Allergy-Friendly Shortbreads

Why is this shortbread cookie smiling? He's both gluten free and vegan, and tastes divine!

While I'm glad to see 2018 arrive, the end of December is always a bittersweet time for my sister and I. Every year, my mom donates exactly one month to shortbread cookie baking, and once January 1 rolls around we pack up the cookie cutters and sprinkles for another year. While we gripe and complain about the dearth of melt-in-your-mouth, buttery goodies the rest of the year, I can appreciate that the adage "absence makes the heart grow fonder" really holds true in this case.

Alas, not everyone on my gift list is able to appreciate such decadent cookies. I speak of course of my friends with Celiac and food allergies - namely dairy, nut, soy and egg. The original cookie contains a short list of ingredients - flour, butter, icing sugar, egg yolk and vanilla - so finding workarounds that didn't compromise the pure flavour of the originals was tricky. Most margarine contains either dairy or soy (or both), and while I do have a recipe for a vegan "egg yolk" substitute I needed something quick and easy. I eventually settled on my Homemade Egg Replacer powder, which worked well and kept the cookies' tender qualities due to it's starch component. For the "butter", I went with a new-to-me vegan spread that was also soy-free: MELT. Usually I would stay far, far away from "spreads" in cookies like this, but the result was far better than I supposed and the cookies didn't have any lingering taste of coconut (the main ingredient). 

The great thing about this dough is that it freezes well too, so I made a full batch and divided it into thirds (one for each recipient). I got about 10 cookies per mini-batch, which I either decorated with chocolate or painted with food colouring.

Do you have a special holiday-only cookie? Let me know in the comments!

Scottish Fans

Scottish Fan Cookies are a slightly puffy, crisp spiced brown sugar biscuit decorated to resemble a fan. A sprinkle of raw sugar adds a bit of crunch!

These cookies have been on my "bucket list" for the longest time - I think I had read the page in my mom's cookbook about 20 times since finding it in 2010(ish). For some reason, it never made it to the final cut, until this year. With a slightly "laxer" schedule due to less commuting and online school, I had the opportunity to make bits and pieces of my Christmas cookie list over a few weeks - a huge benefit because I could allow for proper butter softening, dough chilling and even decorating!

That said, these cookies are relatively low on the "complexity scale" when it comes to cookies - it's a fairly basic brown sugar and spice cookie with a touch of barley flour and a couple shots of whisky for good measure. However, the dough needs to chill twice - once to firm up the butter and allow the whole grain barley flour to hydrate properly, the second to make sure the cookies hold their shape (and markings) in the oven. Luckily, neither chill is a "hard and fast" rule - I actually made the dough and chilled it one day, rolled and cut it a few days later and froze all the finished, unbaked "fans" until right before I needed to make up the gift boxes. The cookies are not overly fragile, but their rounded edge makes boxing them somewhat complicated. I eventually went for a 6" round cookie tin and placed the baked goods inside in their original configuration. Just be sure to separate layers with parchment or wax paper if stacking in a warm, humid environment (like my well used kitchen), otherwise you'll have one big stack of cookies.

Not a bad thing, mind you, but sharing is more appropriate for the season!

Norwegian Kakemenn

Norwegian Kakemenn are soft sugar cookies that aren't too sweet - perfect for decorating with icing! They use baker's ammonia instead of baking powder for leavening. Easy and simple tasting, they're a crowd pleaser!

I've always loved learning about other cultures and countries, especially when it came to celebrations and (of course) food. My mom has a boxed collection of cookbooks "from around the world", which I love to peruse even though there are no photos. This year I picked a few out of the "British Isles and Northern Europe" book to make for holiday gifts, including these delightfully Michelin man-like Norwegian sugar cookies caked kakemenn.

I'm sure you can figure out what the word translates into English as, and let me tell you they are true to their name (even when not shaped like "men"). However, unlike most typical "cakey" cookies that have a soft, somewhat sticky surface and are cakey all the way through, these have a very definite crisp "shell" to bite through before the airy middle is revealed.While I call these "sugar cookies" for lack of a better name, they are definitely not as sweet as traditional sugar cookies are here in North America. They are relatively mild tasting, which is great for people (especially kids) who don't like the typical spice-laden cookies of the season, and since they are intended to be frosted the lack of sweet in the cookie results in a perfect marriage once all is said and done.

The cookie dough is relatively unique in my experience, for two reasons: first, the base of the cookie is milk, rather than butter. While butter is a part of the dough, it is melted and mixed with the milk and sugar before adding flour and leavening. The leavening is the second unique part of this cookie puzzle - like the Amoniaczki and Vintage Speculaas that I've made in the past, these cookies use baker's ammonia for leavening instead of baking powder. If baking with ammonia weirds you out - and trust me, when these are baking you'll think you're cleaning your oven - don't worry about ingesting poison. It might smell like bleach at first (and I don't recommend eating it raw!) but ammonium bicarbonate is a fantastic leavener for simple cookies since it doesn't leave any taste behind after it's done it's job! Apparently, you can try to substitute baking powder, but I know you won't get the same airy crispness of the original.

Do you like trying out new cookies every year for the holidays? What are some of your favourites?

Piña Colada Biscotti

If you like pina coladas, these biscotti are right up your alley! Made with coconut flour, pineapple juice and a shot of spiced rum, they're perfect with a fruity tea or on their own.

These cookies are another contribution to my holiday biscotti collection this year. While we haven't yet been hit with the icy blast of winter (knock wood), it is cold and snowy enough outside that many of us are longing for warmer climes. Pineapple always makes me think of the tropics, and there's nothing more celebratory of a Caribbean vacation than a piña colada, so I decided to "Christmas-fy" the flavour of the drink into a crunchy, fruity, dippable cookie.

While the cookie itself is flavoured with both pineapple juice and rum, I couldn't leave it at that when it came time to wrap them up for gifting. Instead, I whipped up a glaze with leftover pineapple juice and powdered sugar and double-glazed each cookie, giving them shine and an extra layer of tangy-sweet goodness. Unfortunately I didn't note the amounts of sugar and juice, but I did mix them together before bringing the glaze to a simmer for a few minutes just to activate the cornstarch in the sugar. Double-glazed, these took a good 8 hours to dry enough to wrap, but the ends we saved off to the side didn't have to wait - stickiness and all, they were devoured!

In lieu of nuts, I wound up using a crunchy granola-flake cereal for texture in these biscotti. If money were no issue, 100% it would be macadamias though! I love using granola for nuts in baking because I always have it on hand, and since I usually (but not always) make my own I can make sure it is nut free for when I teach at school.

Mele Kalikimaka everyone!

Harvest Biscotti

A few vegan sweet potato biscotti go perfectly with afternoon tea. These are 75% whole grain and studded with pecans and dried cranberries

So here we are, a few days before Christmas and a few days after Hanukkah, where cookies and other yummy things are rampant and elastic pants are valuable. While indulgent cookies and cakes are of course part of my holiday repertoire, I'm actually known more for my yearly assortment of biscotti than anything else. I already shared two of this year's treats with you - Rainbow Biscotti Bites and  Allergy Friendly Gingerbread Biscotti -  and I have three more including this one!

Why biscotti? Well, it's one of the most perfect "gifting" cookies out there. They're sturdy and long lasting, infinitely variable, and tuck neatly into almost any gift. These ones, for example, I designed to be vegan, using vegan mayonnaise and homemade egg replacer along with some leftover sweet potatoes frozen from Thanksgiving. Combined with other festive ingredients like pecans and craisins, I soon wound up with a flavourful, super-easy dough that cut beautifully for the second bake (always an issue!). My mom, who is not a fan of crunchy biscotti, ate the once-baked ends as "long cookies" while the biscotti-philes indulged in the full experience. Both versions were met with acclaim - and disappeared before I could get the maple glaze I had planned onto them!