Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

This is the best peanut butter cookie recipe ever, whether you are gluten-free or not! I don’t remember where I found it, but it was one of the very first things I ever baked when Joshua was diagnosed with Celiac Disease nearly 5 years ago. The recipe is quick and easy to make, the ingredients (just three of them) are always on hand, and the cookies are truly delicious! This recipe can be made with smooth or chunky peanut butter, and with powdered sugar or regular sugar. It is easy to double or triple or cut in half. These cookies are extra delicious with peanut butter chips or chocolate chips or both mixed in. Make a lot because they will get eaten quickly! Oh, and fair warning: you will be very tempted to eat half of these cookies yourself. They are so yummy that I highly recommend that you do!

Ingredients:
1 cup of peanut butter
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs

Directions:
Beat eggs, mix in peanut butter and sugar. Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Another Gluten-Free Bread Recipe

I’ve made gluten-free ”chocolate bread” for years. It has a great texture to it- fluffy, not too heavy, and holds together well. But the chocolate flavoring makes it more of a treat and not really suitable for sandwiches. This morning before homeschool I decided to try and modify the recipe, omitting the cocoa powder, just to see how this recipe would fare as sandwich “everyday” bread.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups milk, room temperature
1 Tbs yeast
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup oil
1 cup potato starch
1 1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup cocoa powder (to make “regular” bread, I simply substituted tapioca flour)
1 Tbs baking powder
2 tsp xanthan gum

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine milk, yeast, and molasses. Stir to dissolve year. Add remaining ingredients and mix well to remove all lumps.

Place dough in a greased bread pan. Smooth the top with wet hands. Bake 30 minutes. Test for doneness with a long toothpick as you would for a cake.

My Verdict:
I love the texture of this bread. I think the molasses is what gives it the perfect texture and consistency. It slices beautifully and holds its shape without crumbling at all, even when it is sliced very thinly. However, I am still not pleased with the taste. I think I need to add in a bit of honey or sugar to sweeten the loaf just a bit.

The Kids’ Verdict:
The kids all loved the new recipe. Joshua rated this bread an 8 on a scale of 1-10 and his opinion is really all that matters. So even though I plan to tweak this recipe a bit more to achieve a better flavor, I’d say this first attempt was a success.

Gluten-Free Apple Muffins

I made gluten-free apple muffins yesterday morning for breakfast. They were quick and easy to make (obviously or I probably would not have made them at six o’clock in the morning while a hyper, giggly baby tugged at my pants). They turned out yummy as well. They were moist and light, with just the right amount of cinnamon and apple flavor. They were a huge hit with the kids. This is the first time I have ever tried this recipe. Next time I will make a double batch and see how they freeze. I got this recipe from The Gluten-Free Kitchenby Roben Ryburg.

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
3/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup potato starch
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp (scant) xanthan gum
1 small apple, peeled, cored, and grated (about 1/2 cup packed)
1 Tbs sugar (for topping on the muffins)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine sugar and shortening and mix well. Add egg and mix well. Add all other ingredients except for the apple and mix well. Remove all lumps from batter. Fold in apple.

Fill greased muffin tins about 2/3 full. Sprinkle each muffin with sugar.

Bake 18-20 minutes, until toothpick tests clean.

ENJOY!

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookies

I always watch for recipes that don’t include much flour and that have other ingredients that can easily mask the sometimes strong and sometimes unusual flavors of gluten-free flours. These recipes are the easiest to modify into a yummy gluten-free treat! 

I recently found a cookie recipe on a wonderful blog and it seemed like it would be easy to modify. It didn’t require much flour and I knew that ingredients like oats and molasses would cover up the gluten-free flavors and help hold the cookies together. I played around a bit and came up with this delicious gluten-free cookie recipe. Gluten-free recipes can always use extra “tweaking” so I will probably continue to play around with this one. But for the first attempt, they turned out wonderfully. I ate tons of cookie dough while I made them, and then devoured at least 10 cookies just after they came out of the oven. Yum!

I’ve received several requests to share the recipe so I am posting it now. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 cup rice flour
1/4 potato starch flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
(This combination worked well, but you could substitute any of your favorite flour combinations or even a store-bought gluten-free baking mix. The original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of flour.)

1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum (I usually add 1 tsp for every cup of gluten-free flour)

3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 TBS molasses
2 cups oats (gluten-free, of course)

I didn’t have any fun “extras” on hand when I first tried this recipe, but these cookies would be scrumptious with raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit, or any other tasty add-ins that you’d like. They were also very yummy without all those “extras” as well.

Directions:
Beat butter for 30 seconds. Add sugars, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon. Mix. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and molasses. Beat in all flours and the xanthan gum. Add oats and any “extras” that you’d like.

Drop dough onto an ungreased baking sheet (my dough was quite sticky and hard to work with). Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Let cool on the pan before loosening (I found that the longer I let the cookies cool right on the pan, the better they held together after I removed them) 

Of course, gluten-free baking is so unpredictable. This recipe worked well the first time I tried it, but who knows how it will turn out next time! You just never know with gluten-free foods!!

Just so you know, gluten-free gingerbread is simply delightful because the spices and natural texture hide the gluten-free taste. Even though Christmas is a long way off, here is the recipe that I use for my gluten-free gingerbread every year. I’ve used it for years so it is definitely “tried and true.” Make it now or add it to your recipe box for next Christmas. It makes delicious gingerbread that is also sturdy enough to build lovely gingerbread houses with! Enjoy!  http://withasmile.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/homemade-gluten-free-gingerbread-houses/

Homemade Gluten-Free Gingerbread Houses

Every year we make and decorate gingerbread houses for Christmas. It is a favorite family tradition. So last night I ran to the store to pick up the ingredients that I still needed for the gingerbread houses I’d be making the next day. I felt a twinge of longing as I pushed my cart past the “gingerbread house kits.” It would be so easy and quick and convenient to simply use a kit to make gingerbread houses! But because several of our kids have Celiac Disease, those pre-made kits just aren’t an option for us.

Tuesday morning I got out my wheat grinder and ground a bunch of rice into rice flour. Then I got started on my gingerbread. Braden sat up on the counter, in the corner underneath the cupboards, and helped me. He was so cute perched on the counter in his pajamas and his favorite orange knit hat (which he constantly insists on wearing), covered in white flour, and holding a big wooden spoon. He referred to every single ingredient as “gingerbread.” When some flour spilled out of the bowl, Braden gasped, “Oh, no, gingerbread!” As I added each spice, Braden explained, “This is more gingerbread.” He also kept trying to sample each ingredient; he wanted to eat everything from the rice flour to the crisco to the nutmeg and he made a horrible, shocked face when he actually took a lick of plain rice flour. The kids all helped roll out the dough. We cut it into festive shapes while Rick designed and cut the pieces for our gingerbread house.

And it was during all this, with Christmas music playing in the background and the delightful smell of spices in the air and four giggling, flour-covered children gathered around me, that I found myself very thankful that we can’t use those pre-made kits! Just the night before I really wished that I could just grab a box of pre-made gingerbread and be done. But now I was glad that we once again had the chance to make homemade gingerbread together as a family.

Once the gingerbread was baked and ready, I set out bags and bags and bags of candy and let the kids loose. They happily frosted and decorated our gingerbread house, Christmas trees, snowman, stars, and lots of little gingerbread men. They had a blast and consumed a lot of candy in the process. Little Braden mostly just ate gingerbread cookies. He ate each gingerbread man in pieces, one body part at a time. Every time he’d bite the leg, arm, or head off of a gingerbread man, he’d cry out, “Oh, no!” before taking another giant bite. We ended up with a candy-covered house and way too many gingerbread cookies for us to eat. And we all had a blast!

If anyone is interested, this is the BEST gluten-free gingerbread recipe EVER. It is very yummy, and it’s great to handle (a lot of GF stuff doesn’t stay together very well). The dough can be made ahead of time and refridgerated for up to a week. The recipe can also be modified to be egg-free as well; I have successfully done this several years when various kids couldn’t have eggs. We love this recipe and use it every year. Enjoy! 

Wonderful Gluten-Free Gingerbread
5 to 5.5 cups of rice flour
5 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups unsulphered molasses
2 eggs, beaten (egg substitute works great too!)

Preheat oven to 350*. Mix flour, xanthan gum soda, salt, and spices. Melt shortening in a pan. Cool slightly and add sugar, molasses, and eggs, and mix well. Add 4 cups of the dry ingredients. Mix well. Turn mixture onto a floured surface (rice flour, of course!) and knead in the rest of the dry ingredients. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick, cut into pieces, and place on a cookie sheet. Bake 6-10 minutes for small pieces, 10-15 minutes for large pieces, 15-20 minutes for harder pieces needed for houses. Loosen from cookie sheet and cool for 10 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and cool completely.

And here is the icing recipe I use for gingerbread houses. I don’t use it at any other time because it dries so hard- not great for cupcakes, but perfect for holding a gingerbread house together! It dries quickly so I cover mine with a damp clothe or paper towel to keep in moist and usable.

Icing for Gingerbread Houses
9 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cups water
3 Tbs light corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp almond extract (vanilla works as well)

Place sugar in saucepan. Combine water and corn syrup. Add this to sugar and mix well. Place over low heat (but don’t heat over 100*) Remove from heat and stir in extract.