Gluten Free Cooking School » gluten free cookies

Gluten Free Desserts

John — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:47:19 +0000

Probably the first two food items that people think about when they begin to realize the implications of eating a gluten free diet is bread and desserts. Either one by itself would be bad enough, but the both of them together is quite a cruel blow.

However, I’m happy to say that gluten free bread and gluten free desserts are both available and easy to cook. If you’ve had to deny your sweet tooth since going gluten free, never fear. In this post we’re going to look at some of our favorite gluten free dessert recipes, and you’ll soon be able to start cooking your favorite sweets again.

One of our favorite desserts is gluten free cookies, and we have recipes for several kinds of cookies on our site. We’ve got gluten free chocolate chip cookies, gluten free sugar cookies, and even a recipe for forgotten cookies (which happen to be naturally gluten free). The sugar cookie recipe uses our gluten free flour mix, and the chocolate chip recipe uses peanut butter and eggs. (The peanut butter provides a great texture, and the eggs hold everything together nicely.)

Cookies are great for dessert a lot of the time, but when a birthday rolls around you’ve got to have some cake. We cooked a nice gluten free cake for my birthday a couple of years ago, and it was quite yummy (if I do say so myself). I took the leftovers to work a couple of days later, and my co-workers ate it up pretty quickly. No one ever thought that it might be gluten free.

Gluten free pie is another great dessert that you want to be able to cook, especially around the holidays. Although I usually love to cook all of my own gluten free foods, I have to confess that I do not cook my own pie crust. I’ve experimented with a couple of different crusts, but Whole Foods has a gluten free pie crust that is simply fantastic. I just grab a couple of them when I’m going to bake a pie, and then all I need to worry about is the filling.

One of the experiments that I did involved using Bisquick to make a pie crust. I wrote about it in my gluten free pie crust post. If you don’t have a Whole Foods or something similar nearby, check out that post for some ideas on making your own pie crust.

Lastly, I’ve been hearing a lot about flourless chocolate cakes lately. The “flourless” is indeed true – these cakes use eggs and cocoa, no flour at all, so they are naturally gluten free. I haven’t found a recipe that I’m crazy about yet, but feel free to give it a shot on your own. You may find a new favorite!

Peanut Butter Lollipop Cookies

Mary Frances — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:38:59 +0000

Long-time readers will know that I don’t bake sweets that often (because I have no will power). Given that I have recently polished off Double Chocolate Brownies, a Hershey Pie, and a batch of chocolate chip cookies (the new Betty Crocker mix to be released this summer), you probably won’t be getting any more sweet recipes from me for a while. Luckily for you, Jeanne Basye , the Gluten Free Cookie Lady, agreed to write a guest post featuring one of the cookies from her cookbook, “Gluten Free Cookies“. Please welcome Jean in the comments and check out her cookbook.
~Mary Frances

Hello from Arizona!

My name is Jeanne Basye, happily called The Gluten Free Cookie Lady. It’s 100 degrees outside today and my grandkids and I are in the kitchen baking gluten free cookies. Care to join us? We are making one of their favorite cookies, Peanut Butter Lollipops. They like these cookies because they are big, their favorite candy bar is hidden inside and they are fun to eat because the cookie is on a stick! Hey, I love them too and my favorite candy bar is Baby Ruth.

If you are like me, making cookies with my grandkids (ages 2 ½ -11 years) are fun and so rewarding. Teaching them how to crack eggs, measure ingredients, mix properly, and make uniform-size dough balls are baking lessons for a lifetime. Fun in the kitchen is our goal as are the kitchen cleanup chores! However, the best lesson cookie baking offers in our home is how to share with others. We make cookies, decorate boxes to hold them and give them away.

As we deliver our cookie boxes, there is always a smile and big thank you on the receiving end. Baking cookies is a lifetime skill that can make so many people happy. Plus we educate people about celiac disease through our cookies. How fun is that!

Are you ready to bake? As I tell the grandkids… first wash your hands. Be sure to read the recipe and set out all the ingredients. Select your favorite snack-size candy bar. Almond Joys, Snickers, Mars, 3 Musketeers, Oh Henry, Payday and Baby Ruths are ready to be prepared in our kitchen.

We are recycling the wooden sticks from the popsicle/ice cream bars we ate yesterday and using them for these cookies. You can also purchase Kraft Caramels and use the wooden sticks in the package. If you don’t have sticks, just wrap the snack-size candy bar (about a 2-inch length) around the dough and bake as directed.

As the anticipation builds in our kitchen waiting for the cookies to bake and cool, each one selects their favorite color ribbon to tie on the cookie sticks. Decorating small plastic bags to wrap the big lollipops is next.

Finally the cookies are ready to taste. We pour a big glass of milk and take a big bite! “Outstanding, says my 5 year old grandson, I love these cookies!”

We hope you enjoy Peanut Butter Lollipops as much as we do. Let us know if you like them too.

Peanut Butter Lollipops
(Makes 9-10 (4-inch) cookies on a stick)

1 ¼ cups of favorite GF flour blend
½ teaspoon xanthan gum
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
½ cup creamy peanut butter (I like Jif)

10 (.65-oz.) snack-size GF candy bars (each bar measures 2-inches)
10 (4 ½ x ¼-inch) wooden ice cream sticks

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degree F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Gently insert wooden stick ¾ of the way into each candy bar. Place inside freezer until ready to use. (Freezing the candy bar/stick minimizes candy oozing out of the cookie as it bakes.)

3. Sift flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder and salt in bowl; stir. Set aside.

4. Beat butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla in large mixer bowl on medium speed until creamy, about 4 minutes. Scrape bowl as needed. Beat in egg and peanut butter. Gradually beat in flour mixture.

5. Wrap ¼-1/3 cup dough around each prepared candy bar. Be sure dough covers candy bar completely. Reshape uneven edges of dough with hands for a more uniform appearance. Place 4-inches apart on prepared sheets. Cookies spread! Keep dough refrigerated until ready to bake. (I bake one cookie sheet at a time on the middle rack.)

6. Bake 14 to 16 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool 10 minutes on cookie sheet then carefully transfer to wire rack to cool completely. (Use a wide spatula to remove cookies from sheet.)

7. Store in airtight container up to 2 days or freeze up to 2 months.

Permission granted by: Jeanne Basye, The Gluten Free Cookie Lady

Basye, Jeanne. Gluten Free Cookies. Phoenix, AZ: What No Wheat Enterprises, 2008, page 116. www.glutenfreecookielady.com

Rolling in Dough: The Last of the Sugar Cookie Series

Mary Frances — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:15:04 +0000

This post is the last in a 4-part series on Gluten Free Sugar Cookies. If you missed the first three, here they are:
Part 1: How to Cream Butter & Sugar
Part 2: To Cream or Not – The Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Trials
Part 3: My Basic Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Recipe

How to Roll out Cookie Dough

1. Tear off a couple of sheets of wax paper. Lay one down on a flat surface and lightly dust it with gluten free flour and sugar (very lightly!).

2. Shape your dough into a ball (or two balls if you think that will be easier to work with) and place the ball between the two sheets of wax paper. Flatten the ball a bit like this.

3. Place your rolling pin in the middle of the ball of dough (on top of the wax paper). Press down gently and roll the pin away from your body. Then bring the pin back to the middle of the dough and roll it toward your body. Be sure to use the same pressure on each rolling so that the dough is even.

4. Repeat Step 3 until the dough is about 1/8″ thick (see top picture). And take the “about” seriously. This is no time to be digging through drawers with floury hands in a vain search for a ruler =)

5. Take the sheet of dough (still in the wax paper) and refrigerate it for 15 minutes.

6. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and place on a hard surface. Remove the top piece of wax paper. Use a cookie cutter to cut out your cookies. Proceed according to your recipe’s directions.

Notes:
You can reroll the scraps that are left after you’ve cut the cookie dough. Or, if that seems like too much work, make little balls and then squash them flat with your hand or the bottom of a cup and cook them with the other cookies.

The wax paper really helps. I wouldn’t skip that step unless it’s an absolute cookie emergency =)

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

Mary Frances — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:12:03 +0000

This is the third of four posts on How to Bake Sugar Cookies. We’ve already learned how to cream butter and sugar, and performed some related experiments. This post will cover the basic Gluten Free Sugar Cookie recipe. And then after Christmas I’ll write a post on how to roll out the cookie dough. Yes, I know it would make sense to do that before Christmas, but I’ve just flat run out of time =)

For more delicious gluten free recipes like this one, make sure to check out my ebook, The Gluten Free Survival Guide. I put all of my favorite recipes in there, like sandwich bread, waffles, scones, tortillas, and more! I know you’ll enjoy the recipes as much as we do!

The first blog post that I ever read about gluten free sugar cookies went on and on about how difficult it was to find a good flour mix for sugar cookies. By the time this individual was done with her recipe it had something like 16 ingredients and one of them was amaranth flour. I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to order amaranth flour for cookies that I would probably only make once a year.

Because of that post we haven’t had sugar cookies for four years. When I saw that post again this year it made me mad. Gluten free baking should not be that hard. Cookies don’t need gluten! I was fired up and ready to make a sugar cookie.

I found a recipe in my favorite cookbook, Joy of Cooking, and decided to convert it to gluten free. I gave some thought to the flour issue and decided to substitute my Gluten Free Soy Free All Purpose Flour Mix for the plain flour in the original recipe. I figured at the worst, the cookies would be good but just wouldn’t taste exactly like the sugar cookies I grew up with. I must say, though, the results were really, really good. I don’t think that I’ll be changing this recipe any at all =)

P.S. This recipe is suitable if you’re making cut-out cookies for decorating.

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. Mary’s AP GF, SF flour

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg, baking powder, salt and vanilla and mix until well combined. Then stir in the flour until well-blended and smooth.

Divide the dough in half and roll out each half to 1/4 in. thickness between two sheets of parchment paper. Keeping the paper in place, move the dough to the refrigerator and chill for 20 – 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Move one oven rack to the upper third of the oven. Grease your cookie sheets.

Take one portion of dough out of the refrigerator. Peel one piece of parchment paper off and then replace it. This is now the bottom side of your dough. Take off the other piece of paper and discard. Cut out the cookies using cookie cutters that are 2 – 3 in. long. Place the cut-out cookie on the cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Roll out the dough scraps and keep cutting cookies until all the dough has been used. Refrigerate the dough again if it gets too soft to handle.

Bake the cookies just until they are lightly colored and slightly darker at the edges – should be around 6 – 9 minutes. Rotate the cooking sheet halfway through baking for even browning. After they are done, transfer them to a cooling rack as soon as possible.

Repeat this process with the other portion of dough. And then enjoy!!

To Cream or Not: Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Trials

Mary Frances — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:55:43 +0000

This is the second of four posts in a series on Gluten Free Sugar Cookies. The first post on How to Cream Butter and Sugar may be found here. The third post (currently scheduled for Friday) will be How to Roll Out Sugar Cookies, and the fourth post, (check back on Sunday) will be my recipe for Gluten Free Sugar Cookies. Yes, I’m drawing this out so you’ll keep coming back =)

So, the other night I was surfing around looking for gluten free recipes that call for the creaming of butter and sugar. All was right with my world. I was sure that your cookies would be better with the proper butter and sugar creaming technique. It was a pleasant time.

And then I hit Gluten Free Girl’s site and her recipe for oatmeal cookies. Here’s what I saw:

“Creaming the butter and sugar. Put the softened butter into your favorite mixer and beat it, just a bit. Add in the two sugars. Mix until just combined.”

“What? Mix until just combined? That’s not creaming!”

Now, for any of you who aren’t already aware that Shauna at Gluten Free Girl is the top gluten free blogger, she is. And she’s married to the Chef. Chances are her recipe instructions are not wrong. What’s a girl to do when she’s almost finished a post about whipping butter and sugar to a creaming frenzy? Keep Looking.

In Shauna’s post about Rosemary’s Christmas cookies I discover more information,

Cream the butter and powdered sugar in a stand mixer, or by hand. Cream them until they are just combined, and then one beat more. Over-creaming butter and sugar in gluten-free cookies makes them spread, horribly.

This makes sense. I had already learned that the water in the butter is released as the cookie dough heats in the oven. The water then makes a solution with the sugar, causing it to melt. As the sugar melts, the cookie spreads. So maybe the gluten free dough was not as able to stand up to the spreading process as a dough made with wheat flour.

I am, however, a stubborn person. And I really like to cream butter and sugar (yes, I’m weird). And I had to try this for myself before I would feel right about posting an article on the creaming of butter and sugar on a gluten free cooking blog. It was time to bake!

The Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Trials
Heat 1: The Butter and Sugar
On the blue team, we have a bowl of “Just Combined” butter and sugar. This picture was taken immediately after the last bit of sugar was caught up into the mixture. It’s a bit on the chunky side. If you were to taste it, you would find that it is very much just butter and sugar. You can discern the individual grains of sugar on your tongue.

On the red team, we have a bowl of “CompletelyCreamed” butter and sugar. The consistency is very creamy. When you taste it, the sugar grains are much smaller then they were in the “just combined” stage. I would happily lick this bowl clean =) It is definitely the winner of the first heat.

Heat 2:The Doughs
I have to say that I was surprised by the degree of difference in the two doughs. The “Just Combined” dough was very dense. My cheapo hand mixer was barely able to get through it. The dough tended to be a bit crumbly in a very chunky way, if that makes any sense. It didn’t really want to stay together in a ball and the edges wanted to split when I rolled it out. When I cut out the cookies I could really feel the sugar in the dough.

Conversely, the “Completely Creamed” dough was very soft. When I used the hand mixer on it, the beaters flew through the dough and within seconds had beat it into a sandy mixture. I had to switch to my hands to work the dough into a ball. Once I had a ball it was very pliable and rolled out extremely well. Again, the red team wins the heat.

Heat 3: The Cookies
In the interest of fairness, I cooked 10 “Just Combined” cookies and 10 “Completely Creamed” cookies on the same cookie sheet. I made myself stay away from the oven while they baked, and boy was I surprised when I opened the door. These cookies look completely different!

The “Just Combined” cookies are on the left; the “Completely Creamed” cookies are on the right. Shauna was definitely correct that barely mixing the butter and sugar results in less spread. You can see where the “Creamed” cookies have stretch marks and are just a bit bigger than the “Combined” cookies.

The other differences were a complete surprise though. I have no idea why one set of cookies darkened so much more than the other. Or why the “Creamed” cookies crumbled less even though they spread more. Or why the “Combined” cookies taste like the little shortbread cookies that come in Christmas cookie tins, and the “Creamed” cookies tasted nothing like that. It’s a mystery to me, but both John and I decided (after several repeat testings!) that the “Completely Creamed” cookies were the hands down winner.

Lessons Learned
1. Changing just one cooking technique in a recipe can dramatically change the results.
2. Neither method is right or wrong; it just depends on how you want your cookie to turn out.
3. I’m definitely going to try both methods on future cookie recipes. With differences this dramatic, to cream or not to cream could really make or break a recipe.

Gluten Free Cooking School » gluten free cookies

Gluten Free Desserts

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Peanut Butter Lollipop Cookies

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Rolling in Dough: The Last of the Sugar Cookie Series

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To Cream or Not: Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Trials

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