It was never the intent to have so much kitchen fun on this blog, but I supposed that is much of what farm life is about – growing your own food, then what deliciousness you can create from all that which you have grown. Add to the fun of food crafting, the desire to eat real food, the enjoyment of blessing others with little gifts or meals, and a need to cook in a new way, and you have lots of kitchen stuff to share about.
Today, the frigid outside temperatures have again keep us inside more than any of us care to be. We have clean out some closets, done plenty of school work, picked up the house too many times, cleaned another closet, we needed to find something else to do…..cookies!
Actually, the cookie project began as a gluten free licorice making project. My youngest minion, who is allergic to wheat, loves Twizzlers. The second ingredient in Twizzlers is wheat! Really! I was surprised as well. I thought licorice was just sugar, flavoring, and coloring. It is amazing what is in processed food, really, take time to learn about what you put into your body, learn about where your food comes from. Ok, back to licorice…..so I gathered the ingredients, let the minion pick out the flavor he wanted and started to get stuff ready……only to realize condensed milk is one of the necessary ingredients. A few searches proved all the recipes needed the canned, sweet, yummy, milk, and we had NONE, and it is 10 miles to the store, and did I mention is just bitter cold. Since the gluten free flour and salt were already mixed, I figured it had to be used. Cookies!
My guy wanted me to try making some root beer cookies (he has some interesting taste buds). I started playing with ingredients and came up with a good cookie. The dough had a definite root beer flavor; the baked cookie had a banana flavor. The finished cookie is very soft, I think it would be better baked a bit more crisp.
I beat one stick of butter with a half cup of maple syrup and half cup of brown sugar (I think raw sugar would be great) Really, I could stop here, butter and maple sugar, what else do you need? However, a cookie cannot happen with just butter and syrup. The gluten free all-purpose flour and the Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose gf flour were mixed, equal parts, to make two cups ad about ¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ½ teaspoon of baking soda, mix up those ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients with the butter/syrup mix, add about 1 teaspoon of root beer flavoring (I am not keen on flavorings, but have not found a pure root beer flavoring) We added a banana, as there were some ripe ones begging to be used, and banana works as an egg replacement. Two handfuls of oatmeal to the pot, and mix well. What a yummy way to blow the healthy eating I have been doing lately.
Bake at 350 for 12 minutes for soft cookies, 15 for a crisp cookies.
Semperfifarms 