I have a best friend. On here I call her Muffin.
Muffin has a history with illness; a much more storied, dangerous, and exacting one than mine. Our friendship began when our bodies were strong and our spirits unstoppable. We’re so thankful now that we were reckless, and lived dangerously and fully back then. Now we’re so careful, so precise, and so used to premeditating physical complications and energy black holes. This recipe is from her, and for her.
Gluten-Free, Milk-Free Gingerbread
Years ago I inherited a gingerbread recipe that sent my taste-buds flying. It was a dear friend’s mom’s, and I remember the first time I made it for a group of friends. Back then, I was relatively unfamiliar with basic cake techniques, and the idea of “starting and ending with dry” seemed practically scientific.
The cake got raves. But after that first time, I couldn’t eat it. My milk allergies had gotten worse.
Fast forward ten years later and I made the recipe my own. I think actual ginger-bread is too often overlooked in favor of its cookie-d cousins. Which, trust me, I enjoy thoroughly. But there’s something so homey and warm and New England holiday about it that I particularly love.
Substitution ingredients are below, but this blend of ingredients produced a moist, perfectly sweet, highly-spiced cake that I ate way too much of as soon as it was cool enough to slice.
Notes: I used butter, but not milk, substituting with unsweetened almond milk. To make completely dairy-free, substitute the melted butter with melted butter-flavored Earth Balance. You can use regular all-purpose flour (2 cups) if you don’t have gluten problems, or substitute with a gluten-free mix of your own. I use less xanthan gum in this recipe than you might expect – if you want to omit completely, just add 1 Tbsp of flax meal.
Another time I made this recipe I used 1 cup white rice, 1/2 cup tapioca, 1/2 cup sorghum and 1/4 cup millet and it worked well too!
Top with unsweetened coconut milk whipped cream for a special holiday treat!
Decorate with sifted powdered sugar and whipped cream (either cow cream or coconut milk are delish!)
Honeybun Ice Cream with Fruit Compote and Macarons
This dessert is incredibly happy-making. Honeybun ice cream made with coconut milk, topped with stewed fruit and a French macaron – divine. It was the perfect conclusion to my FoodBuzz 24×24 Scarborough Fair Summer Supper Party. Laced with lavender honey and infused with spearmint, it’s both sweet and refreshing at the same time.
Oh, and why is it named Hurricane Irene Erosion? Because my lavish summer supper party poolside in Connecticut became a rainy dinner for seven in my apartment in NYC because of the impending doom of Irene that – gasp! – dropped a twig on my car. Check out the post on the party.
The ice cream itself is incredibly creamy, silky smooth and just-sweet enough without being overbearing. It’s made with a base of egg yolks and coconut milk tempered together to make a rich custard. Sweetened only with honey and vanilla, it’s a healthy version of the classic for those of us with milk allergies.
The photos don’t quite do it justice – let’s just say if you make it you won’t be disappointed.
Oh, and the entire recipe is gluten and dairy free.
I’m not going to put a macaron recipe up here – they’re not easy to make. This was my first successful attempt after 5 failed tries. It took my interviewing Jill Colonna of Mad About Macarons and a pastry class at Dessert Truck Works to get it right. So I’ll let you explore those options if you want to tackle macarons, or suggest my Rosewater Lavender Shortbread.
I used a pint of black plums and two ripe peaches. I simply stewed them with a teaspoon of gelatin over medium heat until they boiled down a bit, then cooled them to gel. When completely cool, I stirred in two tablespoons of fresh spearmint.
Did I stay in nights this weekend to make cookies and coffee ice cream? Yes, yes I did, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Nor am I ashamed to admit that I ate the piece of ice cream pie in the photo above as I started typing this entry – at 11am on a Sunday morning. And another one later at night while watching True Blood.
I have no shame because this dessert – coconut milk coffee ice cream in a molasses cookie crust – is one of the most insanely delicious things I’ve ever made. And it happens to be gluten-free, dairy-free and sweetened only with date sugar, molasses, maple syrup and honey.
Other than watching movies and walking miles on end, this weekend was devoted to a BURWELL GENERAL STORE VINTAGE RECIPE SWAP! Yep, it’s that time again, when a group of twenty or so bloggers get sent an old recipe that we each have to adapt, changing at least 3 things about the ingredients or process. This month is an already gluten-free molasses cookie!
Please check out the other swappers!! It’s always incredible to see how a talented group of inspiring chefs take one idea and run with it. Details and links are below the recipe.
So, I actually didn’t really want to alter much of the recipe, as it looked simple and delicious. I just changed the combination of flour and used date sugar instead of white sugar and a little maple syrup, bourbon vanilla and cocoa powder to add even more depth.
The result? These cookies taste incredible! Soft, almost cake-like, and you can taste everything in them: the molasses, cocoa, vanilla, maple syrup and coffee.
But my version looked horrible. Puffy, no spreading, rough. I told my roommate they too closely resembled deer turds. So I needed to take them a step further. What to do with delicious but ugly cookies?
PIE CRUST!! And what better to put into the pie crust than coffee ice cream?!?!
So I followed the recipe in Simply Gluten and Sugar Free, using honey as a sweetener and maple syrup instead of Stevia. An overnight chill and 20 minutes in my ice cream maker, and voila! One of the best desserts I’ve ever made and a new favorite.
I’ve been chomping down too many of these cookies this weekend. And ate that pie with a huge pot of tea made with leaves my friend Jonathan gave to me from a monastery in China. It think it’s time to get my Physique 57 on and then walk the 8 miles to my yoga studio. So while I go do that, I leave you…
To make into an ice-cream pie, simply crush about 16 of the cookies in a food processor and press into a shallow pie plate. Place in the freezer to harden while you either process your ice cream or melt some store-bought ice cream to pour in. I made and LOVED the recipe posted on Simply Gluten and Sugar Free.
Jaclyn is a writer, baker, perpetual daydreamer and the author of the cooking and baking blog Food+Words. She has a degree in Creative Writing and is currently studying Baking and Pastry at Le Cordon Bleu. Jaclyn loves poring through old cookbooks she inherited from her grandmother and reinterpreting those recipes with modern, updated twists. Jaclyn has a panchant for baking, laughter, a nice glass of Riesling and anything lemony.
Alli is a research nutritionist by day, transforming into a creative cook by night. She lives in Seattle and scours through her piles of cookbooks, magazines and restaurant experiences for easy ways to transform recipes into healthy and flavorful dishes.
Rachel Saunders is the owner of Blue Chair Fruit and author of The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook. She produces all of her jams and teaches classes from her space in Oakland, California.
Lana is a native of Serbia, who has finally found her home in Southern California, after living for ten years in Michigan and ten years in Ohio. She is mother of three girls and wife to a token household male. her blog is a place where the love for words meets the love for food, a place where family and friends, old and new, gather around the virtual kitchen to reminisce, laugh and cry.
Emily thinks that no matter what it is, all foods taste better when made with love. From growing up in North Carolina with a Palestinian father with a passion for food and an American mother who really did not, to being the holiday sous chef to her real-chef brother, to moving to Brooklyn, the love of a good meal pumps through her veins. From her CSA to nostalgic junk food cravings, from the food truck to the fine dining scene, kitchen inspiration is around every corner.
Alex: I live in Seattle and while I have a typical desk job, my heart is in my home, baking, cooking and eating! I love reading about what other people are creating, so I decided to share my own creations. My blog is about food, but also things that I generally love in life. Since I love eating, I also have a huge love of fitness…so I can eat more!
Shumaila: After I got married in March, 2010, and shifter to a town where take-aways and restaurants are next to none, I started cooking for the first time in my life. I have always loved baking, but cooking to me was completely new. I started experimenting with recipes for my husband and myself and found blogging the perfect way to keep track of things in the kitchen and also a way to document my first year of marriage. Being Indian, I also started a weekly blog posting “Garam Masala Tuesdays” to try, to the best of my knowledge, to explain the Indian recipes I try at home. I blog from Arizona, USA.
Ginger Molasses Cookies with Blueberry Ginger Lime Jam
I love the food-blogging community. For the past few months I’ve been taking part in a Vintage Recipe Swap with Burwell General Store. We’re sent a recipe and have to alter at least three things about it, then blog our creations on the same day. I am always incredibly impressed with what the other bloggers post. They’re truly inspiring, culinary masters that I have so much to learn from. Please check out their sites (links at the bottom of this post).
This month’s swap is a Jelly Cake. Check it out:
After my disappointment with last month’s Baked Potato Cakes I knew I wanted to make something decadent this month. Something that would take some planning and patience and love.
This recipe is wonderfully simple in theory – two cakes sandwiched with jelly. And I loved that the second cake was spicy with cinnamon, cloves and allspice.
So I decided to make only a slight variation on this classic idea with an easy blueberry jam nested in the middle of gluten-free ginger molasses cookies. I love how versatile and mobile cookies are. And while lying in bed, sleepless, one night, I thought how I could try the jam between two round cookies and also try it with the raw dough pocketing it before baking, much like an Italian or Polish pastry cookie.
It took three days in short bursts to make this recipe, which actually made it more relaxing of a process. One morning I made the Blueberry Ginger Lime Jam. I loved the fresh, organic blueberries I found at the market and figured I’d spice them up with a bit of ginger and fresh lime juice and zest. I also made a smoky blueberry sauce with paprika that I then made into a martini. Delish.
Smoky Blueberry Martini
The second day I made the cookie dough, then stuck it in the fridge and rolled and baked the next morning. Fully refrigerating dough is a crucial step when making cutout cookies, especially when they’re gluten-free, in order to keep a clean shape and consistent texture. In my earlier days I thought I could get around a few steps and still have incredible cookies. Now I know that refrigerating dough, using parchment paper, keeping my gluten-free flours cool and rolling evenly are important keys to mastering this.
The result is a rich, spicy ginger cookie sweetly flavored with dark molasses. Making them into pocket cookies yields a softer, pastry-like cookie, whereas the rounds have the perfect amount of gingery jam between. They have a soft mouth feel, and hit you in two stages – first the spicy ginger cookie, and then the rich jam. I love them. Love love love.
Note: In this recipe I’ve measured out my preferred gluten-free flours and added some flax seed meal for fiber (it also helps baked goods gel a little bit more too). All that’s important is that you have three cuts of gluten-free flour. I recommend keeping your flours in the fridge as they stay fresher longer – it also helps when making a pastry like a cookie that needs to stay tight. I also usually refrain from mixes that are high in potato flour or starch and only use one kind of flour – usually white rice. Check out my gluten-free flour blends page for more ideas.
Another note: I used two types of molasses and maple syrup because I had small amounts of each and like using what you’ve got instead of purchasing excess. Just make sure you have 3/4 a cup of molasses.
Buen provecho!
Sandwich and Pocket cookies
Store in an airtight container (preferably in the refrigerator) until ready to serve. Alternatively, you can cut squares of dough, fill with jam, and make pocket cookies. These will be a little softer and cake-like.
Jam-filled sandwich cookies
Blueberry Ginger Lime Jam and Smoky Blueberry Sauce with the cookies
Nutritional breakdown from Cook, Eat, Share
Gluten-free Ebelskivers!
For some reason listening to Nina Simone seemed appropriate when making Ebelskivers alone in my apartment last week. Being that Nina is neither from Denmark nor filled with jam, I don’t know why this was so. Maybe sweet cinnamon, sugar and molasses made me think both of the blues and pancakes?? Or strong coffee and whiskey? Mine is not to reason why… just to bake and sway slowly and enjoy. Which I did.
My friend Abigail loaned me her cast-iron pan for these little treats recently, and I had a feeling “waiting” for a brunch crowd was going to test my patience too far. So these got simply rolled in cinnamon and sugar and were served atop whipped cream with chocolate macaron shells, hazelnut cookies and cherry compote at a dinner party I attended later in the evening. I should have taken pictures of the whole caboodle, but let’s just say a few bottles of Prosecco had made their way around the room by the time dessert was plated.
Abigail also gave me her recipe, which is a basic pancake recipe but where the smart (and culinary-school trained) lady specifies separating the egg whites and yolks and beats the whites to stiff peaks, giving the pancakes a lot more lift and chew.
I simply adapted by using my gluten-free cake flour blend and changed / added a bit here and there. And I learned from a few floppy results how to get the pancakes as round and fluffy as possible!
Now, I simply tossed mine in cinnamon and sugar and they were divine. On a more ambitious day (or when trying to impress an overnight guest who’s daring to stay for brunch) I might put a drop of jam or lemon curd into the center. Ooh, or dark chocolate (for them, not me).
I found the result to be a lovingly fluffy, chewy pancake, rather neutral in flavor as one must be. Mixing some ground flax seed and diced ginger might be delightful. Hmm… now I’m hungry.
Round and fluffy and delicious
Chunky Carob Cake
There are few names I’d put on my “soul-mate” list. Nina Simone. William Shakespeare. James McAvoy (did you SEE X-Men First Class? Totally redeemed the franchise from Wolverine and washed the bad taste of Bridesmaids out of my mouth).
In all seriousness, while I am surrounded by so many loving, special people, I am particularly grateful for my dear friend Lyndsey – a soul-mate if there ever was one. We met through my college boyfriend over a dozen years ago, and aside from the many things we naturally had in common, we shared a history of chronic illness. There’s no way I could summarize our friendship – but let’s just say we’ve been an ear, a shoulder, a hug, the voice on the other end of the phone that won’t hang up… I don’t know where I’d be without this woman.
So on my quick days off I scooted my little blue car down to DC to visit her and her husband, two of my favorite people in the whole world!
Lyndsey is still suffering greatly from her illness and deep digestive problems, and her diet completely eliminates grains, sugar, chocolate, fruit, any sweeteners, caffeine, alcohol, certain meats and fishes, fried foods, certain vegetables and is pretty much devoid of any sweet indulgences. I lived like that for several years but never as long as she, and don’t know how she hasn’t gone ballistic on a grocery store or restaurant by now.
But carob! Oh, yes, Lyndsey can have carob!
So the other morning she showed me how to make her “Chunky Cake”.
This cake is chocolate-free, sugar-free, grain-free / flourless, oiless, nut-free, low-carb, high-fiber, low-glycemic. Really. It does have ghee (clarified butter) so it’s not dairy free completely, but you can easily substitute with coconut oil or a fat of your choice.
And it’s incredibly easy – all ingredients mixed in a bowl and poured in a pan!
I was amazed at how light and airy the carob cake came out, while still packing a delicious aroma. I’m going to have some fun experimenting with the recipe at home, using coconut products, tucking the batter around almond butter, soaking vanilla beans in almond milk. But for now, here’s the original recipe. Enjoy!
Moist and light Chunky Carob cake
Lemon Poppy Cookies
This is another version of buttery shortbread cookies I’ve adapted from the Rosewater Lavender Shortbread that went over very well at an event last weekend. I altered the recipe just a tiny bit – adding fresh lemon juice and poppy seeds and altering the amount of flour, as well as used arrowroot starch instead of cornstarch, which I didn’t have in my apartment (SO nice to be baking in my kitchen again).
These cookies are incredibly easy and only require a few ingredients. They’re delicate with a buttery crumb, a nice tang and a sweet finish.
Lemon Poppy Butter Cookies
Makes 36 medium cookies.
Notes: This recipe can easily be made gluten free by substituting the flour and arrowroot with a gluten-free proportion of 1 cup white rice flour, 1/2 cup quinoa flour, 1/2 cup arrowroot, 2 Tbsp tapioca starch and 2 tsp xanthan gum. This is the mix I have on hand for cookies, making enough for several recipes at once.
When traveling to perform, I get to glimpse into the lives and the vibes of different homes and cities. I’m currently performing in The Enchanted April at the Hampton Theatre Company and living in the director and producer’s peaceful, beautiful house right on the bay. It’s filled with plants and artwork from all over the world. I take their dog, Mia, on morning walks past fields of flowers and houses with perfectly manicured laws. From my attic suite (which makes me feel a little Louisa May Alcott as I write and draw), I can see water. When I open the window, the scent of flowers fills the rooms.
I feel extremely fulfilled from working with this character and this incredible cast, who have been so warm in welcoming me into their lives. And with some time to spare during the day (with rehearsals coming to a close), I’m baking some cookies for concessions. I couldn’t quite put a gluten-free, allergy-friendly cookie out there (both to limit costs and appeal to the appetite of this particular audience), but knew my contribution had to be something special.
The show is about four women who escape from their troubles in rainy London to a castle in Italy, where “in April it is simply a mass of flowers” as “bushels and bushels of wisteria” flank the terraces. Eventually, they all find their happy endings, their hearts warmed by the Italian sunshine, the “unusually fresh” sea air and facing their demons amongst the company of strangers who soon become friends.
So my contribution is a traditional English shortbread cookie, laced with rosewater and dried lavender. Simple ingredients, a little time and patience, and a beautiful, garden-scented result.
Rosewater Lavender Shortbread
Notes: I made two sizes (one to sell and smaller ones with the extra dough). Other than rolling the smaller size a bit thinner and baking for a shorter amount of time, they came out with equally beautiful results. The pictures above are of the larger ones that I brushed with egg white before sanding with sugar. The picture below shows the smaller cookies that weren’t brushed. To keep with the traditional sheen of a shortbread, I think from now on I will not egg wash the cookies before baking.
Smaller version of Rosewater Lavender Shortbread
Cookies of my boyfriend's face! And gluten-free!
What’s better than flanking a birthday cake with cutout cookies of the birthday boy’s face?!? Nothing! I had been worried that the cookies in reality didn’t match the brilliant ones in my head, but when my roommate walked into the kitchen and burst out laughing, I knew I had at least achieved the right effect.
This past weekend was insane: I managed to race back to Connecticut after my week of rehearsals to work in my family office, then flew to NYC and made some gluten-free cookies I’ll soon be supplying to a cafe, attended a beautiful dinner to cheers the 30 years of one of my oldest friends, ran down to cut the cake wrapped in the boyfriend’s face, danced my heart out in a club, ran down Avenue A in the rain at 4am and made it back to the Hamptons for our first run-through yesterday. Yes, I dropped a few lines in this rehearsal. But overall it was a very fulfilling weekend.
But, wait. When did I make these cookies?!
A full week ago!
A few weeks ago I made Saveur’s Classic Sugar Cookies recipe, being able to cut and ice them easily for a Jesus Christ Superstar Benefit. So I figured it was time to make them gluten-free for the festivities. But I knew I wouldn’t be in my kitchen at all this week, being out of town in a show, and so would have to make them in one precious evening in my apartment last weekend.
They worked! Rather easily and with little alterations, I used Saveur’s recipe and piped them with royal icing. Then they sat out overnight before being refrigerated for the week. Yes, they were not as fresh as they might have been. But after a soft thawing they were still firm and smooth. Honestly, the hardest part was not sharing or posting these pictures until the celebration – they made me laugh all week!
To make the sugar cookies: I used a very basic gluten-free blend that I make of 1 part quinoa flour, 1 part arrowroot starch and 2 parts white-rice flour. For each multiplication I add 2 tablespoons of tapioca starch and 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum. So, for this recipe I blended 1 cup of arrowroot, 1 cup of quinoa flour, 2 cups of white rice flour, 4 tablespoons of tapioca and 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum in a container and then shook to combine. In general I find this to be a great basic flour and keep it on hand.
I then used Saveur’s recipe to the last note, replacing equals parts of the white flour with this flour blend.
For notes and tips on making consistent, beautiful cookies with royal icing, check out my Cookies For Jesus Christ (Superstar) post.
Happy Birthday Cookies!
The Dusty Baker 