Christmas Eve Dessert – it’s gluten free AND comes with presents

When my great grandparents came to Canada in 1920, they brought many of their traditions from Denmark along with them. One holiday tradition in Scandinavia is to have rice pudding on Christmas Eve. The pudding contains one whole almond and whoever gets it in their dish gets the Almond Gift, usually a marzipan pig symbolizing good fortune. As my family settled into life in rural North America, this Christmas Eve custom transformed. For reasons unknown, the rice pudding became a Danish Apple Cake and the gift became a small token, often a trinket or toy. I should really say “gifts” because, at some point someone (I believe it was likely my grandmother) added one or two more almonds and gifts into the mix just for the fun of it.

My family has had this dessert on Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember (and I’m sure much longer). I still have a little china dinner bell I received when I was a child and my grandmother made the dessert. This year I’ll be making the cake, and it will be transformed once again into a gluten free version. If you’re looking for a light and airy, not to mention fun, dessert, then this is the recipe for you. The “cake” itself is more of a parfait. It’s easy to make and tastes awesome – a bit like apple pie. Hmmmm, maybe that’s why this tradition was transformed!

Advertisement

Whipped Butter Cookies

This post is a little different than our usual. Rural Route Lupiac, who makes some fantastic things on her blog, was looking for a Danish Butter Cookie recipe. My mom Mary happens to have THE BEST recipe, but because she makes dozens and dozens of them (and Geoff prefers English shortbread) we had never adapted her recipe to gluten free flours. I sent the recipe to Rural Route Lupiac to try and it sounds like she had great success using Cup 4 Cup flour. If you are like us and can’t get Cup 4 Cup, Rural Route Lupiac also has a great copy cat flour recipe on her blog. Check it out!

Rural Route Lupiac

In my hundredth post  I told y’all I was waiting to get permission to share this recipe.  Instead of just updating that post I decided to do a dedicated recipe post.  If you’re missing Danish Butter Cookies you will love these.    🙂

The weekend after Thanksgiving I told y’all how I look forward to Danish Butter Cookies every year…and asked y’all for any tips on recreating those Danish Butter cookies that used to only come in blue tins.

This being my first gluten-free Christmas and knowing I was going to have to make them myself I first turned to Martha.  Now y’all know Martha rarely fails me but her butter cookie…while good on it’s own…wasn’t even remotely close to those beloved Danish butter cookies.

gfandme told me about her family recipe and then was sweet enough to share it with me.  She said that they’d never tried to…

View original post 315 more words

Kit Kat Kopy Kat

I know, I know. These look more like a Peanut Butter Cup than a Kit Kat Bar but without a proper chocolate mold this was what we came up with! These gluten free Kit Kat “Bars” taste like the real thing and are not that difficult to make. No oven required – just a blender and a microwave. For a dairy free (and all-around healthier) version, check out the recipe at Fork and Beans that inspired our own.

sweet and spicy ginger snaps

These ginger cookies have just the right amount of snap and are loaded with sugar and spice and everything nice. Warm from the oven, they are soft and chewy and they harden up just a bit as they cool. If you can keep them around, they’ll last for days in an airtight container. This is an adaptation of a recipe that a friend of ours gave us years ago. Thanks Bernice!

ferrero rocher copycat recipe (and it’s gluten free)

Been missing Ferrero Rocher since you went gluten free? Well Geoff has. It used to be one of his holiday favorites, so this year we decided to try to make some that were gluten free. The results were incredible – although perhaps not as pretty as those little gold and silver foil-wrapped balls of chocolate! We did, however, feed them to some unsuspecting gluten eaters who all said they liked these even better than the original. In fact, they ordered requested we make more! If you like nutella and chocolate then this is the recipe for you!