A can of pumpkin puree sitting in my cupboard, looking for a purpose, led me to another wonderful recipe from Maria and Josh at Two Peas and Their Pod. I was inspired by their Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies to try out my theory on cocoa powder and the result was marvelous. These cookies even won over a friend of mine who normally wouldn’t go near pumpkin!
The inspiration for this recipe came from Amy-Lyn at Bushel & A Peck and her recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Mini-Muffins. I had a vague idea of doing something with bananas and chocolate when I went searching for recipes and hers came up with the added bonus of already being specified as gluten-free. I noticed that coconut oil was mentioned as an alternative to butter, and it wasn’t a big step to swap out milk for almond milk, resulting in a recipe that’s not only gluten-free, but vegan. Since I keep on the lookout for vegan recipes I figured I’d give a vegan conversion of Amy-Lyn’s recipe a try.
I mentioned last time that I’d be back soon to baking something with chocolate, considering the string of chocolate-less recipes I’d been trying, and I promise that is still the plan. The first recipe for February does however involve a slight detour on that plan and another fruit-filled recipe. Many thanks to Ketty and Kristy over at Keepin’ it Kind for this recipe. I’ve had “jam-filled thumbprint cookies” on my to-bake list for a while and this recipe served nicely to check that item off.
The first recipe for 2014 comes to you courtesy of Leslie Hammond and Betsy Laakso’s book, “Gluten-Free Desserts“. I have a couple other recipes earmarked in their book on account of the great pictures and the convenience of the recipes being explicitly gluten-free to begin with. I chose this one on the appealing thought of making something heavily involving apples. That makes for three fruit-centric recipes in a row after December’s Blueberry Honey Oatmeal Squares and November’s Orange Spice Cookies, all notably lacking chocolate. Don’t worry though, we’ll soon be back to something that makes appropriate use of unhealthy amounts of chocolate.
As I’m typing this there is snow on the ground outside, but when I baked these cookies last week the weather still vaguely resembled autumn and that was my inspiration for choosing them. The recipe is courtesy of Laurie Sadowski and her recipe book “The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Cakes and Cookies“. I picked up her book at “Canada’s Gluten-Free Market”, an expo on all things gluten-free back in June that was a riot of gluten-free-ness and a good deal of fun.
Thanks to Laurie’s allergy-free efforts the recipe didn’t call for any modifications on my part. These cookies are not only gluten-free but dairy-free, nut-free, and contain no refined sugar. This chalks them up alongside the Vegan Maple Nanaimo Bars for allergy-friendliness (though my current iteration of the nanaimo bars includes nuts) and I’m also happy to report that they’re right up there in the “delicious” and “don’t last very long once offered to people” categories as well.
Back in April I attempted to make nanaimo bars by taking Leanne’s recipe from Healthful Pursuit and changing a significant number of the ingredients. Perhaps not surprisingly that didn’t work out so well and I’ve been meaning to try again but stay closer to the original recipe. I’m happy to report that my second attempt worked much better!
First things first, many thanks to Leanne at Healthful Pursuit for this recipe, which I followed in substance if not exactly to the letter. Before moving to Canada I’d never heard of nanaimo bars but I wish I’d encountered them a long time ago. I put them somewhere between a chocolate bar and a brownie, with great potential for versatility on flavor, and I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to take a shot at making my own.
The other thing they have great potential for is hitting various points for allergic or otherwise preferential dietary choices. The original recipe hit raw, vegan (and thus dairy-free), gluten-free, and no refined sugar, which is a remarkable feat, but I decided to take a swing at going for five points and added nut-free to the list.
The end result needs some work, but hey, that’s why I’m calling this one experimental!
Regarding Recipes 