A Recipe For Sugar Free, Wheat Free Cocoa Dusted Coconut Macaroons

Tweet

That mouthful of a title can't hold a candle to what this mouthful of a morsel will do to your tastebuds. Moist, dense but delicate is how I would describe these seasonal, coconut-filled treats. And very satisfying to one who is eschewing all added sugars and sometimes feeling the pain of it all.

After sampling a macaroon recently that had been made with sweetened condensed milk, I (and my now sugar-free sweet tooth) were determined to develop a no-sugar version. Searching through a few recipes and discovering that flour is added to many iterations of coconut macaroons, I (and my newly wheat-free shadow) just winged it and came up with this very simple, surprisingly moist rendition.

Made mostly from unsweetened, shredded coconut, this will nonetheless delight any sweet lover's tooth. If you aren't a Splenda user, you could use sugar instead - about 2 tablespoons, or to your taste.

Sift a little unsweetened cocoa powder over half of the finished cookies to dress them up a bit and satisfy the chocolate lover within.

Sugar Free Coconut Macaroons (Cocoa dusting optional)
Christine's original recipe
(print recipe)
Ingredients:
2 cups finely shreded, organic unsweetened coconut
2 tablespoons organic tapioca starch
5 packets Splenda (or 2 tablespoons sugar)
few grains of kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon (scant) baking powder, aluminum and gluten free
2 ounces fresh evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed)
Preparation:

Combine all the dry ingredients and, using your clean fingers and a whisk, stir to thoroughly combine.

Using a fork, stir the dry mixture while adding the evaporated milk, one teaspoon at a time, until the mixture holds its shape when squeezed between your fingers.

Scoop 1 tablespoon into the palm of your hand and compact into a ball, shaping it with your fingers.

Place the balls 1-inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in a 300-degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they just begin to show color. Don't overbake.

Remove the macaroons with the parchment paper to a rack and allow them to cool completely.

When cooled, dust some or all of them with cocoa powder by placing a tablespoon or so of good organic dark cocoa powder into a fine sieve and gently tapping the edge of the sieve to release the cocoa.

Store the sweets in an airtight container. They will retain their moisture and structure for at least 4 days. They are, however, 4 days old as I write this and still holding their own so I will venture to guess that those 4 days could stretch into a week. Ed. note - after 4 days they began drying out a bit, so I would say they will save in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Enjoy!

Copyright © 2005-2009, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Oatmeal Cookies With Crystallized Ginger And Dried Cherries

Tweet

As I've said elsewhere on this blog, several times I'm sure, I'm not the baker in my family. My mother was the baker extraordinaire, passing that gene along to both of my sisters. So I'm always surprised when I bake something and it turns out fairly tasty.

Like this afternoon. I suddenly got a hankering for something sweet to nibble with my tea. Searching around the kitchen, it became clear that if I wanted this sweet something, I was going to have to make it. Plus, it had to be low in sugar and high(er) in fiber than your average sweet something.

So here's what I came up with. It took less than an hour from taking the butter out of the fridge to taking the first bite. A pretty-good tea cookie that earned me Mr CC's Taster Seal of Approval.

You can use all butter and all sugar if you want. Or, these can be made vegan by using all Earth Balance and substituting 1 medium banana for each egg. A smart trick my daughter-in-law, Amy, shared with me. I decided to use the Splenda blends because I wanted a lower carb cookie and because cookies need some sugar in them to bake properly.

Oatmeal Cookies with Crystallized Ginger and Dried Cherries
Click here to print recipe
Christine's original recipe
Ingredients:
1 cube Earth Balance Buttery Stick
1 cube unsalted butter
1/2 cup Splenda/Brown Sugar Blend (or you can use 1 cup brown sugar)
1/2 cup Splenda/Sugar Blend (or you can use 1/2 cup sugar)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups quick cooking oats
3/4 cup organic dried bing cherries (cranberries or blueberries would work fine)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped crystallized ginger

Preparation:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and place racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven.
In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on medium-high speed until it's smooth and fluffy.
Add the sugars and continue to mix until incorporated.
Add the eggs, one at a time, plus the teaspoon vanilla, and mix until incorporated.
Lower the speed to medium-low and add the flour mixture. Mix until the dough is smooth and all the flour is incorporated.

Remove the mixing bowl from the stand mixer and stir in the oats, dried fruit and crystallized ginger.

Drop the dough by tablespoonsful on ungreased cookie sheets.

Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, switching the cookie sheets halfway through the baking time.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes before tranferring to a wire rack to cool. Repeat process with the rest of the cookie dough.

This recipe yielded about 40 2 1/2-in cookies. It probably would have yielded more, but I'm a cookie dough nibbler. Just can't help myself.

Dedicated to Di and Cynthia: Bakers extraordinaire.

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Vegan Lingonberry Shortbread Bars

Tweet

We had a beach night at our house last night last Saturday night a week ago to welcome home two from our group who had been away for some time. I, of course, had to play host so I could show off the kitchen (who cares if the grout isn't in yet?) and the new walls.

But this isn't about beach night, wonderful as it was.

This is about the fact that the house had to be cleaned and put in order.

Which it was.

Allowing me to cook again.

Which I did.

(Insert big sigh of relief here.)

And today sunday last Sunday I celebrated my kitchen being returned to me - albeit groutless, but that's coming - by making up a batch of vegan shortbread bars topped with a layer of lingonberry preserves, then sprinkled with another layer of oat-almond-cinnamon-brown sugar crumble. I'd been noodling on devising this recipe for a vegan-friendly shortbread for several days.

Many, many moons ago when I had a house full of daycare children, I used to make shortbread bars (the kind with real butter and pure white sugar) as a special treat. It's been years since I've thought of them and I wasn't sure of the proportions, but once I got started, just like riding a bike, it all came back to me.

These were pretty good and Jeffrey's been eating them for the past few days Jeffrey really enjoyed them but see my Cook's Notes for what I would do differently if I were to make them again.

Vegan Lingonberry Shortbread Bars
Christine's original recipe
Ingredients:
For the shortbread:
1 cup (2 sticks) Earth Balance Buttery Sticks (room temperature)
1 cup Splenda Granular
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup finely ground almonds (Also called almond flour. I get mine at Trader Joe's, but you can make your own)

For the topping:
4 tablespoons lingonberry preserves
1/2 cup rolled oats (I used Quaker)
1/2 cup slivered, toasted almonds, finely chopped
1/4 cup Splenda-Brown Sugar Blend
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons Earth Balance Buttery Stick, cut into small pieces and kept cold
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
To make the topping, combine the oats, finely chopped almonds, Splenda-Brown Sugar blend and cinnamon in a bowl and stir well to blend.
Add the pieces of the 3 tablespoons Earth Balance and blend them into the oat mixture. Using your fingers, pinch the butter into the dry ingredients until they're the size of lima beans (see photo; this is hard to explain.) Set aside.

To make the shortbread, place the 1 cup Earth Balance and the Splenda granular in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy.
Add the flour, salt and ground almonds and continue to beat on low to medium until the mixture just begins to hold together. It will go from rather sandy to creamy very quickly so watch the bowl. This may take several minutes, depending on your mixer.

Bring the mass together with your fingers and place in an ungreased 8x8 baking pan or an 8 or 9-inch round cake pan.
Using your fingers, press the dough, from the center outward, until it covers the bottom of the pan in a uniform thickness.

Spread the lingonberry preserves over the dough and then top with the oat mixture.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes.
Place the pan on a rack and allow to cool completely. The dough will firm up during the cooling time.

Cooks' Notes:
Earth Balance Buttery Sticks are made from oils not cream, and because of this the texture of the shortbread was just a wee bit on the oily side. Next time I would reduce the measurement to 3/4 cup.
For the toppings, I think I would increase the lingonberry preserves to 6 tablespoons. As the preserves cooked, they became chewy and added a nice sweet-tart dimension to the bars. More of this would be a good thing.
There was too much of the oat-almond topping. Next time I would reduce the oats and the almonds to 1/4 cup each and reduce the Earth Balance to 2 tablespoons. Otherwise, leave the rest of the topping as is.

You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging lately. It's true. I think it's because Mercury is in retrograde, or some such thing. I've been suffering from a bit of a writer's block I guess. (Of course that assumes I'm a writer.) It doesn't please me that my posting has dropped off but it has, and instead of stressing about it, I'm going to relax and see where all this goes. Sometimes you just gotta run with what you have. In my case, a bit of a downswing.





Copyright 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved. No content from this site, including text and photos, may be copied, re-located or otherwise reproduced, in part or in full, for personal or monetary gain, without the express permission of the administrator/owner.