Holiday Treats

 

We all know how difficult the holidays can be when you have dietary restrictions especially when you discover your allergies later in life and develop cravings for foods that you no longer can eat. I discovered my allergies when I was 16 years almost 17 and grew up eating just about everything including my mom's German Christmas Cookies such as Butter Cookies, Vanillekipferl, Lebkuchen, Pfeffernüsse, Spritzgebäck, and the list can go on. There are so many and not just cookies. Potato casual, apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, biscuits and gravy, hash-brown caesural. I only had these once a year. These dishes have triggered the pleasure part of my brain for so long to where I can still taste them all making it so difficult to stay away and I've been gluten and cow dairy free sense 2009.

Luckily for some of these dishes, my family and I were able to substitute the ingredients.

For others did not have to. I even found new recipes as well.

So instead of continuing on talking about foods that I can not eat, torturing myself just by writing this blog. I'm going to share some recipes with you that I grew up eating and /or have found on Pinterest that I have tried.

My mom's Christmas Cookies

I want to say there are about 10 different Christmas cookies my mom bakes every year from this little cookbook that she got when she lived in her home country Germany. We moved to the USA during the 90s and it was one of the things we brought with us. As my sister and I went to school, we made little bags of cookies to give to our teachers. Now that my sister and I are older we bake them ourselves. Three of these cookies are already, what my family calls Lena safe, meaning gluten-free and dairy free. They are three different types of macaroons: Wespennester, Coconut Macaroons, and Almond macaroons. The base of macaroons is just egg whites and sugar mixed together. No flour or milk is needed. I found these on Pinterest. The link for them is below. 

Simple almond macaroons

Quickly prepared and super delicious. The almond macaroons taste like marzipan and are a perfect complement to my recipes with egg yolk with only 5 ingredients.

Ingredients

• 300gground almonds

• 7drops bitter almond flavor

• 300gsugar

• 2pcegg white

• 1pinch of salt

• 1handfulof almonds to decorate

Instructions

• Mix the ground almonds well with the bitter almond oil and sugar in a bowl.

• Now beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff and mix this with the almond mixture until everything is nice and moist.

• Using a teaspoon, place small piles of dough with a larger distance on a baking tray lined with baking paper and spread almond on top, pressing them lightly.

• Bake the almond macaroons in a preheated oven at 130 degrees top/bottom heat for about 30 minutes

Simple almond macaroons - mega delicious with only 5 ingredients - Einfach Malene

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites

• 3cups sweetened shredded coconut

• ½ cup granulated sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper

3. In a bowl, whisk the egg whites until frothy

4. Add the sugar and mix

5. Add the coconut and mix with a spoon

6. Using a small ice cream scoop (or rounded spoon), place mounds of cookie dough onto the cookie sheet

7. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until browned on top

8. Let them cool before eating

9. Enjoy!

   3 Ingredient Coconut Macaroons - Living Sweet Moments

You can also dip the Coconut Macaroons into Dark Chocolate (do double check the ingredients. Some companies like to add milk even though it's not needed.)

Wespennester

• 3 egg whites

• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (optional)

• 250 g sugar

• 3/4 tsp vanilla

• 125 g unsweetened chocolate, ground

• 250 g almonds

Preheat oven to 140 degrees C

Slivered almonds are fine as is. Sliced almonds can be lightly crushed (not ground) with your hands. Whole almonds should be coarsely (not finely!) ground.

Start whipping the egg whites and cream of tartar on low speed, increasing mixer speed to high as the whites become increasingly foamy. When the whites are stiff but not dry, add the vanilla, and start slowly adding the sugar, about 2 - 3 Tbs at a time. Continue beating on high speed with a minute between additions. Stop beating after all the sugar is incorporated and the whites are stiff and glossy.

Gently fold in the ground chocolate and almonds.

Line three baking sheets with parchment or re-usable non-stick liner. Using two teaspoons (and German teaspoons are very, very small), drop small mounds of dough; each mound should be 3 cm - 4 cm across.

Bake each sheet 25 minutes. Cookies should be crisp and not chewy.

Wespennester: Cookies: Christmas Baking with SusieJ (christmas-baking.com)

Oh the richness of the chocolate, flakiness of the coconut, and the smooth woodsy crunch of the almond. My mouth waters as I'm typing this.

Another is the Marzipan Clouds that I have never came across before until now. I'm adding this one to the list because why not. One more never hurts. Plus I'm always looking to try new things and want to add this to my baking bucket list. If only I can find some Marzipan. A lot of cookies can be difficult to back due to certain ingredients being difficult to find in the USA. You can find Marzipan in the World Market.

Marzipan is a mixture of: almond mill, honey, egg white, sugar, and almond extract.

Marzipan Clouds

Super delicious marzipan biscuits. Simple delicious marzipan biscuits with only 4 ingredients.

The marzipan clouds can also be prepared with the Thermomix.

 Portions10pieces

Ingredients

• 200gmarzipan paste

• 1egg only the egg white

• 50g icing sugar

• 70gsliced almonds

Instructions

With Thermomix

• Add the marzipan in pieces to the blender jar. Separate the egg and add the egg whites and icing sugar to the mixing pot. Mix for 20 seconds/level 4. Pour the sticky marzipan mixture into a bowl with a dough scraper.

Without Thermomix

• Finely chop or slice the marzipan. Put the egg whites with the icing sugar and the marzipan pieces in a mixing bowl and mix with the hand mixer until an even mass is formed. Put the sticky marzipan mixture in a bowl with a dough scraper.

Continue with/without Thermomix

• Moisten hands with water and form small balls (about walnut size) from the mixture. Roll these in the almonds and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

  Bake in a preheated oven at 150 degrees top/bottom heat for 20 minutes until a light brown is achieved.

When the marzipan clouds have cooled completely, dust them with icing sugar and store them well packed in a biscuit tin.

Delicious marzipan clouds with only 4 ingredients (also for the Thermomix) (einfachmalene.de)

Call me a chocoholic!, because I am. To the addition is one that one of my Aunts found as I was visiting her. Amish Chocoholic No bake cookies are very rich in flavor. Most definitely filling, so eat them slowly. The only thing you need to look out for is the butter. Your probably wondering why I'm showing you a recipe that calls for butter. To be honest when I first discovered my allergies I would be wondering the same thing. But hears the thing... Today there are many different ways to substitute butter such as Ghee which is real butter just with out the casiene which is the protein that a lot of people on the spectrum are allergic to. There are also plant based buttery spreads that work just as well. Also for the milk you can use: almond milk, oat milk, and coconut milk as substitutes easily.

CHOCOLATE NO-BAKE COOKIES by NancyC, very slightly adapted from FoodNetwork.com

https://www.bigoven.com

Makes 50 to 60 cookies, depending on size

• 2 cups granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup milk (almond milk, oat milk, and coconut milk as substitutes)

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter (or substitute unsalted butter and add a dash of salt)(use ghee or plant based butter spreads for dairy free)

• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

• 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter

• 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or wax paper; set aside.

In a medium size saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa, and stirring occasionally, bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute; remove from heat. Add in the peanut butter, vanilla, salt, and oats; stir to combine.

Drop rounded 1/2 Tablespoonfuls (or rounded teaspoonfuls for smaller cookies) of the mixture onto prepared baking sheets and let cool for 45 to 60 minutes. Store refrigerated, in an airtight container, for up to 5 days.

Technically you can bake any recipe by substituting some of the ingredients for something else such as gluten-free flour instead of regular flour, or ghee instead of butter. I would honestly bake every day if it was that easy. Unfortunately, it is not easy at all. Gluten is what helps hold everything together and rise. Taking this out it will cause your baked goods to become dense, and or crumble.

Unless you are so passionate about baking to where you bleed flour and sugar you can easily find yourself overwhelmed with finding ways to bake a cookie and no one wants that stress, especially over the holidays.

Every one of these except for the Marzipan Clouds I have made myself and have turned out great. I do plan to share more recipes that I have found and made that are fantastic. But for now, I'm just going to leave it with these 5 cookies and hope they will sweeten up your holidays a little and make it less challenging to avoid other holiday treats.