Oh, I had so hoped this morning that I would be able to sit down this afternoon and whip up a blog posting, complete with photos, of a pile of beautiful, colourful, scrumptious gluten free Christmas baking. On my agenda was "Nonnie's Almond Tarts" (Nonnie being my husband's late grandma) and some orange-peel gingerbread men that I've been making since before my children were born. I've successfully dipped some GF pretzels in chocolate, made rum balls (also Nonnie's recipe), and a new recipe for chocolate peanut butter balls that taste just as good if not better than a Reese's peanut butter cup (thank you Jenny H!). A friend kindly passed on a GF sugar cookie recipe that mostly worked for me, enough that after Christmas I'll try one more time. Unfortunately, today's baking was a FLOP, and there are no lovely photos. Two weeks ago I made Nonnie's tarts and somehow they held together (most of them, anyways). Today, they crumbled right before my eyes. After dolloping each tart with icing, I gently spread the icing around and then gingerly placed each tart in a Christmas container. No holly, no berries this time. I'm afraid to take them out of the container, thinking they'll crumble in my fingers! As for the gingerbread men, I thought they might work. I recently found "gluten substitute" in a local "ex-pat" store, and thought I'd give it a try. They cut BEAUTIFULLY and are not sticky at all. However, the cookies taste like they're factory-made and they powder in your mouth with each bite. Not nearly as soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, and full of flavour as they were when they were gluten full! So, two more recipes to put on the back burner and keep trying until they're perfected. The only thing is, each batch of Gingerbread Men costs about $15 for 15 medium sized figures. Incentive to perfect isn't all that strong here.
Good thing is, I've got rum balls and chocolate peanut balls calling out to me, and they turned out great. Two out of four isn't all that bad for my first Christmas of GF baking!
