Lemon & Honey cookies

I not only bake for my kids or my blog, I bake for my colleagues too. Almost two weeks ago I had a work dinner and I spent half the evening taking requests from colleagues for cookies. My cookie baking reputation at work has taken a flying leap. And every now & then I indulge them. And I always love their reaction: "You can't tell this is gluten free!" Well, duhhh, of course not. Gluten free does not equal cardboard cookies. Not if you do it right.

But first I needed a recipe for cookies that were delicious, taste like summer & that I could make in enormous quantities. So I adapted another recipe that had the consistency I was looking for with honey and lemon and a bit more sugar to match the summery feel I wanted. This is the result. So I first made a batch for my little men and soon I'll be baking a gigantic amount of cookies & I'll take a tour to visit all the cookie begging colleagues and bring them some. 

They may not look like summer, but they taste like it all the same!

This recipe makes two dozen cookies.

Ingredients:

• 300 grams (10.5 oz) of rice flour
• 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum
• 1.5 teaspoon of cream of tartar
• 15 grams (0.5 oz) of vanilla sugar
• 100 grams (3.5 oz) of light caster sugar
• The zest of two lemons
• 100 grams (3.5 oz) of butter
• 4 tablespoons of honey

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 175 degrees centigrade (350 degrees fahrenheit)
• Put all the ingredients in one big bowl and mix till you have a combined dough. It will feel soft, but not extremely sticky.
• Pour some gluten rice free flour on a clean kitchen surface, kneed the dough on it and then roll it out with a rolling pin. Cut out cookies with your favourite cookie cutters. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.
• Put the cookies on baking trays lined with baking parchment and put in the oven for about 15 minutes until slightly risen and golden. 
• Take them out of the oven and let them cool completely before you serve them with a cup of tea or coffee. 

Enjoy! My boys loved them and I think they have a new favourite cookie.

Blueberry & Lemon Cheesecake

I'm not going to write a whole intro to this recipe because basically I've baked this for the sheer fun of it. I wanted to bake and since I yearn for more springlike (or better yet summery) weather, I made this blueberry and lemon cheesecake. Both flavours represent sunny weather for me and they go together so incredibly well! 

Also, I don't feel like preaching about gluten free all the time. This luxurious and rich cheese cake is my way of saying: see... living gluten free ain't so bad. You can have cheese cake & eat it all! 

Here's how it turned out.

Yeah, I know.... it tastes as good as it looks, I promise!

Ingredients:

Base

• 100 grams (3.5 oz) of soft butter
• 50 grams (1.75 oz) of raw cane sugar
• 200 grams  (7 oz) of gluten free rice flour

Cheesecake

• 600 grams (1 lb 5 oz)of softened cream cheese, softened
• 200 grams (7 oz) of sugar
• 15 grams (0.5 oz)of vanilla sugar
• 85 grams (3 oz) of sticky rice flour (gluten free) 
• half a teaspoon of baking soda
• 4 eggs
• 125 ml (4 fl oz) of sour cream
• grated zest of one lemon
• juice of one lemon
• 200 grams (7 oz) of fresh blueberries

Lemon & cream cheese frosting

• 100 grams (3.5 oz) of cream cheese, room temperature
• 50 grams (3.5 oz) of butter, room temperature
• 50 ml (2 fl oz) of sour cream
• 250 grams (9 oz) of powdered sugar
• grated zest of one lemon
• lemon juice 2 tablespoons
• about 100 grams (3.5 oz) of blueberries for decoration

Instructions:

Base:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade/ 400 degrees fhrenheit
2. Line a spring cake tin with baking parchment & butter the sides
3. Mix the butter, sugar & rice flour in a bowl till you have a crumbly mixture. Pour it in the spring tin & cover the base of the spring tin pressing the mixture to form a solid base. Put it in the oven for 15-20 minutes until it starts to turn golden & take it out of the oven. Let it cool down.

Cream cheese filling: 

1. Reduce oven to 150 degrees centigrade / 300 degrees fahrenheit.
2. In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar, rice flour and baking soda until combined (Use low speed to keep less air from getting into the batter). Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating slowly and scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition.
4. Add the sour cream, lemon zest and lemon juice. Beat on low speed until well combined.  
5. Now fold in the blueberries with a spatula so they stay intact. 
6. Pour the cream cheese mixture on top of the (shortbread) base.
7. Place spring tin(covered with aluminum foil) in the oven.
8. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
9. Turn off the heat and leave cheesecake in oven with door closed for 30 minutes.
10. Remove cheesecake from oven and chill it in the refrigerator.

Decorate:

1. Combine cream cheese , sour cream and butter and mix until smooth.
2. Add lemon zest and powdered sugar and mix until smooth.
3. Add lemon juice and mix until smooth.
4. Once cheesecake is cool and firm, remove from spring tin and place on serving plate. Cover with icing. Sprinkle blueberries on top. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Enjoy!!!

Lovely Lemon and Honey Ladies (gluten free)

For Christmas one of my oldest and dearest friends gave me cookie cutters to make gingerbread girls (my boys keep telling me it's gingerbread men that are wearing coats. Right, boys!). I just couldn't wait till next Christmas to make them, and who says you actually have to? So this morning my toddler and I made cookies that taste like summer and that make you smile: lovely lemon & honey ladies (and some scary looking lemon & honey dinosaurs too, because one cannot live without dinosaur cookies ever, of course).

These cookies make a great birthday treat too

Even though I try to bake sugar free as well as gluten free I decided to use cane sugar for these cookies, because it makes them more firm and the gingerbread ladies are quite huge, you don't want them breaking as soon as you pick them up. This recipe doesn't use an insane amount of sugar, so I dared to risk it using cane sugar. 
I made a double batch of dough (as Gijs tends to eat half of it straight out of the bowl anyway) so I had two trays of dinosaur cookies and 5 enormous zingy ladies. We did not decorate them, because quite frankly, they are just lovely the way they are. 

Here's the recipe (one batch).

Ingredients:

• 175 grams (6 oz) of gluten free rice flour
• 25 grams (1 oz) of almond flour
• 50 grams (1.75 oz) of cane sugar
• 50 grams (1.75 oz) of butter
• 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
• half a teaspoon of xanthan gum
• 1 egg
• zest of one lemon
• vanilla seeds (from one vanilla pod)
• 2 tablespoons of honey
• 2 tablespoons of milk if the dough is too dry and won't combine.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees centigrade (325 degrees fahrenheit).
2. Put all the 'dry' ingredients (everything except the honey, milk and eggs) in a big bowl and mix well. 
3. Add the egg and honey and knead it into a soft dough using the electric mixer. If the dough doesn't combine, but stays crumbly; add the milk, spoon for spoon until it does. 
4. Do not eat all the dough out of the bowl. Yes, this is very important, because the dough is so wonderful, you might just do that and end up with no cookies at all. 
5. Knead the dough on a (rice)floured surface and roll it out into a big slab. I make them rather thick it makes the cookies nice and fluffy. The thinner the dough, the crunchier the cookies become (that's a bit of a "duuuhhh" I know). My kids like fluffy cookies. 
6. Get out your cookie cutters and knock yourself out making cute & funny cookies. 
7. Put them on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. 
8. Put them in the oven and bake them until they are golden. Depending on the oven it takes 12-20 minutes. The lovely ladies took a while, because they are rather large. 
9. Let them cool on a wire rack and serve them with a cup of tea. 
10. Enjoy!