturday I went to the courier’s and picked up a package of review cookbooks from Lorna Sass.

Needless to say I am very behind in my reading.

Although I have not had a chance to comb through the new additions to my cookbook shelf, I do have a few cursory ideas.  After noticing that Totally Vegetarian has about 3 vegetable burger recipes and reFresh has one, I thought I should do a veggie burger cook-off and see if I can find a few top burger recipes for you all to try.  Furthermore, I received a veggie burger recipe from a friend a few years ago and cut one out of the newspaper just last week, so it is time I put these recipes to the test!

EPC and I love eating veggie burgers with roasted root vegetables or a side salad, but have avoided them as of late, because we have gotten quite tired of store-bought. In that case, the burger cook-off will be appreciated at my house. What a better way to get reacquainted with our favorite quick meal by trying out some homemade concoctions.

I plan on revisiting Mexico quite often, if only in taste, by trying out some recipes in A Taste of Mexico by Kippy Nigh.  I can only hope the flavours will bring the warm weather and sunshine north!

In order to make the recipes I selected for this week I needed to take a trip to the Mexican grocery.  Here I was able to pick up  dried guajillo chilies and dried epazote, a popular Mexican herb.  I recalled that a few of the other recipes called for smoked dried chipotle peppers , so I picked up a bag of those for another day.  In fact, I don’t think I will have any trouble finding items from Kippy’s ingredient list here in Edmonton.

Since Lorna Sass was kind enough to send me two of her great cookbooks: Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure and Short-Cut Vegan, I thought why not dedicate a month, perhaps February or March, to Lorna Sass, featuring her cookbooks and recipes. According to the reviews I have read so far this will be a real treat.

The excitement doesn’t end there!  Lorna Sass is an expert on pressure cooking and if I manage to secure a pressure cooker for my birthday I will be learning how to cook yummy vegetarian meals quickly.  Quicker than you or I could imagine.  The cover on her cookbook promises “two-hour taste in ten minutes”!

Finally, I have figured out how to include printable copies of the great recipes that I post on Cookbook Cooks, so you can look forward to that when I get to the cookie part of this post.  Thanks to Closet Cooking! I know from experience that a recipe is more likely to be tried if one can print it off and have it handy while cooking!

As you may have guessed I baked some cookies today.  They are wholesome little egg-free snacks made with whole wheat flour and honey.  I found the recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks Uprisings: The Whole Grain Bakers’ Book.

Jammies – you can look forward to about 24 cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I used regular whole wheat flour)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (I did not add salt, because I used salted butter)
Your favorite jam (I used tart chokecherry spread)

• Preheat oven to 350°C
• In a large bowl, whip the butter with a blender
• Add the vegetable oil, honey and vanilla extract and beat until mixed
• In a separate bowl mix the flour, cinnamon and salt.
• Add the flour to the oil and honey mixture and mix well.  The dough may be quite crumbly, but it will stick together just fine.
• Roll the dough into small balls and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
• Make a dent in the top of each cookie with your fingertip and fill with 1/2 teaspoon of jam.
• Bake at 350°C for 12-15 minutes until lightly brown and the jam bubbles a little

Click for printable version