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Desserts

Recipe: Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff 4 Comments

Trader Joe’s Peanut Flour. I first saw this product on the shelves at my local Trader Joe’s a couple of months back.  I picked it up and there was a little note on the shelf suggesting to replace the flour in chocolate chip cookies with peanut flour. Easy enough!

What I found when I made cookies using peanut flour is that the cookies do not flatten out, so I ended up with a batch of cookies in the exact shape that I had formed them in.

No biggie, they tasted great, so I decided to make a “cookie cake” out of the cookie dough. My son took it a step further and cut 2 pie slice pieces of the cookie cake and placed some vanilla ice cream between them for an ice cream sandwich.

Great minds work great together!

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Peanut Flour Recipe

Ingredients:

  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
  • 2 sticks of butter (1 cup), softened
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp. Vanilla
  • 2 ¼ cup Trader Joe’s Peanut Flour
  • 2 tsp. Xanthan gum
  • 1 tsp. Baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 package of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method:

  1. Cream butter, sugar, vanilla & egg together until fluffy.
  2. Stir in dry ingredients until well combined & then add chocolate chips.
  3. Spray pans with Pam or another cooking spray. Press dough into 2 pie pans or pan of choice.
  4. Bake for 15- 20 minutes at 350 or until done. Stick a toothpick in the middle and it should come out mostly clean.
  5. Cool completely. Slice into pieces. Top with ice cream & another piece or enjoy a la mode.

If you choose to make cookies out of this, consider shaping the dough into the shape you would like it to be in before baking.  I found that this dough worked best as a cookie cake as opposed to a cookie itself.  The flavor is slightly different from the traditional chocolate chip cookies – it has a hint of peanut taste, making it like a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie.

Have you tried baking with peanut flour?  If so, what did you make and what were your thoughts?

Recipe: Surprise Gluten-Free Cupcakes

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff 3 Comments

My son came home from school the other day and informed me that he had an idea for a dessert in his head and he wanted to make it. He described it as being like a Twinkie, but not quite and of course gluten-free. He browsed through the pantry and pulled out a yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting.

After brainstorming for a few minutes, we decided to make cupcakes and then use an apple corer to make a hole to stuff the frosting in. This recipe is simple, but a touch time consuming. My son wouldn’t know that because he abandoned the process after completing one cupcake and promptly inhaling it.  Aaron finished up the work.

Ingredients

  • 1 box yellow cake mix – Betty Crocker gluten-free worked great
  • 1 can of chocolate frosting – Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Chocolate was what we had on hand
  • eggs
  • butter (softened)
  • vanilla
  • water

Directions

ccFollow the directions on the back of the cake mix box for the cupcakes.  Do not use cupcake liners, but make sure to spray your pan with cooking spray.  Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before attempting to fill them.

Once they are cool, gently use the apple corer (or another suitable tool) to remove a portion of the cupcake. My son’s first attempt went in through the bottom; Aaron found that the side worked better and allowed for better dispersion of the frosting.  Once you have extracted the “core” of the cake, don’t be so quick to eat it – save a tiny bit to plug up the hole after the frosting is inserted into the cupcake.  See the process in the pictures below.

Finish off the cupcakes by frosting the tops.

The kids could not get enough of these cupcakes! My son had 3 and we had to cut him off!  Hannah loved them as well.  These are the perfect treat to WOW your inner child or your actual child.

Recipe: Gluten-Free Lemon Meringues

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff Leave a Comment

Last week I wrote a review of Roben Ryberg’s new cookbook – The Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Cookbook. I was literally drooling over this cookbook while writing my review, so I only thought it was fitting to dive right into making one of the recipes today when I was stuck inside during the snowstorm.  While I had my eye on some of the Girl Scout cookie replicas, I didn’t have all the ingredients that I needed.  I did, however, have all of the ingredients for the Lemon Meringues.  I immediately got to work mixing up the ingredients.

This cookie recipe only requires three ingredients.  It doesn’t get much more simple than this, folks.

Lemon Meringues

  • 2 egg whites
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp. lemon extract
  1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
  2. In a medium-sized bowl, beat the egg whites and sugar until the whites form stiff peaks.  (This will take several minutes, depending upon the temperature of the egg whites and the strength of the mixer.  It takes longer for still peaks to form with the inclusion of sugar than if egg whites were beaten alone.)  The batter will look like marshmallow cream.  Beat in the lemon extract.  Do not under-beat, as the shape of the cookie relies upon the ability of the meringue to hold its shape.
  3. Using a piping bag with a large star tip, pipe a small star onto a prepared pan or just drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough onto the pan.  Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, until the bottom edges just begin to brown and the tops look dry.  Let cool on wire racks before serving.

Beating the egg whites & sugar:

Ready to go into the oven (I dropped by teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheet):

Ready to chow down:

Ryberg says in her description at the top of the page that these cookies taste like a lemon cloud.  After sampling numerous cookies, I have to agree!  They have a wonderful lemon flavor & a great crisp to them!  I did happen to eat one before it had cooled all the way and it had a softer, cloud-like texture.  So good!!

If you are looking for a quick and simple, yet impressive cookie to make, this is it!

Recipe: Gluten-Free Frosted Sugar Cookies

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff 4 Comments

It is no secret that I was overwhelmed this holiday season. Life is just plain busy and the last thing on my list was baking cookies. I felt obligated to make cookies for the kids, so I asked them both which cookies were their favorites and which did they want me to make. Surprisingly, they both said the same thing – frosted sugar cookies. Seriously?

I can’t pay these 2 to agree on anything, so how did they both want the same cookie?  I quit wondering and moved forward.  I was all about simplification, so I grabbed some Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix and started to browse Pamela’s website for recipes.

I quickly located this simple recipe for Sugar Cookies:

Sugar Cookies

**Recipe courtesy of Pamela’s Products

1/2 cup butter or margarine (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3/4 cups Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix

Cream butter and sugar together, add egg and vanilla and beat together. Add Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix. Wrap dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Roll out between two pieces of parchment paper until the dough is 3/8 to 1/4-inch thick. Cut out cookie shapes and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Leave space between the cookies, they will spread. Bake at 350° for approximately 12-15 minutes, edges should be light brown. Let cookies cool slightly and use spatula to remove from cookie sheet. OR wrap and freeze dough, then slice and bake for fresh cookies in a 350° preheated oven for 14-17 minutes.

Ideas: Use egg white to wet tops of cookies and sprinkle colored sugar crystals on top before baking, or frost cookies with a mixture of powdered sugar, water, and food coloring after baking.

Note: brown flecks of almond meal will show in the cookies.

The recipe actually seemed simple enough and with my Mom in town to help, things went very smoothly.  Hannah had fun helping to cut the cookies out into shapes after Grandma rolled out the dough.  We let the dough chill for a good hour before rolling out.  The recipe only says to chill for 30 minutes, but we got busy and didn’t get back to it in 30 minutes.  The dough handled very well.

Once the cookies were baked, we let them cool completely before decorating.  Sadly I did not get a picture of the decorated cookies, but I did get one of the “naked” cookies.

The brown flecks you see in the cookies is from the almond meal that is in Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix.  We frosted these cookies with Betty Crocker’s Holiday Frosting – it was white with red & green chips in  it and said “gluten-free” right on the side.  As if the frosting was not enough sugar, the kids added red & green colored sugar & sprinkles to the cookies as well.

I was very pleased with the way these turned out.  The cookies had the perfect texture and the frosting was the perfect compliment to the cookies.  I normally like to make my own frosting, but with the bustle of the holiday seasoning, I didn’t need the extra stress of making one more thing.  It is nice to know that there are gluten-free options out there if we need to use them.  I highly recommend this sugar cookie recipe to anyone wanting to make sugar cut-out cookies.

Recipe: Gluten-Free Russian Teacakes

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff Leave a Comment

Russian Teacakes, aka Mexican Wedding Cakes or Snowballs, are some of the many cookies my mom used to make when I was a kid. How my mother had time to do all that she did is beyond me, but I thank her all of the time for it.

The original recipe for these cookies comes from the old Betty Crocker cookbook. When I say “old”, I mean the early ’70s. The book is probably close to my age. While my mom still has the book, it is in pieces, which means it was put to good use! I can’t tell you how many awesome recipes are in this book. Many of my childhood favorites are nestled inside this book. My mom was nice enough to make photocopies of my favorite recipes a few years back, so I can reference them any time I like.

I was able to modify this recipe fairy easily. These cookies are very delicate/fragile. I remember them being similar even when they weren’t gluten-free, so I don’t think that has much to do with it.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 egg
  • 2 1/4 cups GF Flour Mix (I used Carol’s Sorghum Mix)
  • 1 1/2 tsps Xanthan Gum
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Directions:

Heat oven to 400. Mix thoroughly butter, sugar, egg & vanilla. Work in flour, salt & nuts until the dough holds together. Cover & chill for 30-60 minutes or so. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until set, but not brown. Let cookies cool slightly – 5-10 minutes. While still warm, roll cookies in powdered sugar. Set on cooling rack to complete cooling. Roll again in sugar once they are cool.

Ready to go into the oven:

These are the perfect cookies to sit back and enjoy with a nice cup of hot cocoa or leave out for Santa Claus with a large glass of milk.