This year marks my first attempt to make a bunch of holiday
cookies and treats because FISP [Fuck It Stay Positive].
When I was little, we would take a weekend each December and
just freaking BAKE! Candy cane cookies,
Russian tea cakes, sugar cookies iced by my 5 year old artistic self (did you
know sometimes Santa is blue?), buckeyes (if you don’t know what this is, I
feel sorry for you-not having this as a child is basically child abuse), and
more. We’d have cookies cooling all over
the house and then plate them up for neighbors, church people, teachers and
ourselves. This is totally an Iowa
thing, and it’s an awesome tradition.
Over the years, I’ve successfully made gluten free candy
cane cookies (they were just a bit bigger and flatter than the glutinous
version) and gluten free sugar cookies, but as there is an extra challenge this
year now that eggs, dairy and everything else that makes baking pretty easy and
painless have all been removed from my diet.
Here’s a rundown of Holiday Prep 2013 with pictures and recipe links!
PS…photographs are not professional, because a) they are
taken with my cell phone and b) I don’t care J
Candy Cane Vodka http://www.scarymommy.com/candy-flavored-vodka/
I made this last year for family with regular candy canes
and it was AMAZING so I wanted to continue the tradition this year but modified
with high fructose corn syrup free candy canes.
These do exist and I found them at the local coop. They’re about as expensive as you’d expect
though! Also, make sure vodka is gluten
free. This tastes really good with hot
cocoa (dairy free hot cocoa mix here)
Because organic candy canes don’t have the extra food dyes,
the color is a little bit weird, so the picture is of the first step of the
process and not the finished product, but I’m happy to report that the candy
canes themselves tasted good and everything is better with vodka and hot cocoa.
Thumbprint Cookies
http://www.waldorfmoms.com/2012/12/quick-gluten-free-and-vegan-christmas-cookies.html
I was a little nervous about making these because I needed
them to turn out the first time. Did you
know almond flour is expensive? I
mean…all gf flour is expensive, but holy crap is almond flour costly… I wandered all over the grocery store trying
to find jam without apple fruit pectin and I think I found one that works, but
it still listed fruit pectin but didn’t say apple fruit, so I went with a wing
and a prayer and bought raspberry cranberry jam.
It was a good decision…that stuff is
DELICIOUS! The thumbprint cookies turned
out tasting great! Not a very sweet
cookie, but the jam helps balance that out.
Also, as you can tell, the cookies may not look perfect, but I direct
you back to postscript b) I don’t care about how good everything looks. That might be the goal for Holiday Baking
2014, but for 2013, I just want to find recipes that work! I think next year I’ll make half the batch
with jalapeño jelly because that makes it look more Christmassy, plus jalapeño
jelly is awesome.
Cinnamon Sugar
Pretzels http://lifestooshorttoskipdessert.blogspot.com/2010/12/yummy-cinnamon-sugar-pretzels.html
THESE ARE AMAZING.
This is the easiest recipe in the world, it makes your house smell
awesome and it involves ingredients you already have in the house. I recommend Snyder’s GF pretzels because they
are delicious and easily found in the grocery store.
Chocolate Peppermint
Cookies http://www.thesensitivepantry.com/the-sensitive-pantry/2010/2/8/chocolate-peppermint-cookies.html
This is round two. I
made a batch last weekend that I ended up throwing out because I didn’t read
the recipe properly and didn’t do the egg replacer to water ratio correctly and
it was a hot mess.
Round Two: Still not perfect, but all right. I ended up refrigerating the dough longer
than an hour because I made the dough and then went to the quilt shop to work
for a few hours and then came back and starting the baking process.
Here’s what did not work: the whole rolling out the dough and
cutting cute shapes out. It was less of
a sticky mess than the batch I threw out, but still a bit of a sticky mess when
I rolled it out and tried to cut cute heart shapes. So instead, I scraped up dough off of the wax
paper, flattened it on the cookie sheet and baked it. Toward the end, I got even smarter and rolled
the dough into a ball and THEN flattened it on the cookie sheet and it looked
more like Thin Mints as a final product.
I ended up baking the full 15 minutes, and my sister thinks I overbaked,
but I don’t know that I did because you want the cookie to be crispy. Next time I make them, I will roll out the
dough and flatten because those turned out looking the best.
What did work: they taste like Thin Mints. The icing is delicious and I might just start
making it and pouring it over anything I make.
Mashed potatoes, steak, oatmeal…you name it. Even my sister liked them and she is usually
very supportive of what I make, but not a fan of second helpings of things I
make J
Holiday Bark http://www.thesensitivepantry.com/the-sensitive-pantry/2009/12/4/holiday-chocolate-bark.html
Also super good!
Again, mine doesn’t look like the pretty internet pictures, but this is
super easy and you could probably add anything to the top of it to accommodate
your dietary needs. I kind of smooshed
everything down onto the chocolate. “Smooshed”
is a technical term that means: take your hands and just smoosh down
everything. I used dairy, soy and nut
free chocolate chunks and they melted really well in the microwave.
Also, because there wasn’t room in the fridge, and I live in
Iowa, I put the pan out on the back porch to harden and it was perfect! 10 degree weather is perfect baking weather,
btw…
Good luck with your holiday baking! And if at first you don't succeed, try again! Or, just make a huge batch of the cinnamon sugar pretzels. Seriously-they taste like what I think I remember Teddy Grahams tasted like!
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