The GFCF Recipe Experience: Gingerbread Cookies

The note came home on Friday, along with a clean milk carton and a note from Olivia's teacher - can you make something for Olivia so that she can participate in decorating a gingerbread house with all the other children?

Not a problem. How about...gingerbread!

This was a new one for me. While I have enjoyed gingerbread before, it was never a holiday staple in our family. So then the question was, what recipe should I use?

And that's when Julia gave me the book she had found while unpacking the Christmas boxes - a Gooseberry Patch Christmas Holiday Sampler. And there, on page 117, I found what I needed.

I was really impressed with how simple these were to make. I was even more impressed with how good they were. So were the kids, who literally had some for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

And that wonderful smell coming from the oven as they bake...it must be the holidays.

GINGERBREAD COOKIES
Adapted from a recipe found in the Gooseberry Patch Christmas Book 8.



Ingredients

1/2 cup GFCF shortening I used Earthbalance Buttery Sticks
2 1/2 cups GF all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 large egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves

For the powdered sugar frosting:

1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp GF vanilla extract
1 Tbsp CF milk

Combine the flour and xanthan gum in a bowl and set aside.

Beat the shortening until softened. Add about half of the flour mixture and the remaining ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined. Gradually add in the remaining flour.

Divide the dough in half, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Roll out each half of dough to 1/8" to 1/4" thickness. Using a gingerbread man cookie cutter, cut out the cookies and place about 1" - 2" apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Continue to collect and reroll the scraps until you've cut out as many gingerbread men as you can. For a gingerbread house, just cut out six pieces to fit the four sides of the house and the roof.

Bake the cookies at 375° for 7 to 8 minutes or until the edges are firm. Remove from the oven and immediately place the cookies on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, combine the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and milk until a smooth consistency is reached. If the icing seems too firm, add more milk a little at a time until the consistency is more fluid but not runny (like mine in the photo - I added about another Tbsp of milk and that was too much). Place the icing in a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip and pipe the frosting on to the cookies.

If you don't own a pastry bag, simply put the icing into a small plastic bag and snip a tiny piece off one corner of the bag. Pipe the icing through the hole on to the cookies.

Toppings. There are plenty of GFCF candy choices that you can use to decorate your cookies. I used Smarties, because that is what we had on hand. But Skittles would work really well, as would Sweet Tarts, or candy corn, or even GFCF chocolate chips. Just be sure to use a little icing as glue.

And do you want to know the irony? When I talked to Olivia's teacher about the gingerbread house project this morning, she said that the rest of the class will be using graham crackers. So Olivia will have the only real gingerbread house!

The GFCF Recipe Experience: Pumpkin Pie

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit. Even the GFCF Experience is transforming into its Christmas attire.

But even though the Christmas trees are going up along with the inflatable snowmen, the calendar still says it's Autumn until December 21. And really, don't we all have room for another piece of pumpkin pie?

This recipe is a happy adaptation of two different recipes. The crust is based on Carol Fenster's pie crust recipe as found in the 1000 Gluten Free Recipes cookbook, for which I am printing my adaptation with permission from Carol and her publisher, John Wiley and Son publishing (thank you both!). The filling is an adaptation of Karina Allrich's acclaimed crustless vegan pumpkin pie, in which I made two minor (non vegan) changes.

I promised I would post the pumpkin pie recipe if it turned out well on Thanksgiving, and, well, it turned out wonderfully for Thanksgiving. It turned out even better for breakfast the next day.

GFCF PIE CRUST
adapted from Carol Fenster's Double-Crust recipe found in 1000 Gluten Free Recipes, John Wiley and sons, Publishers, 2008. Reprinted with permission.


INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup GF all-purpose flour
1/4 cup + 1/8 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup CF shortening, such as EarthBalance Shortening or Buttery Sticks
1/4 CF milk (I used almond milk)
1/2 tsp vinegar or lemon juice


Place the dry ingredients in a food processor or stand mixer and mix thoroughly. Add the shortening and mix or process until crumbly. Add the vinegar and the CF milk and process or mix until the dough forms a ball, adding more or less milk as needed. Shape the dough into a 1-inch disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Prepare a pastry board by spreading some GF flour on the board. Take the disk and massage it in your hands to warm. Place on the pastry board and roll out to a 10 inch diameter. Lightly grease a glass or aluminum pie dish. Center the dough onto the pan, smoothing out any wrinkles and ensuring the pan is evenly covered. Trim away the scraps from the edge of the pan.

GFCF PUMPKIN PIE FILLING
Adapted from the Vegan Pumpkin Pie recipe by Karina Allrich, found at Karina's Kitchen

INGREDIENTS

1 14 or 15-oz can pumpkin
1 1/2 cups soy milk (Karina used hemp milk; rice or almond won't work here)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons light olive oil
2 large eggs (Karina used 1 Tbsp Ener-G egg replacer)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sorghum flour (Karina used buckwheat flour)
2 tablespoons tapioca starch/flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon or pie spice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Place all the ingredients in a food processor or stand mixer and process or mix until thoroughly combined, scraping the sides as necessary.


MAKING THE PIE

Preheat oven to 375°. Place a foil lined pan on the center rack of the oven.

Pour the pumpkin mixture over the pie shell (it will be really full!). Place the pie pan on the foiled lined pan in the oven.

Bake at 375° for about an hour. When done, the pumpkin should be firm but give a little when touched. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely (the filling will shrink as it cools).

When cool, chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

The GFCF Recipe Experience: Easy Peasy Biscuits

Looking for a quick and easy biscuit/dinner roll to serve with the turkey and trimmings tomorrow? You really cannot get much easier than this. I made these in muffin cups but you could just as easily make these as drop biscuits. The other great thing is that this is really just a base recipe - you could add sesame seeds, herbs, even bacon to flavor these biscuits to suit your meal. As they say, the possibilities are endless...

The recipe is based on a recipe for feather cream drop biscuits found in Easiest and Best Coffee Cakes and Quick Breads, a cookbook by Renny Darling.

EASY PEASY BISCUITS
adapted from a recipe by Renny Darling in Easiest and Best! Coffee Cakes and Quick Breads

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups GF all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) CF butter
2 cups CF buttermilk


Preheat oven to 425°.

Place the flour, baking powder, and salt in mixing bowl and mix with an electric mixer until blended. Add the butter and beat until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Gradually add the buttermilk to form a smooth batter.

Spoon the batter into greased muffin cups, or drop by heaping tablespoon unto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 425° for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.