“Not Too Ginger” Gingerbread Cookies

The secret ingredient in these cookies is the cinnamon. I love gingerbread cookies but sometimes the ginger taste is a bit strong for our family so I add some cinnamon to the recipe which seems to work very well with this recipe. Other kids must agree because I have made these cookies for lots of school Christmas parties and all the kids love them.

Cookies:

½ C Non-dairy margarine

½ C Granulated Sugar

½ tsp. Egg Replacer + 2 T warm water

¼ C Light Molasses

2 ¼ C All-purpose Flour

¾ tsp. Baking Powder

1 T. Ground Ginger

2 T. Ground Cinnamon

Decoration:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons rice milk

2 teaspoons light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the egg replacer and water and set aside. In a mixer, beat the margarine and sugar together until creamy. Beat in the mixed egg replacer and molasses. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon in a bowl. Slowly add to the creamy mixture. Divide the dough in half and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough into ¼ inch thickness. Using a cookie cutter, cut out your Gingerbread shape and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Don’t forget to roll together any extra scraps for more cookies.

Bake cookies for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Mix powdered sugar, rice milk, corn syrup and the vanilla extract together and spread on cookies. Add food coloring to make different colors and decorate as you like.  Anyone want the cyclops gingerbread man?

Snowball Cookies

As I am writing this post, we are watching one of our favorite movies, ELF. I have been thinking of
this movie ever since we made our Snowball Cookies the other day. When ever I think about snowballs I think the ultimate snowball fight scene from the movie, Elf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbQZ8GK2usU

Growing up I had a number of snowball fights with my brother and the other neighbors. For some reason, my brothers and there friends were always ganging up on me. Back then I could have used a buddy like Buddy.

I love this picture because these Snowball cookies look just like real snowballs ready for their next fight. Most Snowball Cookie recipes have almonds in them but I did find one recipe without nuts from The Food Allergy Mama for her Russian Teacake recipe. These are pretty good but I did have trouble getting them to clump together so I added 2 T of rice milk to the mixture. It did change the texture and the taste a bit but I found that I liked them better because they were not dry like some other recipes. These cookies didn't last long in our house so I guess that is a YES vote for us!

DAIRY, EGG AND NUT FREE SNOWBALL COOKIES

1 c.    Dairy free margarine

½ c. Powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla

2 ¼ c. All purpose flour

¼ tsp. Salt
2 T.  Rice milk

1 c.   Powdered sugar (for rolling)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. This is important so the bottoms don't get burned.

Using a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment combine margarine, powdered sugar and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Stir in flour and salt until dough comes together into a pliable ball. Add rice milk, one tablespoon at a time if you the dough is not sticking or of you like them a bit more moist.

Shape dough into one inch balls and place onto prepared baking sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. While the cookies are still warm but cool enough to handle roll in powdered sugar. Now for the final step, cool completely and roll in sugar to top it off. 

Snoopy for the Holidays

One of our favorite Christmas movies is A Charlie Brown Christmas so it was so much fun that the first Christmas movie of the season we watched as a family was this movie. What's not to like with the cast of characters including the miss-understood Charlie Brown, the snarky Lucy and his trouble-making dog, Snoopy. So with our recent "blanket of white" and the holiday inspiration from Charles Schultz, Katie and a friend have created their very own Snoopy holiday decoration.

Now all we need are the holiday lights! They did such a great job that I have the urge to make one of our favorite holiday desserts, the every easy Snowball Cookies. Stay tuned for the recipe.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

A friend decided to have a Thanksgiving holiday party this year and asked us to bring something festive. Since I love ANYTHNG pumpkin and I love cookies this recipe was the perfect fit. This is adapted from Happy to be a Tableof  Two. I used Wholesome’s Fair Trade Natural Cane Sugar instead of the evaporated cane juice used. I love the texture this sugar gives cookies.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
Cookies:
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine or Earth Balance, at room temperature
1 cup Wholesome’s Natural Cane Sugar of evaporated cane juice
½ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree
1 flax “egg” (1 T ground flax seed + 2 T warm water)
4 tsp vanilla extract

Topping:
½ cup evaporated cane juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
Pinch of allspice

To start, make your flax “egg” and set aside at least 10 minutes to thicken. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In an electric mixer, beat together the non-dairy margarine, cane sugar and light brown sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Blend in the pumpkin puree. Beat in the flax “egg” and vanilla until incorporated. Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Combine the sugar and spices for the coating in a bowl and mix to blend. Scoop the dough and roll into a ball. Coat the dough ball in the sugar-spice mixture and place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough to fill the sheets, spacing the dough balls 2-3 inches apart. Dip the bottom of a flat, heavy-bottomed drinking glass in water, then in the sugar-spice mixture, and use the bottom to flatten the dough balls slightly. Recoat the bottom of the glass in the sugar-spice mixture as needed. I love this trick.

Bake the cookies for 11 minutes, or until just set and baked through. Let cool and transfer to a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining dough.

These cookies got rave reviews from all! Make some today!

EOS Lip Balm Is Hot

It seems like every year there is a new product that every tween and teen MUST HAVE! So when my teen approached me the other day to ask for the latest, coolest thing that every girl in school has to have, I tried not to groan. I must not have tried very hard because one escaped anyway. This latest craze is the new eos Lip Balm by Evolution of Smooth.

The eos Lip Balm comes in a round, plastic container that twists off to reveal the actual lip balm in the same round shape as the container. Cool! It comes in many different flavors including Blueberry Acai, Sweet Mint, Strawberry Sorbet and Pomegranate Raspberry. Yummy! It’s also 100% natural and 95% organic (not sure which ingredient isn’t organic), paraben and petrolatum free. Bonus! At $3.29, this lip balm wouldn’t break the bank so I went ahead and bought the Pomegranate Raspberry flavor because it was a cute color and I thought the flavor sounded great. Good marketing!

What can I say; I’m a sucker for cool products! As I am writing this post, I have twisted the top off and smelled the lip balm at least a half a dozen times. These people have totally sucked me in, they are ingenious! I put it on my teen’s bed and waited to hear her excitement. I didn’t have to wait long. My teen was so excited she could barely contain herself.

That is, until she looked at the ingredients. “Is Shea Butter okay for me?” Drats! In all my excitement, I forgot to look at the ingredients closely. I knew Shea Butter was probably one of those ingredients on her NO-NO list but I was having a hard time remembering whether it was a dairy, egg or nut product. Shea Butter is a fatty substance derived from the Shea Tree. FAAN and the FDA classify Shea as a tree nut even though there have been no documented allergic reactions to it. It is in the same family as coconut oil and cocoa butter.

With this in mind, we are going to have her try it on her skin for a couple of days and see if she gets a reaction. If everything appears okay, I will have her test a small amount on her lips, while she is at home, so I can watch her. Hopefully, she will be able to share in the same excitement her friends have with this latest fad. If not, my teen has talked about creating her own lip balm. Maybe she’ll start her own fad!

President Signs Epinephrine Bill

Last week President Obama signed into law the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act. This is the first federal law encouraging schools to stock epinephrine for use in allergic emergencies. This is because of a two year campaign by the FARE organization. With this law financial incentives are given to the states to encourage schools to keep lifesaving epinephrine on hand and ensure school personnel are trained on how to use them.

Right now, 30 states currently have laws or guidelines allowing schools to stock epinephrine for anaphylactic emergencies. Only four states (Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada and Virginia) currently require this practice. During the signing ceremony, President Obama revealed that his daughter Malia, age 15, has a peanut allergy.

This Act is important because many students who may need epinephrine may have no known history of an allergy and would not have a prescription of their own.

Apple Cinnamon Donuts (Dairy, Egg, Nut Free)

As I mentioned in my last post, we drove out to Jonamac Farms, 45 minutes west, for some apple picking, pumpkin picking and a real Amazing Race adventure in their corn maze. On our way out, we made our usual stop to their store to buy their warm apple cinnamon donuts. The smell of these warm donuts is so strong that it took all of our willpower to wait until heading home before sinking our teeth into them. We always feel sad because Katie can never have any because of her allergies so I felt that this was the year we were going to make our own apple cinnamon donuts.

I found this recipe on the Food Allergy Mama’s website http://www.foodallergymama.com/2009/02/25/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-apple-cinnamon-doughnuts/. I’ve made baked donuts before but we wanted to try frying them. Yikes, I was a bit nervous having never fried in oil before. Frying them was a bit tricky and it took us about four donuts before we started getting the hang of it.  

Apple Cinnamon Donuts (Dairy, Egg, Nut Free)

4 ¾ C  Unbleached All Purpose Flour

3 ½ tsp. Baking Powder

½ tsp. Salt

1 tsp.  Cinnamon

½ tsp. Nutmeg

¾ C    Unsweetened Applesauce

2 tsp.  Vanilla

¾ C    Granulated Sugar

3 T     Dairy Free Margarine, Melted

1 C     Soy or Rice Milk

Vegetable Oil for Frying

Cinnamon Sugar for Topping:

½ C Granulated Sugar

2 tsp. Cinnamon

Makes 12 doughnuts and 12 donut holes

In a mixer, combine applesauce, vanilla and sugar. Add melted margarine and mix well. In a separate medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add flour mix and non-dairy mix to margarine mix, alternately. Add more flour if needed to make the dough smooth but not too sticky.

In a large, heavy pot, heat 2-3 inches of vegetable oil until the candy thermometer reaches 375 degrees.

In the meantime, transfer dough to a lightly floured board. Knead and roll out to a ½ inch thickness.

Dip doughnut cutter into flour and cut into dough. Remove trimmings and re-roll. Repeat the process.

Slide a few doughnuts carefully in oil. You do not want to crowd the pot. 

Fry until the doughnuts rise to the surface, about 2 minutes, then turn over with metal tongs to fry over the other side. Doughnuts should be golden brown. Lift out with metal thongs and drain on paper towels.

Place cinnamon sugar mixture in brown paper bag. Place warm doughnuts, one at a time in the brown bag and shake. Shake off excess sugar. Enjoy, they are best warm! Even Gumby enjoyed them!