Friday, December 4, 2009

Holiday Recipes, Gluten Free

All right, if there's snow on the ground (and there is snow on the ground! Snow! Still freaking out....) then it's time to start holiday baking (if only because the oven is a major source of heat in this house!).

You may not know that I'm on a fairly strict medical diet, called the Modified Atkins (for seizures) that limits my carbs hard, and for similar reasons have had to cut out gluten entirely. No treats then, you think? Not a bit of it! Check out:

Christmas Color Cookies

3 large egg whites
2-3 tbsp sugar-free Jell---oh, I mean, flavored gelatin dessert;P of your favorite flavor

Hardware:
Parchment Paper (NOT waxed paper! Oh for the love of all things edible, NOT WAXED PAPER!)
shiny cookie sheet
Electric Egg Beater (although, if you just hate yourself, you can do this by hand...I guess...)

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. If you don't know what that is, it's when you pull the beaters out, and the whites stay sticking straight up.:)

Pour on the Jell--uh, gelatin dessert powder. Beat into the egg whites until fully added (some worry about overbeating the egg whites. I have never ever ever seen this happen, in over a decade of making meringues of all sorts).

With a spoon or piping bag, drop spoon sized dollops of meringue (any size from teaspoon to tablespoon, really-small ones will be more like candy, large ones more chewy) on the parchement paper (doesn't have to be on the cookie sheet- one of the reasons parchement and meringue are such good chums is that you can totally get a sheet of paper loaded and waiting for limited cookie sheets!). But put the paper on a cookie sheet before putting the whole thing in the oven at 225 for an hour or so, depending on your dollop sizes.:)

These cookies will be the color and flavor of the gelat-oh, we all know I mean Jello. But you can add extracts of almond or vanilla or even chocolate to change the taste up-- almond-cherry or chocolate-orange are great! But I like lime and raspberry. What's your favorite?

8 comments:

Emerson Bindery said...

Sounds yummy! I like strawberry best.

mpnblog said...

Yum! I'll have to pass this along to some of my gluten-free friends!

uniquecommodities said...

yummy

mermaiden said...

it sounds like maybe these aren't too sweet, which is what i hate most about meringues. i am a tremendous chocolate with orange fan. everything, all the time. you cannot escape my *real* orange extract, oh chocolate-thingy.

Carapace said...

Mermaiden, YES! I've made meringues for over a decade-- they were the first thing I learned to bake-- and even before I went low-carb, I usually cut the amount of sugar in meringue recipes to a *third* of the recommended hit. They don't need all that sugar! What I love about them is how they'll carry the least trace of flavor so well; sugar can really overwhelm that.

Do need a little sugar or something for structure, though. Gelatin works here. I'm gonna try a few things this holiday season.

Magpie, please do pass it along!

Memories for Life said...

It's great that you can still enjoy treats :)

Splendid Little Stars said...

That is a most interesting recipe!

Amy said...

I'm glad I came to check out your blog. These sound good. I have a gluten-free diet too (I'm somewhat allergic to it..not severe but a little). I found the 365 brand All Purpose Baking Mix. You substitute it for flour evenly. I just made chocolate chip cookies and you can't tell the difference. Not sure how low carb but you might be able to use it elsewhere.

P.S. Thanks so much for visiting my blog and entering the giveaway. I did make the blog header.