My D1 and her husband will be here for the holidays! She has , in the past few years narrowed down her digestive difficulties to a gluten sensitivity. I want to bake some Christmas treats. Does anyone have suggestions for usIng flour alternatives in family cookie recipes, or using a certain brand of GF ingredients in other recipes? For example, are there good GF graham crackers to make those cookie bars with the sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips.?
Yikes, I will report this to the admins, but this is dragonmom, not someone called NewWar.
@dragonmom or @NewWar…what about almond flour? I’ve not used, but a GF friend likes that or rice flour.
fwiw…at an event recently, I tasted a GF Chai latte Xmas sugar cookie…people were inhaling them, so good!
I had two sets of brownies at a recent meeting of my cookbook club that were both gluten free. They both had a base of black beans. One also had espresso and the other had a lot of extra chips. If you’d never had a real brownie you’d think they were great. If you had, then they were merely very good. There are lots of recipes on line.
Last year, I made this GF coconut chocolate chip recipe using almond meal (got at Trader Joe’s) NOT almond flour. it is grainier and has more substance. I did not follow Sara’s substitutions; I used a dark chocolate bar (froze, then pulsed in a mini processor).
https://minimalistbaker.com/coconut-chocolate-chip-almond-meal-cookies/
Anything that you can make regularly, you can make gluten free. My personal recommendation (myself and one of my daughters have celiac) is cup4cup flour. If you use mixes rather than from scratch, I recommend King Arthur’s mixes. Be careful of baking powder/cornstarch/vanilla/etc to make sure they’re gluten free as well. To be truly gluten free please wash and fully line used cookware that isn’t glass, and avoid using any plastic or wooden utensils/bowls at all while making the food.
I have been gluten free for nearly 20 years. It is much easier now to bake regular recipes- just use the King Arthur Measure for Measure gluten free flour. It works really as a replacement for regular flour in most recipes. Cup for cup gf flour also works well. I have also used the Kinnikinnick gf graham crackers successfully. Feel free to dm if you would like any tested recipes.
I just made these gf graham crackers a few nights ago to make a graham cracker crust for a gf recipe for christmas. They turned out really well!
https://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/recipes/easy-gluten-free-graham-cracker-recipe/
I also like cup4cup flour, our local whole foods carries it.
I have found that searching out recipes that are intended for gf flour work better than trying to substitute gf flour in regular recipes, ymmv.
These gf chocolate chip cookies are really good!
https://mygluten-freekitchen.com/the-best-chewy-gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Meringue cookies are naturally gf.
I would clarify whether your daughter has celiac or a gluten sensitvity. If celiac, you want to be careful to avoid even microscopic contamination so you would have to be very careful. We use a dedicated gluten free bakery to be safe!
I think these are gluten free…and very easy to make.
Chocolate Ginger Truffles
15 Tablespoons cocoa
5 TBS vegetable oil (not olive…use corn)
8 Oz bar of cream cheese
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 Heaping tsp ginger
Toppings to roll them in…chocolate shots, coconut, finely chopped nuts, different color sprinkles, cocoa.
Mix the oil, cream cheese, cocoa and ginger in your mixer. Add XXX sugar and mix until well blended.
Put in bowl and cover with Saran. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Then make into little balls about 1 inch or so in diameter. Roll in the toppings of your choice.
Easy peasy. A kitchenaid mixer helps!
These are also GF and yummy:
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/lime-in-the-coconut-macaroons-51147500
King Arthur Flour website has numerous GF recipes using their GF flour and baking mix (both of which are available at most grocery stores). I’ve had good luck with their recipes.
GF graham crackers should work fine in seven layer cookies.
Does she eat that kind of stuff though?
I just made King Arthur Flour’s “Almond Cloud Cookies”. They were expensive and a little sweet for my taste, but super easy and gluten free. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/almond-cloud-cookies-recipe