Gluten-free Goodies

After several years of eating a diet with limited gluten, I was recently I was forced to switch to a gluten-free diet. This has not been a big problem since I am not much of a bread person, and I have found most recipes easily adapt to gluten-free flours. But, as Christmas approached, I was a little disappointed that I might not be able to enjoy some of my favorite holiday treats.

My grandma baked dozens and dozens of Christmas cookies each year. These were not ordinary everyday cookies. They were special recipes that she usually only made once a year, and Christmas celebrations never seem right if they do not include Grandma's cookies. Almost four years after her death, her descendants are still taking turns baking at least some of the varieties each year. This year, my brother and sister-in-law took it upon themselves to make almost every single kind. But I was still not going to be able to have any.

So, I decided to come up with gluten-free versions of some of my favorites. My first project was Tea Time Toffees. These little cookies look and taste like miniture pecan pies. They are a special favorite of many of the men in our family, and they are really yummy.

My local bakery has just expanded their gluten-free section, and one of the items I purchased there recently was Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour. I figured this would be a good test for it, since the pie-like crust would be difficult to mess up. What I didn't realize (because I didn't bother to look at the ingredient list) was that this flour is heavy in fava and garbanzo bean flours. The dough had a strong bean flavor- and taste. Yuck! Since I only had enough walnuts to make one batch of filling, I was hesitant to risk a bean-flavored crust. But, in the end, I decided to risk it. The results were actually very tasty, if a bit more "crusty" tasting than normal.

My next project was Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars. I wanted to make these for our church Christmas party, so I Googled some gluten-free graham cracker recipes. When I ran out of time, I ended up making a pan version of Buck-Eyes instead. Yuck! Without the graham cracker crumbs, the peanut butter layer was way too sweet. Since this was the one recipe that hadn't already been made for our family's celebration, I really wanted something that tasted like the ones my grandma made.

Starting from scratch (in the most literal way), I had my oldest son make some Gluten-Free Graham Cracker Crumbs from the Gluten Free Gathering's blog. These tasted pretty good- a bit closer to shortbread crumbs than graham cracker, but good. The bonus was that they were already in crumb form. I just used 1 1/2 cups crumbs instead of the package of crackers called for in the recipe.  Actually, my second born son made them while I ran errands. (There were at least 2 cups extra crumbs, so I may try a cheese cake next!) And the results were . . . PERFECT!

Since we don't eat a whole lot of sugar, I figured that these would be more than enough to satisfy my craving for Christmas comfort foods. But then I saw a recipe for a Gluten-Free Flour Mix while I was browsing Pinterest. Supposedly you could use it in all your regular recipes and they would come out like normal. And there was no bean flour in it. I had to give it a try. Molasses Spice Cookies are one of my favorite Christmas cookies (though not one Grandma made), so I set one of my kitchen elves to work making a batch. They love to bake, and I was busy wrapping gifts.  

There was an oh-so-subtle difference, but they were good. And after the four or fifth one, you really couldn't tell any more. This flour mix is either going to be my best discovery  ever, or my worst. We also tried it out in the brownies we made for my daughter's birthday, and they seemed to turn out well, though we haven't tasted them yet. * update: while the brownies were delicious while fresh, they dried out very quickly. A few days after being made, they were quite crumbly. I've noticed this tends to be a trait of GF baked goods.

So, I've added two new recipes to my collection this week- GF Graham Cracker Crumbs and GF Flour Mix. And now I can join everyone else in dieting this January, because my house is full of yummy (but still fattening) gluten-free goodies!