Gluten free Ritz crackers

My latest foray into gluten free baking was Ritz crackers. I found the recipe in Easy Gluten-Free Baking, of course, and once again this cookbook came through.

The crackers aren't quite as flaky as a store-bought Ritz cracker, but they definitely taste like Ritz crackers. Yum!

I still don't have any round cookie cutters, so I used a flower-ish shape instead.

Gluten free Animal Crackers

Continuing my quest to feel more comfortable with gluten free baking, I'm working my way through Elizabeth Barbone's 'Easy Gluten-Free Baking'. My most recent experiment was some animal crackers. It took me awhile to find little animal cookie cutters, but I finally found some little Noah's Ark cookie cutters at JoAnns.

I thought they turned out quite well. I was hoping for a Stauffer's Animal Cracker- the kind that comes in the big bags. Those were always my favorite.

In the end, though, they tasted more like the Barnum's Animal Crackers in the little box, Mr. M's favorite.

It does take a bit of time to roll out the dough, cut out the shapes, transfer them to the cookie sheet, etc, etc. But since LMS really enjoyed eating them (first the head, then the feet...), I'll be making them again.

Gluten free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yesterday was my first attempt at de-glutening a recipe I used to use pre-gluten free days. LMS calls these "Daddy Cookies" because these are the cookies we made and sent him on several occasions.

This particular recipe makes 12-14 dozen cookies. That's not a typo: 12-14 dozen! I usually halve the recipe, bake a dozen, roll the rest of the dough into balls and freeze for later use. Since I didn't know how this experiment would work out, I looked over the ingredients and realized I could easily cut the recipe in quarters. Instead of 12 dozen cookies, I made 3 dozen.

When doing gluten free baking, you can't just substitute rice flour for the wheat flour, you need to substitute a mix of flours and starches, and usually you need to add xanthan gum. I've seen many different 'recipes' for flour mixes, but in this case I used one I bought: Jules Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour. Since it's a pre-made mix, I was able to do a one-to-one substitution.

The results were great! The taste and texture are almost exactly what I remember from the last time I made them (more than a year ago, but still...).

Not that I need to be eating cookies, but it's nice to know that I have more options available.