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Safe Christmas and Holiday Cookies
Dec 23rd, 2010 by Alice

Clockwise from top: Gingersnaps, Star Shortbread, Powdered-Sugar Lemon, Oatmeal, Oatmeal with Craisins, and (middle) Lemon-Flower Tarts
Image ©2010 Jason Gift Enevoldsen

Cookies for the Holidays

I baked 5 batches of cookies this week. Yum!

If you think holiday baking is harder with allergies, well, I don’t think it is. What’s hard is store-bought safe food. Here are some of my favorite recipes for the holidays.

Above

Gingersnaps
Shortbread
Powdered-Sugar Lemon Cookies
Oatmeal Cookies (add craisins for festivity)
Lemon-Flower Tarts

Not Pictured

Julekake
Sugar Cookies
Joulupiparkakut – Gingerbread
Powdered-Sugar Mints (wheat free!)
Blondies
Pumpkin Bread
And don’t forget about pie with the filling of your choice

Have a safe and yummy holiday season!

Sugar Cookies
Dec 22nd, 2010 by Alice

From Debbie Gift

  • 2 Sticks Margarine or Butter of your choice
  • 1 Cup Sugar
  • ½ Tsp Baking soda
  • ½ Tsp Vinegar
  • 1 ½ Cup Flour

Directions:

Cream the margarine and sugar

Add other ingredients

Form into balls

Roll in sugar

Bake on ungreased cookie sheet

300 degrees – 30 minutes

Julekake
Dec 22nd, 2010 by Alice

From Alice Enevoldsen

Julekake
Image © 2010 Jason Gift Enevoldsen

  • 1 Cup Oat Milk or Milk of your choice.
  • ½ Cup Sugar
  • ¼ Cup Lard and Oil or butter substitute of your choice
  • 1 Dash Salt
  • ¼ Cup Warm water
  • 2 packets 1 Pkg. active dry yeast (~1.5 Tbsp)
  • ¾ Tsp Cardamom
  • 3.5 Cups Flour
  • ¼ Cup Raisins
  • ¾ Cup Mixed candied fruit

New Directions:

Heat the milk until warm, but not hot – 130F max.

Mix dry American* plain yeast with 1/4 cup warm water. Add a dash of sugar or honey or something for the yeasties to eat.

Pour milk into the room-temperature mixer mixing bowl. Add fat, sugar, cardamom, salt (yes, I put salt in this time – I never do but I’ve been frustrated at this dough so I decided to follow the recipe more closely in some ways). Mix a little – your fat won’t mix in, don’t worry about it. If the yeast is foamy, add it and 2 cups of flour to the mixing bowl. Mix with dough hook until smooth. You want this dough to be as “loose” as possible, while still holding together as a dough.

Sprinkle your raisins and candied fruit with a generous dose of flour, and toss till all are coated lightly. Add these to the mixer.

Continue to add flour as you’re mixing (but wait in between to see the flour get mixed in, and see how the consistency changes while mixing) until you have dough that holds together as a lump, not sticking to the sides of the bowl too much. You should be mixing for about 7 minutes. You may well not use all the 3.5 cups of flour, but you don’t want sticky dough.

Detach all dough from dough hook, transfer to a greased (IMPORTANT) bowl, cover, and let rise in a cozy, warm place until doubled in size – about an hour. Punch down. Rise again until doubled in size – about 2 hours (IMPORTANT, but maybe you can skip this by doing your first rise for 2 hours, I’m not sure yet). Punch down. Form into round buns on a greased or non-stick baking sheet. Let rise again until half again as big – another hour. Brush liberally with oil, bake at 350F degrees for about 25 minutes. Brush with oil while still hot. Cool. Slice and eat.

I FINALLY GOT IT TO WORK! The texture was light and fluffy and AWESOME. Yay! So, the major changes were doubling the yeast, adding a second double-time rise, and rising the dough in a greased bowl.

*I think American yeast is different than Scandinavian yeast. In all these high-fat, “warm the milk”-first doughs I seem to never be able to get them to rise. I follow the recipe diligently, and where it says “doubled in size” mine always comes out 1.25 times in size. In discussions with a Danish baker, we determined that the directions on her package of yeast were quite different from the directions on mine – always calling for the dry yeast to be mixed in with the flour while still dry. The above directions are a modified version based on what we need to do with American yeast, and what I saw watching a Norwegian video about making Julekake.

This is my first attempt at using a dough hook.

We used to get these all the time at a local Scandinavian bakery. Eventually I started having minor reactions to the cross-contamination, and I wanted to share them with my more-sensitive husband. As they’re an integral part of Christmas for me, I had to learn to bake them myself.

I always struggle with not killing my yeast, and with getting them to rise enough.

Powdered Sugar Mints
Dec 22nd, 2010 by Alice

From Debbie Gift

  • 11 ¼ cups powdered sugar (yes, that’s eleven)
  • 6 tsp peppermint extract
  • Food colorings as desired
  • 2 sticks margarine or butter (softened to room temp)
  • Candy molds (seasonal shapes)
  • superfine sugar

Directions:

Blend softened margarine and 8 ½ cups powdered sugar.

Add peppermint extract and food colorings (split mixture into portions for multiple colors).

Knead in the remaining powdered sugar until consistency allows you to make a “log roll” shape or small balls without cracks.

Cut slices from the log roll, cut slices in 4 pieces, then roll into small balls. Or scoop out teaspoon sized chunks from the mixture and roll into balls.

Dip candy mold in superfine sugar and tap out excess.

Roll balls in superfine sugar, press into mold, unmold onto waxed paper.

Let dry on waxed paper until candies can be lifted without breaking.

Store in covered container.

Shortbread
Dec 22nd, 2010 by Alice

From Alice Enevoldsen

  • 1 Cup Palm Oil or Solid Fat
  • < ¼ Cup Canola Oil
  • ½ Cup White sugar
  • 2 Tsp Vanilla extract
  • 2 Cups Flour

Directions:

This recipe is a little more finicky than others. The creamed fat and sugar need to turn out just right for the cookies to turn out. Last time I made them the creamed fat and sugar looked (seriously) like beaten egg-whites – peaks and all. They turned out PERFECTLY.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

Cream both fats and sugar until fluffy. Then keep creaming them. Cream until it looks like butter and sugar creamed together. You want the sugar to be smooth, not grainy – so keep creaming. Stir in vanilla. Add flour all at once and mix only until mixed. Do not overwork the dough.

Smoosh out enough dough for one cookie and cut it in place on the cookie sheet with a cookie cutter. Before removing cutter, take extra dough from around the cutter and add it back to the rest. When you have a full sheet of cookies, chill them for 10 minutes then put them directly in the oven.

You can also put through cookie press and form cookies onto baking sheets. Do not overwork the dough.

Bake for 10 – 12 minutes. Glaze with a powdered-sugar/water or powdered-sugar/oat milk glaze.

Oatmeal Cookies
Dec 22nd, 2010 by Alice

From Debra Gift

1

  • 1 ¼ Cup Margarine or your favorite Butter substitute
  • ¾ Cup Light brown sugar
  • ½  Cups Granulated sugar
  • 2-3 Tbsp Barrel molasses
  • 3 Cups Oatmeal

2

  • 1 ½ Cups Flour
  • 1 Tsp Baking soda
  • 1 Tsp Baking powder
  • 1 Tsp Cinnamon
  • ½ Tsp Salt
  • ¼ Cup Cold water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 365 degrees F.

Mix 1 until fluffy.

Add molasses to 1.

Stir 2 together, add to 1.

Roll into 2 ½ inch rolls: cut cookies

Bake 11 minutes. If you like soft cookies bake more like 8 minutes, and store in a Ziploc bag as soon as cool.

Let cool a few minutes before removing from the cookie sheet.

Gingersnaps
Dec 22nd, 2010 by Alice

From Debra Gift

Dry

  • 2 Cups Sifted all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp Salt
  • 1 tsp Ground cloves
  • 1 tsp Ground ginger
  • 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
  • 3 tsp Baking soda
  • ½ Cup Canola oil

Wet

  • 1 Cup Sugar
  • ¼  Cup Light molasses
  • 1-2 Tbsp Water
  • Granulated sugar

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  2. Sift dry ingredients
  3. Cream wet ingredients
  4. Stir dry mixture into wet/creamed ingredients
  5. Shape dough into 1 ½ in balls.
  6. Roll balls in sugar
  7. Place on un-greased cookie sheet 3 inches apart and flatten
  8. Bake 8-10 minutes (if you want them soft, pull them out while they’re still puffy. If you want them hard wait until they deflate).
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