Let’s be real…sometimes you just need a rich, ooey gooey chocolate brownie, am I right? I usually make brownies for my kids for Valentine’s Day and make them into heart shapes, but this year I couldn’t find my heart-shaped silicone mold. I honestly can’t remember if I gave it away before we did our home remodel or not. I was texting my sister, lamenting on how I couldn’t find the heart molds, and she said, “cut them out with cookie cutters”. Well, yeah, that would be a smart thing to do…and why the heck didn’t I think of that?! So, I baked the brownies in a regular square pan, cut them with heart cookie cutters and served them with berries. What a treat!

Brownies

• 1/2 c...

I found a recipe for coconut cake on Pinterest from Cooking Classy and it looked great, so I thought I’d convert it to be gluten free and make a few tweaks. My kids and coworkers loved the cake…some didn’t even know it was gluten free!

Ingredients

• 3 cups gluten free all purpose flour (I use THIS one)
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups  sugar
• 3/4 cup butter or nondairy butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1 can full fat coconut milk
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature, yolks and whites separated, plus two more egg whites
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 1/2 tsp. coconut extract
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 c. shredded coconut

This morning I woke up craving a donut…a cake donut with chocolate glaze. And, since I’m not working for the rest of 2014, I decided to make some…after I worked out. 🙂 These took about 30 minutes from start to finish and my kids devoured half of them (the recipe made 1 dozen) in no time.

• 3/4 cup gluten free flour
• ¼ cup  sugar
• 3 Tbs. unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup nondairy milk
• 1 egg (or you can use 1 Tbs. flax meal mixed into 3 Tbs warm water and set aside until it forms a gel)
• ½ teaspoon gluten free vanilla extract
• 2 Tbs. nondairy butter, melted

• 2-3 tablespoons nondairy milk, d...

A few weeks ago I saw a recipe for frosted eggnog bread on Pinterest that sounded like something my office would enjoy…only there are two of us in the office that are gluten free, and one coworker is dairy free. So, here is that recipe with my modifications. I will note that I haven’t tried making this egg free yet, but as with most of my bread recipes, I think it’ll work just fine if you use 1 Tbs. flax meal mixed into 3 Tbs. of warm water (mix, set aside and let turn unto a gel) for the egg that is called for.

EGGNOG BREAD
1/2 c. nondairy butter at room temperature
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. gluten free rum extract
1 egg
2 cups gluten free flour blend
1 1/...

I’m not a huge pie fan, but I’ve always loved the filling for pecan pie. This past spring I tasted some pecan pie bars that had a shortbread crust, so I thought I’d try making them instead of paying $6 for a small bar made by someone else. These are based on a recipe I found in Better Homes & Gardens; I made these and took them to a friend’s house; they were gone so fast that I didn’t even have a change to take a photo of them out of the pan! These will definitely be served at Thanksgiving this year.

Crust:
1 1/4 c. gluten free flour blend of your choice (I like THIS one, but it does contain dairy)
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c...