Weekend Cooking is a weekly feature hosted by Beth Fish Reads, linking up food-related posts. Click here for links to this week’s Weekend Cooking posts on Beth Fish Reads and other blogs.
In my last Weekend Cooking post, I mentioned that our homemade gluten-free pies and spectacular gluten-free pumpkin cheesecake from Thanksgiving would require their own post, but now it’s already past time for the gluten-free Christmas baking update, so I’m combining the two posts here. Although I wasted spent a lot of time pinning recipes to my Gluten-Free Thanksgiving and Gluten-Free Christmas boards, and although we did use some of them, these are the cookbooks we relied on most for recipes this holiday season:
From Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking we tried recipes for pie crust, apple pie with streusel topping, pumpkin cheesecake, and frosted sugar cookies. All pretty successfully. The pie crust was very easy to work with. Personally, I wasn’t crazy about the graininess of the g-f streusel topping on the Thanksgiving Day apple pie, but other people didn’t notice a problem. At Christmas, everyone said that although they were slightly more crumbly, the flavor of the frosted sugar cookies was the same as the ones we traditionally made from a Joy of Cooking recipe. Although it was gorgeous to look at, the pumpkin cheesecake was a little pumpkin-y at Thanksgiving, we thought. We froze half of it and brought it out before Christmas, and it was amazing! So, we just need to remember to make this recipe ahead and freeze it next year to give the flavors time to meld. Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking isn’t limited to baking. The General Chang’s Chicken is delicious, and can be made with chicken or tofu. We also devoured the Spinach and Cheese Quiche this week. Cookbook authors Kelli and Peter Bronski blog at No Gluten, No Problem.
From Gluten-Free Christmas Cookies, we loved the Brazilian Sugar Cookies, Caramel Pecan Bars, and Almond Pine Nut Macaroons, but did not care for the beet-like flavor of the Christmas Sugar Cookies made with amaranth flour. There are many other recipes I still want to try from this cookbook, including Cornmeal Dried Fruit Cookies, Cranberry Nut Bars, Almond Bars, and Marble Fudge Brownies.
Nosh on This will get its own review post, once I’ve had a chance to try more recipes from it.
A sample of our calorie-laden but gluten-free baking successes:
Gluten-free baking is trickier than taking a tried-and-true family favorite recipe and subbing in a gluten-free flour blend for the all-purpose white flour. We owe many thanks to Lisa Stander-Horel, co-author of Nosh on This, for adapting our traditional Christmas morning yeasted coffee roll, Maple Butter Twist, to be gluten-free. To see Lisa’s adaptation on her adaptation, check out her recipe for Maple Twisty Donuts on her and her husband Tim’s blog, Gluten-Free Canteen, where the motto is: “No Cookie, Strudel, Brownie, Pie, Cake, Tart, or Treat Left Behind.”
This maybe isn’t the best photo, but I think we ate half of it before I remembered to take a photo of a slice!
Happy Weekend Cooking!
Disclosure: A close family member works for The Experiment, publisher of Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking and Nosh on This. Both cookbooks are distributed by Workman. I purchased my own copy of Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking and received a copy of Nosh on This as a gift. I purchased my own copy of Gluten-Free Christmas Cookies, published by Cider Mill Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.
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I will be looking forward to how gluten-free brownies come out. It seems like dense, chewy bars should do well as gluten-free treats. I don’t do much baking myself, I find that aspect of cooking challenging.
Wow!!! Your baked goods look fantastic. I must get copies of those books for my GF friends. I’m so impressed.
Hi Laurie,
Whilst hubbie and I both love food and enjoy nothing better than a well presented and prepared meal, I’m afraid I don’t really cook an awful lot, so most recipe books are rather wasted on me.
I am so pleased that neither of us has food allergies and are not vegetarians, as it seems so difficult to find suitable food or raw ingredients to suit many of the different allergy groups which are out there.
The maple butter twist does look yummy, as do the molasses cookies, but surely all those additional calories are just as bad for you as the gluten? I know that they would be the finish of me, as I am already more than enough overweight not to need additional temptation …. LOL!
Thanks for sharing your feast of goodies and I hope that you and your family enjoy a happy and healthy New Year.
Yvonne
Looks terrific! I love how festive and traditional everything seems, even while accommodating a dietary change.
Two of my coworkers are gluten-free and I branched out and made gluten free cookies for them for Christmas. It was my first time trying a gluten free recipe and it gave me the courage to try again, so you’ve just put these cookbooks on my radar just in time. Thanks! 😉
I am looking forward to the Nosh on This review, that looks like a good book. Oh, I can almost taste those brownies. I have a weakness for chocolates brownie goodness!
The gluten-free menu was because our two daughters were diagnosed with celiac disease this year, unfortunately! The holiday treats only come once a year, so we splurge on calories for a few days, and then it’s back to normal!
Thanks for visiting, Terri! When can I get my hands on an ARC of Hereafter?? Are you sending any out for advance reviews yet?
Yes, it’s a great-looking cookbook. I need to make the flour blend to have on hand; that seems to be half the battle with learning to bake gluten-free!
It was nice to be able to bring along our traditional cookie assortments to the family gatherings, still. (My husband stuck to his diet throughout this deluge of treats, also, and I tried not to over-indulge too many days in a row!)
Thanks! I actually didn’t do all the baking or cookie decorating, and must give credit to my husband and daughters for all of their creations, but the Maple Butter Twists are always my responsibility every year!
Yes, it looks great. Check out Gluten-Free Canteen in the meantime for other recipes!
Aww, thanks! I’m very nervous, striking out on my own, so it’s nice to hear someone say they are excited for the book 🙂 Hereafter already had it’s cotillion, so I think I’m doing more of a soft release and am not going to send it out on blog tour or ask for reviews. I may put it on NetGalley just to get my feet wet and learn the ropes of NetGalley. I’m really focused on Thereafter and that I will definitely be sending out ARCs for.
Oh, I meant to say Thereafter! Sorry about that!
[…] Kitchen by Lisa Stander-Horel and Tim Horel. (Lisa graciously reworked our traditional Christmas morning coffee roll recipe so we could eat a delicious, gluten-free version this year. Lisa and Tim blog about baking at […]