christmas cookies

Nut Tassie Cookies

Nut tassies are a local favorite around here in eastern Pennsylvania. They look like a tiny pecan pie, the size of one gigantic bite! Heavenly sweet and best made with pecans.  I have eaten them at many people’s homes. In all fairness I never made them when I could still eat regular gluten all-purpose white flour. Perhaps it is that I was able to just snag them off a cookie plate at someone’s holiday party.  Now, that sort of noshing is no long a possibility, and I was craving a nut tassie. Several years ago, I started looking for a recipe and eventually I found them on food.com; a classic tassie recipe complete with cream cheese dough for the pie crust and a filling almost identical to the traditional filling. And it was gluten free for folks like me…eureka!

Notes: Sometimes my family has a small pre-Christmas gathering and I whip up a batch of these tassies.   After chilling the dough some I make a dozen.  I will make the rest of them another day…reason being that gf cookies don’t keep as well as regular flour cookies so best not to bake the whole batch at once shot.  This way you have fresh cookies twice.  I keep the dough and filling in the fridge nice and cold and it will last up to a week or so.

Speaking of filling, I often don’t chop my nuts really fine; leave some in chunks to give a bigger texture which I prefer. The filing is so simple; chop the nuts, then dump these sugar and eggs in a mixing bowl, add the softened butter and the vanilla and nuts; stir and it is ready to spoon into the little crust cups you just formed.

They are easy to make and totally yummy to devour.  I find it takes me 2-3 bites to down one of these treats.  Happy baking folks!

Nut Tassies

Crust Ingredients

3 ounces cream cheese softened

1⁄2 cup butter, room temp.

1cup gluten-free flour – King Arthur Basic GF Flour or Bob’s Red Mill GF All-purpose flour

1⁄2 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 tablespoons sugar

Crust directions: using a whisk combine the GF flour, Xanthan Gum and 2 Tbsp. spoon sugar in a small bowl, Mix and set aside.  Using a mixer combine the cream cheese, butter and sugar until cream.  Then slowly add the GF flour mix you set aside, continue to mix until well blended. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Pecan Filling

  • 1 cup finely chopped pecans
  • 3⁄4 cup coconut palm sugar or brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon softened butter
  • 1 lg. egg 

Directions – Using a mixer combine the pecans, brown sugar, vanilla, butter and egg until well blended

Assembly

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  • Separate the chilled pie crust into 24 equal amounts (spoon or roll into balls).
  • Press the separated crust into a mini muffin pan, making sure that you press it most or all the way up
  • Fill each crust with a heaping mound of the filling.
  • Bake for approximately 30 min or until the crust is lightly browned.
  • Let cool and remove your mini pies from the pan. Use a butter knife to remove without damaging them

Enjoy!

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Mexican Wedding Cookies – A Classic

These miniature snowball cookies were the foundation of the Christmas cookie baking season when I was a kid.  They were always made every year, sometimes a second batch had to be baked as we had eaten them all well before the big day!   Some people call them Russian Teacakes… For me it is not Christmas without these cookies so I was extremely pleased to find a great gf recipe. My sisters think they are better tasting than the old regular recipe!

They are easy to make with not too many ingredients.  Don’t make them too big or they become very fragile… stick with the size as given. Be careful lifting them off the pan as they are delicate until fully cooled. The texture and subtle flavor of this GF version is actually superior to the wheat flour recipe of my childhood. When you bite into one it shatters into a delicious mouthful of sweet cookie. They are delightful with a cup of tea or coffee.  My family clamors for a few to take home!

You can use pecans, but I rarely do; walnuts are somewhat cheaper, and I sort of prefer their flavor for this cookie. If you like them really sweet sprinkle on extra powdered sugar, less of it makes them perfect for those who are not used to too much sweetness. This recipe is from Annalise Roberts’ fabulous Gluten-Free Baking Classics with some minor changes by me. I have not tried them with any but this flour blend. I bet they might work with a measure for measure flour mix; just leave out the xanthan gum in that case.

Storage: they keep well; I put mine in an empty butter cookie tin with wax paper between the 2 layers; no more than 2 layers or they tend to break up easily. Or a cookie jar but do be careful about too many stacked on top of each other.  No one will ever know they are GF, and you will get complements on their flavor and texture.  Enjoy: they are rather addictive cookies!

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Mexican Wedding Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

6 tbsp. powdered (confectioners) sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups King Arther Basic GF blend flour – aka brown rice mix (recipe below)

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 cup walnuts or pecans chopped fine

Confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling

Directions: beat butter and powdered sugar in large bowl of stand mixer until light and creamy.  Add vanilla, beat in.  Add flour and gum, mix in until well blended, stir in walnuts until distributed.  Chill dough for an hour, more than 2 hours; dough gets too stiff.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Form dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar if you like.  Place on cookie sheet lightly sprayed with Pam (not the baker’s version that has flour).  Place about 1 ½ inches apart.  Bake 13 to 15 minutes until lightly browned on top and bottom.  Cool on pan for 5 min and then sprinkle with lots of powdered sugar before placing on wire rack to cool. I like to sift it onto the cookies so the coating is even.  You could put a sheet of wax paper under the wire rack to catch the excess sugar.  Store well wrapped: in airtight container, in fridge for a week or freezer for up to 30 days.  You could store unbaked dough in fridge for a few days.

Brown Rice Flour Mix base mix  (same as King Arthur’s Basic gf blend)
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch *not potato flour

1/3 c tapioca flour

Note: First posted December 2014 on my blog.  Minor revisions have been made since then.

Browned Butter Wedding Cake Cookies

These miniature snowball cookies were the foundation of the Christmas cookie baking when I was a kid.  They were always made every year, sometimes a second batch had to be baked as we ate them all before the big day!  You can use pecans but I rarely do; walnuts are cheaper and I sort of prefer their flavor.  Some people call them Mexican Wedding Cookies but we generally called them Russian Teacakes…but today I am giving you a variation I plan to try this Christmas baking season. I am making them with browned butter today! No change in ingredients; one extra step.

For me it is not Christmas without these cookies so I was extremely pleased to find a great gf recipe. My sisters think they are better tasting than the old regular recipe!

They are super easy to make with not too many ingredients.  Be careful lifting them off the pan as they are delicate until fully cooled. The texture and subtle flavor of this GF version is actually superior to the wheat flour recipe of my childhood. When you bite into one it shatters into a delicious mouthful of sweet cookie. They are delightful with a cup of tea or coffee.  My family clamors for a few to take home!

If you like them really sweet sprinkle on extra powdered sugar, less of it makes them perfect for those who are not used to too much sweetness. No one will ever know they are GF and you will get complements on their flavor and texture.  This recipe is from Annalise Roberts’ fabulous Gluten-Free Baking Classics with some minor changes by me and the browned butter idea which comes from Bon Appetit.  Enjoy: they are rather addictive cookies!

xmas cookies 006

Browned Butter Wedding Cake Cookies

1 cup salted butter, room temperature

6 tbsp. powdered (confectioners) sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups brown rice mix (King Arthur basic blend or see recipe below)

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 cup walnuts or pecans chopped fine

Confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling

Directions: Heat butter in a heavy sauce pan; swirl it around and NO NOT walk away! It can go from yellow to dark dark brown in a few seconds so stand there and watch closely until it gets lightly brown and then pull the pan off the heat and immediately pour into  your stand mixing bowl. Let it stand until it is mostly congealed into a solid mass. Then beat butter and powdered sugar in large bowl of stand mixer until light and creamy.  Add vanilla, beat in.  Add flour and gum, mix in until well blended, stir in walnuts until distributed.  Chill dough for an hour.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Form dough into 1 inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar if you like.  Place on cookie sheet lightly sprayed with Pam (not the baker’s version that has flour).  Place about 1 ½ inches apart.  Bake 13 to 15 minutes until lightly browned on top and bottom.  Cool on pan for 5 min and then sprinkle with lots of powdered sugar before placing on wire rack to cool. I like to sift it onto the cookies so the coating is even.  You could put a sheet of wax paper under the wire rack to catch the excess sugar.  Store well wrapped: in airtight container, in fridge for a week or freezer for up to 30 days.  You could store unbaked dough in fridge for a few days.

Brown Rice Flour Mix base mix  (same as King Arthur gf blend)
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch *not potato flour

1/3 c tapioca flour

Note: This wonderful cookie was first posted December 2014 on my blog.  Minor revisions have been made since then.