Holiday Treats 2018

Here are some of the delicious gluten-free, dairy-free, soy/corn/other things-free treats I made for the holidays this year:

Herbed Sugar Cookies

Herbal Sugar Cookies

Herbal Sugar Cookies

Start with the recipe for the Ginger-Chamomile cookies. Instead of Ginger and Chamomile, powder white pine needles. Add 1 tablespoon at a time and taste – the flavor will come through a little more after you’ve baked it, so stop before it gets too pine-y!

This is also delicious with powdered rose petals, or practically any other herb you love! If the herb is bitter, make sure to adjust the sweetness of the cookie to accommodate.

Decorate the cookies with sugar or frosting.

Truly Ridiculous Cake

Truly Ridiculous Cake

Truly Ridiculous Cake

Start with Namaste chocolate cake mix, but add 6 eggs, 1&1/2 cup almond/coconut milk, and 2/3+ cup coconut oil instead of what it says on the box.
Add a bit of salt, a bunch of vanilla (3tbs?)
Bake till toothpick is clean, it takes much longer than you think! I think it took about an hour and twenty minutes in my oven, so just check it regularly.

Working while it’s still completely hot (which is hard but worth it) slice cakes in half to yield four layers.
Put a layer of chocolate syrup and Bon Maman cherry jam on the plate, then put the first layer of cake on that (don’t skip that step! it makes it much easier to serve). Spread a thick layer of jam and syrup on top of the first layer, and add the second layer. Continue till the topmost layer – the top will be different.

Let the cake cool an hour or so before you do the top frosting. Take a container of Simple Mills vanilla frosting: scoop out the frosting and add vanilla extract, one tablespoon at a time, and whip. In total, I use about four tablespoons. This makes it much more like a stiff whipped cream than frosting.

Spread all of the frosting on top of the cake, as neatly as possible (some will drip down the side, just make it decorative!). Now add a ring of cherry jam along the edge of the circle. On top of that, sprinkle shaved chocolate and slivered almonds. Put a cherry in the middle, and viola! You have the heaviest, densest, moistest, most chocolatey Black Forest Cherry cake ever.
(yes, I used more than an ounce of vanilla, two whole jars of jam, 3/4 a bottle of santa cruz chocolate syrup… it’s not an inexpensive cake, but on the other hand, it’s so rich, you can only really eat it once a year!)

Fancy Rum Cake

Start with the recipe for almond-honey cake.

To the batter, add plenty of ginger and cinnamon, and a bit of cardamom. Then stir in raisins, chopped dates, chopped candied ginger, chopped walnuts and chopped pecans. In our house, we like to add enough of each of these that the batter is basically just binder for all the chunky goodness.

Bake at 350. As soon as it comes out of the oven, pour dark rum over it until it almost but doesn’t quite overflow. The rum will soak in over the next half hour or so. If you like your cake really rummy, repeat this step another time or two, every half hour or so. You’ll add a little less rum each time, because the cake can only soak up so much.

What are YOUR favorite allergy-friendly holiday treats? Share with us below!

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