Gluten Free Red Velvet Brownies

Hey everyone! I hope you're all excited for the Christmas weekend!

Here's a seasonal colored dessert, red velvet brownies with a green colored whipped topping. Its based on a recipe I found here, but my first attempt of it I found too sweet. So this recipe tones down the sweetness a bit. I hope you all enjoy, and have a fun weekend with family and friends!

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Bake Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 16

Ingredients

1/2 cup room temperature butter

1 1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs
2 tbsp red food coloring

1/4 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup potato starch

1/2 cup white rice flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup cold heavy cream

3 tbsp powdered sugar

1 tbsp green food coloring

Steps

Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray a 8x8 square pan with oil.

In a medium bowl whip the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla, red food coloring, and whip in the eggs. Fold the flours and cocoa powder into the butter mix until well combined. Do not overmix.

Spread the batter into the pan, and bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool completely.

Mix the sugar, green coloring, and heavy cream. Whip until soft peaks form. Cut the brownies into squares and top with the whipped cream. 

I hope you enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

Quick and Easy Apple Walnut Salad

Hey everyone! So its that time of the year that gets super crazy between end of the year work events, holiday parties, and the rush to get and deliver presents to everyone you care about.

This past weekend I went to a work holiday potluck, so I decided to make a good gluten-free salad that all could enjoy. Apologies for not including a picture, I was in a bit of a rush when I made it this past weekend that I didn't have time to properly take one.

Hope you enjoy the recipe, and be sure to use a gluten-free dressing (yes, there's salad dressings out there that have gluten in them. It's a sad occurrence....

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Servings: 10 people

Ingredients
2 bags of pre-washed mixed salad greens
2 apples
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup of gluten-free honey mustard dressing

Steps
In a large bowl, (preferably one with a lid) add the salad greens. De-core the apples, and slice the apples into 1/8th inch x 1/8inch shoestrings. Add the apples, walnuts, zest, salt, pepper. Toss the salad to mix the ingredients around.

By 1/8 cup at a time, add the dressing to the salad. After each instance of adding dressing to the salad, put the top on the bowl and give the salad a good shake to coat the salad with the dressing. You'll want the salad to be lightly dressed with the dressing, If you think it needs a little more dressing, add a little bit at a time until your desired coating.

I hope you enjoy!

Ratio Rally - Cinnamon Lemon Cookies

Hey everyone, I hope you're having a good December so far, its time for the Gluten Free Ratio Rally again! This month our theme is cookies, and I am looking forward to seeing all the wonderful gluten free recipes! For the ratio rally, I wanted to make cookies that tasted like snickerdoodles with a twist. I added lemon zest to the recipe, and it really livens up the snickerdoodle cookies! They're really easy to make and tasty too!

As for the ratios, cookies are some of the most fun to experiment with changing the ratio. For example, the base ratio for a cookie is 1:2:3 sugar:fat:flour. My ratio is closer to being approximately 2:1:2 sugar:fat:flour, which is a comparable ratio to a drop cookie (ie chocolate chip cookies). The higher ratio of sugar creates a crispy texture on the outside of the cookies, while still tender inside. I hope you enjoy, and thank you to Caroline (click her to visit The G-Spot for her recipe) for hosting, here's all the awesome recipes from the rally!

Amanda | Gluten Free Maui | Simple Shortbread
Amie Valpone | The Healthy Apple | Grapefruit Sugar Cookies
Brooke | B & the boy! | Candy Cane Shortbread
Caleigh | Gluten Free[k] | Mulled Spice Cookies
Caneel | Mama Me Gluten Free | Cardamom Date Cookies
charissa | zest bakery | Coconut Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Caroline | The G-Spot | Double Chocolate Chip Peppermint Cookies
Claire | Gluten Freedom | Chai Latte Cashew Cookies
Erin | The Sensitive Epicure | Spritz Cookies with Jam
gretchen | kumquat | Classic Sugar Cookies
Irvin | Eat the Love | Apple Brown Butter Bay Leaf Spice Cookies
Jean | Gluten Free Doctor Recipes | Reindeer Cookies
Jenn | Jenn Cuisine | Basler Brunsli
Jonathan| The Canary Files | Vegan Salted Oatmeal Cherry Cookies
Karen | Cooking Gluten Free! | Mexican Wedding Cakes
Lisa from Gluten Free Canteen | Molasses Rum Raisin Cookies
Mary Fran | frannycakes | Pinwheel Cookies
Meaghan | The Wicked Good Vegan | Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Meredith | Gluten Free Betty | Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Morri | Meals With Morri| Stevia Sweetened & Grain-Free Thumbprint Cookies with Apricot Preserves
Pete & Kelli | No Gluten, No Problem| Belgian Speculaas Cookies
Rachel | The Crispy Cook | Melomakarona
Silvana Nardone | Silvana's Kitchen | Old-School Italian Jam-Filled Hazelnut Cookies
Tara | A Baking Life | Walnut Shortbread

Cinnamon Lemon Cookies

Servings 18 cookies
Prep Time 15 minutes
Bake Time 18 minutes

Ingredients
200 g sugar
113 g butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
zest of 2 lemons
1 tsp baking powder
96 g white rice flour
32 g tapioca flour
64 g potato starch
1 tsp xantham gum
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
cinnamon sugar (about 3 tbsp)

Steps
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease two baking sheets.

In a small bowl, mix the flours, powder, gum, and cinnamon. In a medium bowl whip the sugar and butter until fluffy. Mix in the vanilla, egg, and zest. Stir in the flour mix, adding half a cup at a time, until fully combined and a dough forms.

By the tablespoons, drop the dough onto the sheets, separated by 1 inch around each cookie. Sprinkle each dough ball with cinnamon sugar, and bake for 18 minutes. Let the cookies cool for a bit before eating, and enjoy!

Cookielove: Gluten Free Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Happy December everyone! Is it just me, or is it crazy insane that it's already December? Oh well, at least its that time of the year or Christmas, time with friends and family, and most importantly of all: cookies. I've always associated cookies with the Christmas season, so what better way to celebrate the month of December than with a #cookielove blog hop. 

Last month was my first time co-hosting a #love event (catch last month's event, squash, over here), and I'm excited to co-host #cookielove this month. For those who are reading a #love post for the first time, it's a monthly event where food bloggers share recipes of a common theme (i.e. apple, squash, cookies, etc). Its not only a fun way of sharing food blogs, but its a great way of finding high quality themed recipes. I'm excited to see all the creative recipes that come out of this cookie theme. I plan on posting a variety of recipes this month, each as a different type of cookie. So here is what will (hopefully) be my first, a variation on the sugar cookie. Sugar cookies are basically recipes that have a higher ratio of butter and sugar to flour, resulting in a creamy, sweet texture. This gluten free recipe is inspired by cinnamon rolls. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are some foods that you absolutely crave when you're gluten free. For me, cinnamon rolls are one of those things. It's the smell that absolutely leaves me in desperate need for a bite. This cookie gives you that satisfaction. When you bite into it you get the creaminess of the sugar cookies and the crunchiness of the baked sugar, all topped with a tangy cream cheese frosting. Check the recipe under the blog hop to see how to make them!

Thank you to all of the co-hosts this month. Please contact me if you would like to join the bloghop!

Badger Girl Learns to Cook, Baking and Cooking: A Tale of Two Loves, BigFatBaker, Bloc de Recetas, Bon a Croquer, CafeTerraBlog, Cake Duchess, Creative Cooking Corner, Easily Good Eats, Georgie Cakes, Hobby and More, Knitstamatic, Mike's Baking, Mis Pensamientos, Oh Cake,Queen's Notebook, Savoring Every Bite, Simply Reem, Soni's Food for Thought, Teaspoon of Spice, That Skinny Chick Can Bake, The Art of Cooking Real Food, The Spicy RD, The Wimpy Vegetarian, Vegetarian Tastebuds, Vegan Yack Attack

Gluten Free Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Active Prep Time: 25 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 18 minutes
Servings: 18 cookies

Ingredients


1/2 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup room temperature butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca flour
2/3 cup white rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp xantham gum

For the filling:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

For the frosting:
4 oz cream cheese
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Steps


In a medium bowl, whip the sugar, butter, and vanilla until fluffy. Mix in the flours, powder, and gum until a cookie dough has formed. Roll the dough into a ball, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Prepare a cutting board by covering it with a sheet of plastic wrap. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap it, and place it on top of the board. Roll the dough into a rectangle, about 1/4 inch thickness. Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl, and cover all but a one inch strip of dough with the filling. The bare strip will be used to seal the dough shut when rolled into a log.

To roll the log, start at the end that has the cinnamon sugar, with the bare strip-end furthest away. Tightly roll the dough into a log, using the wrap to lift and roll it. This should minimize tearing of the dough. Roll until the dough has formed a log, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 10 minutes. While the dough refrigerates, preheat oven to 350F.

Grease a baking sheet, and unwrap the dough log. Cut the dough into quarter inch thick cookies, and lay onto the baking sheets. Bake for about 18 minutes, and let cool completely.

While the cookies cool, whip together the cream cheese and the sugar, adding the sugar by the 1/4 cup. Whip in the vanilla and milk until smooth, and frost the cookies.

I hope you enjoy the recipe!