Prepared by Sarah Shilhavy, Photo by Jeremiah Shilhavy
These gluten free cookies bake up soft and chewy with a slightly crisp outside. This is a drop cookie recipe, so there is no need to roll the dough out. Once the cookies have fully cooled you can decorate with frosting and toppings or simply eat plain! For a coconut sugar cookie variation stir in some dried flaked coconut into the dough before baking.
Servings: 20 cookies
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
4 oz (approx. 1/2 cup) butter, at room temperature
Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape bowl down with a rubber spatula once or twice, as needed. Add egg and vanilla extract, beat until well combined and scrape bowl down as needed.
In a separate bowl mix flour mix, baking soda, baking powder and xanthan gum together. Add to the butter and sugar mixture and stir until well combined and a sticky dough forms.
Using a cookie scoop, drop heaping tablespoon sized balls unto parchment paper lined cookie sheets. Place about 2 inches apart.
Bake cookies for 9-12 minutes, or until the edges and tops begin to turn golden brown.
Remove cookies from the oven and allow to cool on the sheet for 1-3 minutes. Slide parchment paper off cookie sheet and allow cookies to cool completely on a wire rack or counter top (still on the parchment).
Mix coconut flour, rice flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together.
In a large mixing bowl beat the sugar, butter or shortening, eggs, lemon and lime peels, lemon and lime juices and water. Mix in flour mixture until well blended.
Shape dough into small balls with your hands and place on an un-greased cookie sheet. They don’t spread too much.
Bake 10-12 minutes or until set. Immediately remove from cookie sheet and cool on a wire rack.
In a medium bowl, combine coconut, extract, and salt. Stir in honey until well combined.
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks from. Fold into coconut mixture along with cream of tarter.
Scoop mixture firmly into a cookie scoop and press unto a greased cookie sheet as you drop it (the idea is to compact the balls). Bake for 10 – 15 minutes, or until browned.
Cool cookies on cookie sheet and dip into chocolate glaze if desired (recipe below).
Chocolate Glaze
Classic Coconut Macaroons Chocolate dipped
Prepared by Sarah Shilhavy, Photo by Jeremiah Shilhavy
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, combine coconut flour, salt and baking soda.
2. In a large bowl combine eggs, honey, coconut oil and vanilla and blend well with a hand mixer.
3. Mix dry ingredients into wet, blending with a hand mixer.
4. Gently fold in persimmons.
5. Place batter in paper lined muffin tins.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
7. Cool and frost.
Makes 12 muffins
Persimmon Cream Cheese Topping:
Combine all ingredients and add more honey or spices to taste. Add a dollop of persimmon cream cheese topping on the muffins and sprinkle with cane sugar.
Life without gluten can be full of obstacles and variations, but that shouldn’t mean you have to settle for something less.
Take cake for an example. Gluten-free cakes will never be as good as the wheat ones, right? WRONG! I myself am not gluten intolerant, but I do know what it’s like to have to give something up because it’s not healthy and try to find an alternative. I don’t like to settle for something less; for me taste is a very close second to healthy.
My biggest goal in producing gluten-free recipes is “foolproof-ness.” Cake was a big one, and I was eager to try it. This was right about the time that I was really getting into my little coconut flour frenzy and trying to come up with as many recipes as possible for the product. Cake was something I hadn’t tried yet, but I was ready to start experimenting.
The first thing was ideas. I wanted to do a yellow and chocolate cake, but decided on the chocolate first. I found a chocolate cake recipe I liked, and began the long process of taking it apart, adding, taking away, testing, testing, testing. By the time I was done it was a totally different recipe. It was by far the longest time I ever spent developing a recipe; even longer then my Coconut Flour Brownies. I tried, and tried again. Each time there always seemed to be something wrong with it. The biggest issue was the dryness. It always seemed too dry. The more I experimented, the more the amount of eggs grew. Soon they had reached a rather alarming amount, but by that time I finally had the perfect gluten free chocolate cake.
It was moist, fluffy, chocolaty, and perfectly foolproof. Many times I’ve made them for company dessert (many with little kids by the way) and unless I told them they were gluten free they would’ve never known or suspected and would’ve just kept on happily wolfing it down.
No, no, seriously. It’s really that good. If you make it, follow the recipe exactly and please don’t change a thing and then tell me it doesn’t work. It really does work. The eggs are the most important part, and they definitely cannot be changed.
While you’re mixing the eggs and butter together, don’t panic if the butter separates into little sesame seed shapes. That’s normal, and doesn’t bother anything at all. I also recommend having the butter still just a tad bit cold, not near melting point.
This recipe can be made as a 2, 8 inch layer cake, a 9 inch layer cake, or cupcakes. I like to use a buttercream frosting for this cake but pretty much anything that goes with chocolate will be good on this.
If any of you try the recipe, please feel free to let me know how you liked it. 🙂
Gluten Free Coconut Flour Chocolate Cake
Prepared by Sarah Shilhavy, Photo by Jeremiah Shilhavy
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9 inch or 8 inch layer pans with coconut oil and dust with cocoa powder.
In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and sugar, and beat together for about 2 minutes. Add eggs in one at a time and beat high speed for about 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla while beating the eggs and butter mixture. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients together and add alternately with the milk to the butter mixture. Beat batter for about five minutes on high speed. Spoon batter into the two prepared cake pans and smoothen out tops.
Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean. Place pans on wire rack and cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans. Cool cakes completely before frosting. Use your favorite frosting to frost the cake.
Peppermint Chocolate cake variation: add 1 teaspoon peppermint extract to batter before pouring into pans and mix well. Frost cake with peppermint frosting or frosting of your choice.
Cupcakes: Make recipe as directed but spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for about 26-30 minutes. Frost after cupcakes have cooled completely. Makes about 24 cupcakes.
Prepared by Sarah Shilhavy, Photo by Jeremiah Shilhavy
I recently made these Chocolate Coconut Protein Bars, and they were pretty good! The triple amount of coconut provides the energy element, and the protein powder gives you the protein. It’s the best of both worlds; energy and protein rolled into one bar. Why make both a protein and energy bar when you can have them both in one?
The bars were pretty delicate. If you want them moister you could add another egg or more oil if you wanted a higher oil serving. Either way, this recipe is pretty forgiving so feel free to play around with it a bit until you get the desired texture and results. I made a half batch and pressed it into a greased square glass pan and then cut it into bars. That way it comes out looking more like a bar instead of a cookie or something.
The bars are very filling; you can only eat so much. The chia seeds expand in your stomach and give you that “full” feeling pretty quickly, which is a good thing.
Be sure to check the recipe out, and comment if you have any questions or comments of your own.
Preheat oven to 375. Grease cookie sheet(s) with extra coconut oil.
Melt oil if needed and in a large bowl stir in remaining ingredients with the oil until well blended. Place spoon sized mounds unto prepared cookie sheets and pat down slightly into bars.
Bake in preheated oven for 14-15 minutes. Don’t overcook.
