Gluten Free Cookies for Christmas

All over the Island, thoughts of Christmas cookies dance in our heads. Gingerbread men prance across kitchen counters. But some of us are loathe to fill our bodies with sugar, wheat, and fat, knowing that we will suffer later if we indulge too freely. To some, chocolate is kryptonite. A reader has challenged me to provide for her a Christmas cookie free of gluten and chocolate.

The challenge is to produce gluten-free, chocolate-free, yet wonderfully aromatic and tasty treats for Santa, and the rest of us. The rather shaggy looking oatmeal cookies conventional to our cookie jar don’t say, "Eat me! It’s Christmas!"

These Italian almond cookies, Amoretti, use no flour at all. The recipe is from my book, Wholegrain and Gluten Free, available for $15 at Minglement and The Country Store.

Lactose and Gluten Free

AMARETTI

Italian Almond Macaroons

About 3 dozen

Mix well:

2 cups almond meal

1 cup sugar or Splenda®

Scant 1/8 teaspoon salt

Beat, but not to stiff peaks

2 egg whites

½ teaspoon almond extract

Fold almond mixture into egg whites. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a foil-lined, oil-sprayed cookie sheet. Or sheets. Bake at 325 degrees until pale golden, about 15 minutes. While still hot, put a candied cherry or an almond in the center of each macaroon.

For cookies you can roll out and cut into seasonal shapes—reindeer, drummer boys, etc—try these gluten-free rice cookies. They will have a somewhat grainy texture, but kids like their spicy flavor and cute shapes. My oven runs a little cool, so I set it at 250 degrees. Your more energetic oven may produce the best rice cookies at 225 degrees.

GLUTEN-FREE RICE COOKIES.

Makes about 18 cookies

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

½ cup (1 stick) soft butter or margarine

1 ½ cups rice flour, plus ½ cup for rolling cookie dough on

1/3 to ½ cup brown sugar

¼ teaspoon ground cloves, optional

½ teaspoon cinnamon, optional

1 egg, beaten

Stir the rice flour, sugar and spice or spices into the butter. Mix the beaten egg in.

Roll out the dough to about 1/8th inch thick on a sheet of foil. Cut cookies with shaped cutters. Remove the trimmings, wad them up and roll them on another sheet of foil. Remove their trimmings.

Carefully place both cookie-clad foil sheets on baking sheets. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Time will depend on how thinly you rolled the cookie dough. When cookies are done, let them rest on the baking sheets 5 minutes. Transfer with a spatula to a clean dish towel or wire racks to finish cooling.

For Christmas color, combine and drizzle onto the cookies: ½ cup powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons soft butter, 1 Tablespoon lemon juice and a drop of red food coloring.