cookies

Lemon Shortbread Cookies

Some times you want those fancy, full of stuff kinda cookies and that is fine but occasionally a simple but delicious cookie is the way to go, like shortbread.  Dainty crisp shortbread cookies are great with a cup of tea or coffee.  I hadn’t tried them gluten free until this holiday season.  I now wonder why it took so long.

I baked my lemon cookies using Meyer lemon peel but you can use whatever lemons you buy at the grocery store.  Mine were sprinkled with a touch of green colored sugar.  Top yours as you wish or leave them plain.

No forming needed.  You glop the soft dough onto a long piece of plastic wrap, close it and roll on the table to shape.  Chill well and cut the dough into slices, onto the baking sheet and into the oven.  Simple to make and they are perfect for many festive occasions. I can’t wait to try some other variations on these shortbread cookies.

Lemon Shortbread Cookies

½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

½ tsp. lemon extract

1 tsp. lemon zest

¾ cup brown rice flour mix; recipe below

1/4 cup sweet rice flour

¼ tsp.  xanthan gum

1/8 tsp. salt

Beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, add the vanilla, lemon extract, and zest and mix.

Mix flour, xanthan gum in small bowl; add to butter/sugar mix.  Mix until a soft dough is formed.

Place lumps of dough in a line along a big sheet of plastic wrap; from it into a 1 ¼ inch log of dough.  Twist ends shut, smooth into a round long by rolling it on the table top.  Chill it at least an hour; until firm.

Heat oven to 350 degrees, racks to center of oven.  Lightly spray 2 baking sheets with cooking spray.

Slice into ½ inch rounds. Place 1 ½ inch apart on sheet, sprinkle with colored or plain sugar.  Chill in fridge 15 minutes. Bake 12-14 minutes until lightly golden. Mine all took 14-15 minutes.  Let cool on cookie sheet 2-3 minutes so they solidify; transfer to a cookie cooling rack.  Store in airtight cookie jar once cooled.

My recipe says the dough can be kept in the fridge for a week or in freezer for up to two months.  It made about 32 cookies. They go fast!

They are thin and delicate; if left out in the air unsealed they will get soggy and loose their crisp, delicate texture.

To make them plain leave out the lemon extract and zest and add another ½ tsp. vanilla.

Flour Mix (same as King Arthur GF blend)
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

This recipe is out of Annalise G. Robert’s great cookbook: Gluten Free Baking Classics, second edition.

This is a reposting of a recipe I shared December 2014.

Forgotten Kisses Cookies

Ever on the lookout for a great tasting cookie I came across these sweet meringue treats called forgotten kisses. I found an easy recipe on foodnetwork.com.  Made them once we got past the rainy days a week or so ago.  If you can whip egg whites, you can make these beauties.  They have chocolate chips and walnuts in them but if you look at the comments you will see that folks add many different spins and flavors.  They keep really well too.  I put some in my cookie jar four days ago and they still taste as though they were just baked.

I froze some for later.  My Christmas cookie list just got longer with this beauty added on!  Thank goodness hey are simple and they keep well. I used slightly less than the sugar amount here and my version has less chocolate chips in it.  They seem pretty chocolaty to me just as I made them.  My whole house smelled like a chocolate factory while they were baking.

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Ingredients

2 egg whites, room temp

½ tsp. cream of tarter

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

¾ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

¾ to 1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Directions: Heat oven to 350.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Beat egg whites until frothy with electric mixer (I used a stand mixer), add cream of tarter, keep beating until fluffy.  Then add the sugar a tbsp or two at a time. Add the vanilla when half to all of the sugar is incorporated.  Beat until shiny and stiffly peaked when you put a spoon in.  If it gets a chunky look you have overbeaten it, not a good thing.  Stand mixers are so powerful they can do just that so watch it closely; has to have stiff peaks and look shiny but don’t keep going or you will have the overbeaten which is a no no.  The opposite is bad too; if the egg whites are not beaten to a stiff peak the cookies will flatten out and not look right.  When it looks ready, fold in the nuts and chips with a spatula.  Use two spoons to put tablespoons of batter on a baking sheet 1 inch apart. Mine made about 30 (15 on a sheet) cookies.  I did use a mixture of semi sweet and dark chocolate; was incredible tasting!

Bake at 350 degrees for five minutes, turn off oven, and leave for 2 hours up to 8 total hours.  If your oven is gas you should probably reheat it after an hour back up to the 300 degrees and let them cool in the closed oven for that second hour.  Do not open the oven door for any reason before 2 hours is up.

Here is the original recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/meringue-cookies-forgotten-kisses-recipe.html

Be sure to read the comments for other flavor ideas.  I know I will be trying a few of them.

Peanut Butter Beauties

I keep hearing about recipes for three ingredient peanut butter cookies. I wanted something a bit more actual cookie texture (think less greasy) and with less sugar than the versions I have come across. So I decided to play with the proportions and I wanted to add some gf flour. I cut the sugar by one fourth and dumped in a small amount of flour. To make sure my results weren’t like a brick I added some baking powder and to keep them from being incredibly crumbly messes I tossed in a touch of xanthan gum. The resulting dough was still a tad crumbly but when you scrunch up about a tablespoon with your fingers it forms a ball that can be flattened with a fork dipped in granulated sugar in the traditional cross hatch of all great peanut butter cookies.

The results: simple but tasty = peanut butter heaven. I must advise that I used chunky peanut butter. I don’t much care for creamy peanut butter so I try not to have to buy it for recipes. So I chunked it and my somewhat picky eater who doesn’t like chunky peanut butter was in love with these beauties. I am guessing it would work with creamy. Let me know how they turn out if you make them with a creamy peanut butter.

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To review, significantly lower in sugar than most three ingredient recipes, great flavor and texture and simple to make. Bonus: they still remind me of the peanut butter cookies of my childhood…which were full of all purpose flour! I used my typical flour blend; King Arthur gf blend but I am sure Better Batter or Cup for Cup will work. If your blend has gum in it no additional gum is needed so leave that quarter teaspoon out.

Note: if you love the salty cookie concept, sprinkle with coarse sea salt before baking. Either sweet or salty they are somewhat addictive, especially fantastic with a glass of cold milk.

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Chunky Peanut Butter cookies

1 cup chunky peanut butter
¾ cup sugar
1 large egg (room temp)
½ cup gf flour blend
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. xanthan gum

¼ cup sugar for fork action
Coarse sea salt (optional)

Directions: Mix first six ingredients well in stand mixer. Form into balls by squeezing in hand. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, press with fork dipped into sugar. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt if desired.

Bake at 375 for 9 to 11 minutes. Watch carefully – they burn easily. Let stand one minute before lifting off with pancake turner to a cooling rack. Eat and enjoy these gems of cookies…you will be taken back to your childhood.

Almond Cloud Cookies…Delightful

Sometimes you feel like you gotta have a cookie and nothing store made will do.  This basic recipe from the King Arthur website will show you how easy it is to make scrumptious gluten free cookies; these are flour free; made with almond paste, sugar, egg whites, almond extract and some powdered sugar.  So simple even a 7 year old can make them.  No fancy molding, shaping or rolling out.  No tricky flours to mix, no meringue to whip.  Simple blending, measure it with your tablespoon; shape quickly by pressing with three finger tips and bake. The cookie dough spreads out as it bakes so don’t worry if it looks like an artless clump on your baking sheet.  It will flatten and round into an attractive cookie.

Almond cloud cookies have a delicate crunch to them, deeply almond in flavor.  They look very pretty with the powdered sugar on top.  I find them somewhat addictive; can’t eat just one cookie. Yes….an almond cloud is a very descriptive name for these delightful treats.

I used ¾ cup white sugar and they were quite sweet enough for me. I also sprinkled the baked cookies with sifted powdered sugar after they came out and cooled a minute or two right on the baking sheet. Don’t leave them there more than a couple more minutes or they will be hard to lift off the baking sheet. If you are more cautious in  your use of sugar leave that stop off. I cut the sugar down in the dough to 3/4 cup but did sift some powdered sugar on top; makes the cookies even more attractive.

Great recipe; definitely planning to make it again for company and maybe for Christmas. No flour needed; just lots of almond paste! I measured mine on a small kitchen scale to make sure I had the right amount of that pricey ingredient.  You can make your own you know: l did last holiday season – very easy and I loved the fresh flavor of my very own batch: https://myworldwithoutwheat.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/almond-paste-holiday-joy/

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Almond cloud cookies  makes about 21 cookies.

INGREDIENTS

10 ounces almond paste

¾-1 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large egg whites, lightly beaten

1/4 teaspoon gluten-free almond extract

1/8 teaspoon extra-strong bitter almond oil

Confectioners’ sugar for topping

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 325°F.

Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two rimmed baking sheets.

Blend the almond paste, sugar, and salt until the mixture becomes uniformly crumbly; this is best done in a stand mixer.

Add the egg whites gradually, while mixing, to make a smooth paste.

Stir in the flavorings. I left out the almond oil; didn’t have any; fine without it.

Scoop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto the prepared pans. I did eight to a pan. Sprinkle the cookies heavily with confectioners’ sugar, then use three fingers to press an indentation into the center of each cookie.

Bake the cookies for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re brown around the edges. Remove them from the oven, and let them cool right on the pan for 4-5 minutes. I froze some and stored some in my cookie jar.  They stayed a bit soft making them easy to enjoy a couple days later…I was afraid that they would become tooth breakers upon sitting a while.  Nope…still perfect. Get your cookie with these charmers…you won’t regret it.seafood pasta and swordfish 027

Cherry Ginger Oatmeal Cookies….No Flour…No Fuss

Yummy gf cookies are indeed do-able. Looking for gluten free and flour free cookies? Is that actually possible in one recipe?  Yes, yes yes! I have a favorite gf cookie and it is my ginger cherry oatmeal drop cookies.  They are made with oats (gluten free certified ones,) almond butter, brown and granulated sugar, vanilla, candied ginger, dried cherries and a couple eggs.  Not much else.  Crunchy, thin, spicy and crazy delicious!

The dough goes together easily.  Everyone has loved it unless they are a ginger hater.  Boo hoo hoo on those folks!  Ginger is good for your tummy and zingy in your mouth! Chop it fine or you will get a crazy zing once in a while.  What is extra nice is that it is naturally gf.  There are no weird off flour flavors; just oats and almond butter.

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Ginger Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

¼ cup butter, room temp

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup almond butter

1 ¼ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

3 cups oatmeal

½ cup crystallized ginger chopped fine

2/3 cup chopped dried cherries (you can use half golden raisins if you like)

Directions:

Beat together butter and two sugars until fluffy; I used my stand mixer.  Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla and almond butter.  Beat well.  Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix into the wet in the big mixer bowl.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking sheets with cooking spray.  Drop glopping tablespoons of batter onto baking sheet.  Bake 13 to 15 minutes. Don’t let them get too brown or burn! Let cool 2 minutes on sheet before removing with metal spatula turner to a cooling rack.  Eat!  I freeze most of them; they taste pretty good straight out of the freezer.  Freezing tip for cookies; pair them smooth side to each other when placing in freezer bag; less likelihood of breaking. And you can get more into a gallon freezer bag that way.

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Some of them got really big and crispy thin this time. Love them that way and thicker chewy too!

I actually tested out my new sil-pat baking sheet; flexible, no spray, no stick, no mess and all good.  Love it!  The cookies didn’t spread any differently or taste off, no smell of anything odd while baking with it.  All the naysayers are way off base; gotta get a second one!

I have made it with cherries a few times and once with half and half cherries and golden raisins as I was low on cherries.  Wondering if it would be good with chocolate chips!  Recipe adapted from “Weeknight gluten free” by Kristine Kidd