Eat Well: Happy (Gluten Free) Holidays!

The following post was written by my mom, WWW. Thanks, mom!

A couple of months ago, I called David, our gingerbread engineer extraordinaire, and told him that we need to put our heads together to come up with a gluten free gingerbread recipe for our beloved house. (Last year I posted about this favorite Christmas tradition and you can read about it here.)

“I’m already on it,” he assured me. “I’ll try it out on my friends at Thanksgiving to make sure it works.” I sighed with relief, thankful that I could cross this task off of my “things to do” list because this is the exact kind of problem that wakes me up at 5 am lately.

“Oh and something else,” I added. “Archer has requested a Dubai gingerbread house...”

A couple of days after Thanksgiving, I opened my inbox to find David’s recipe. Not only had he made gingerbread men for all of his guests at Thanksgiving, but he had also made a gingerbread house.

“It was delicious,” he wrote.

And yesterday, while babies were being fed and rocked by aunties and friends and the house was filled with the joy of being together, David sat at his computer, creating a plan on google sketch of the gingerbread house that will be. The Dubai gingerbread house with the “tallest skyscraper in the world.” This year there will be new little faces in the kitchen, the recipe will be modified to weather the new health needs of our family and tomorrow, Hal will arrive to make our family complete, just in time to create our yearly masterpiece.

making candy

For all of you gluten free people, see below. (For non gluten-free recipe go here.)

David’s Gluten Free gingerbread

(for a large gingerbread house)

2 ⅔ cup packed dark brown sugar

1 ⅓ cup (gluten free) molasses

2 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 tbsp ground ginger ½ tsp ground cloves

3 sticks butter

2 tbsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla

3 cup potato starch 2 cup tapioca starch 2 cup sorghum flour 2 cup brown rice flour

1 ½ cup almond flour

1 cup millet flour

2 tbsp +2 tsp xantham

4 pinches salt

4 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350. In a heavy-based pan over low heat, dissolve the sugar with the molasses, spices, and butter. Slowly and carefully bring the mixture to a boil, cool it to room temperature, then mix in the baking powder.

Place the flour in a LARGE bowl with a pinch of salt and make a well in the center. Pour in the cooled syrup mixture and the egg, and stir from the center to incorporate the flour.
Knead the dough in the bowl until smooth and flour is completely incorporated:

Split in half and roll it in the pans until it is uniform thickness and completely filling the pans.
Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Lay templates on the warm gingerbread and cut around them with a knife.

***

And here’s some more family cooking fun….my friend, Martha who is the cookie maven of Encinitas, sent me this recipe for reindeer cookies. We had so much fun making these as a family. Fable decided after making three reindeer that she would, instead, like to make an owl—which was awesome beyond belief. Archer, inspired by Fable’s lead, created a stoplight and a car.

We used the Whole Foods peanut butter cookie recipe because it's gluten free, but you can use any peanut butter or gingerbread cookie dough, even those bought at the store.

Reindeer Cookies

20 oz peanut butter cookie dough

60 2” gluten-free pretzel twists

60 chocolate chips

30 m&ms

Freeze dough for 15 minutes. Cut into 30 ¼” slices. Place 4” apart on prepared cookie sheet (parchment paper on pans works great). Pinch 2/3 way down to make reindeer face. Press in pretzels for antlers. Press in chocolate chips for eyes and M&M’s for nose.

Bake at 350 for 9 – 11 minutes. Let sit on cookie sheet until peanut butter cookies set and then cool on wire racks.

Makes 30 cookies.

Happy Holidays!

Love,

WWW