All i needed was a Gluten free Christmas cookie Baking sidekick…
My friend Abby (also known as Bristol Eating Adventures) and i took a day off to bake. We baked and sang Disney and Kate Bush to our hearts content all day and it was excellent; i thoroughly encourage you to do the same. Silliness aside, we planned to organise this bake day so that i could show Abby how to make some Gluten Free treats. So we decided to make Gluten Free Christmas cookies. One recipe of mine and one recipe of Abby’s (we adapted to Gluten Free), which features on her blog here.
For my recipe i explained to Abby that we would need to use a very fine flour which doesn’t have a strong taste as we’d need to use lots of spices which will create the distinctive Christmassy taste and Sorghum flour (Jowar flour) is exactly that. This is one of the best flours to use in sweet goods such as Ginger cakes and pancakes because it is a slightly sweet flour and allows you to reduce the amount of sugar in your recipe. Mixing sorghum with another naturally gluten free flour such as Gram flour (Chickpea flour) also puts the nutritional value up a notch.
These cookies are the essence of Christmas in my opinion. The black treacle mixed with the cinammon and ginger spices in the bowl is so comforting and gooey. As soon as you open that oven door your whole kitchen smells of Christmas time. Don’t be silly and wait till Christmas eve to make these, they are far too easy and yummy.
These cookies are perfect for icing and if you cut out a tiny hole in them before cooking you can easily hang these on the Christmas Tree. Perfect for making with the kids.
Robin Hearts (Black treacle and Cinnamon cookies)
Gluten Free and Egg Free. Makes around 20 hearts.
60ml or 3 tablespoons of Black Treacle
125g of Unsalted Butter
40g of Light brown sugar
150g of Sorghum flour (You could use regular GF plain flour- just take out the extra Xantham gum)
75g of Gram flour
½ Teaspoon Xanthan Gum
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
3 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
Grating of Nutmeg
¼ teaspoon Baking soda
1/2 teaspoon Sea salt
Extra Tapioca Flour for dusting and cutting
Caster or Granulated Sugar for sprinkling
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
In a stand mixer mix on a low speed the butter, black treacle and brown sugar until combined.
Add the sorghum flour, gram flour, ginger, cinnamon, xanthan gum, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and beat with a wooden spoon making sure the black treacle really incorporates properly.
Roll the mixture into a ball and coat with tapioca flour. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to around 1/2cm-1cm thick. Use a cutter (we used a heart one) to cut out shapes and lay them onto the lined baking tray with at least 2cm distance apart. If you want to make these as decorations cut out tiny holes around a 1/3 from the top. You may have to cook these in batches but they don’t take long to cook!
Sprinkle with caster or granulated sugar if not icing. (Optional)
Bake until the cookies look firm about 8 to 10 minutes they burn easily so keep an eye on them after 5 mins.
Take out the cookies and leave to cool on the baking sheet.
Absolutely great dunking biscuits, in particular- Rooibos tea tastes amazing with these.
Enjoy!
Check out Abby’s Stem Ginger and White Chocolate cookie recipe that we adapted to be Gluten Free on her blog here!
