Cookies have been one of my biggest challenges since I started a gluten and sugar free diet. Cakey cookies are usually no problem, but crunchy, crispy, or chewy cookies? It just hasn’t been easy for me to replicate these textures with the ingredients that I use. I’m sure it’s down to chemical makeup and reaction or non-reaction, which I’m certainly finding out more about as I go along, but I’m no expert … yet. However, I am starting to get better cookie results, so I guess I must be learning something. Or it’s dumb luck. Either way, I’ll take it.

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This winter, so far, has been more than a little unusual. It’s been strange to be in New England looking at weather maps and watching everywhere from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., and even the deep south get inches upon inches of snow as we sit here looking at bare earth and brown trees. But I can’t complain too much, as the roads have been perfectly clear! And, hey, it’s still cold, so perfect beef stew weather.

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This was my first adventure in molded candy land, and though I made a mess with the chocolate because I’m impatient, these sunbutter cups still turned out quite well.

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This scoop of cinnamon ice cream was supposed to be sitting on top of a lovely gluten and sugar free apple pie. Alas, I have not yet mastered the art of making an apple pie. The pie tasted great, but I baked it a little too long and the apples were mushy, so I’ll have to try again and will hopefully be posting the apple pie here soon. Now, about the ice cream…

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In all of my years of baking, I had never actually made graham crackers from scratch. It was always one of those things that I wanted to try, but when I didn’t have to worry about gluten and sugar it was just much easier to go and pick up a box at the store. For months, I had been looking for an excuse to experiment with a sugar free version of Rebecca Reilly’s gluten free graham cracker recipe, and I finally had one when my mum gave me the recipe for one of my favorite childhood desserts. I’ll let you know more about the dessert next time, but this time it’s all about the gluten free, sugar free grahams.

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These days, I order most of my spices from Penzey’s, and a big thank you to Alton Brown and Good Eats for introducing me to this place. Penzey’s has pretty much every spice you can imagine, and I can really taste the difference between the quality in their spices and those that I pick up at the grocery store. I also appreciate the great prices that they have on bulk spices like ground ginger, cinnamon, and chili powder, which I seem to use by the bucketful.

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