Natural Family Recipes Blog

Ingredients:

3/4 cup real butter, softened to room temperature
1 1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon gluten-free vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cup gluten-free baking mix
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1 teaspoon salt, optional
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two large cookie sheets. Blend butter and sugar in a bowl until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. In a large mixing bowl, blend remaining dry ingredients; slowly fold in sugar mixture. Spoon in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Drop by the teaspoonful onto cookie sheet. Bake 7-10 minutes. Cool and serve. Yield: 2 dozen large cookies or 3 dozen small cookies.

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Pamela’s products are a brand of flours and mixes that are gluten free. These are of course required by people who have Celiac’s disease and are also nice for those who have wheat sensitivities. Baking without wheat can be pretty tricky for the uninitiated, so I decided to try out the Ultimate Chocolate Brownie Mix when I saw it at my local grocery store.

The mix is made from brown and white rice flours and also contain no dairy, although the product isn’t guaranteed to be dairy free. They do contain soy and corn ingredients. I made these with pecans and they were excellent. Of course, with gluten or wheat free products you are going to notice a different texture, but overall these satisfy a brownie craving quite nicely. They also contain quite a lot of organic ingredients which is a plus.

My only gripe with Pamela’s products is that they are more expensive than some of the other brands. They do have coupons occasionally available in magazines and on the website so that helps somewhat.

I also noticed that these brownies didn’t taste as sweet as regular brownie mixes, but that was ok with me since I’m not accustomed to eating a lot of sugar. I’ve noticed this same thing with other GF products so it may be that I’m tasting the different grains, but the overall sugar content was only 10 grams per serving, which, if memory serves, is less than other conventional brownie mixes.

Another plus about these are the other recipes on the side of the bag. You can make cookies, cake and other types of brownies (such as egg free brownies) with this same mix, which is convenient.

Keeping a couple of bags of these on hand if you have an allergic child is a great idea, especially if you don’t know how to cook GF yet and are going to be in a situation where you would be tempted to eat wheat, such as at a party or similar event.

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This baking mix is an easy, super convenient way to whip up a batch of gluten/wheat free chocolate chip cookies. Instead of wheat, it uses garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, whole grain white sorghum flour, and fava bean flour.

I decided to bake up a batch of these and found they were excellent. The texture was chewy and the flavor delicious. They won’t taste like the cookies made with wheat you may be used to, but they’re good nonetheless.

Just a note: Skip letting the kids lick the bowl on this one. The bean flours give the batter a very “beany” flavor, although you don’t notice it when the cookies are baked.

Bob’s gluten free products are some of the more reasonably priced mixes and I highly recommend them, especially if you or your child is sensitive to wheat and you don’t want to waste a lot of time and money experimenting with gluten free baking, which can be really tricky to master.

You can get these baking mixes at a small discount by buying them in bulk from the Bob’s Red Mill website.

Available at amazon.com

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I came across this baking mix at my local grocery store. I’ve been pleased with the quality of other Bob’s Red Mill products and decided to give this mix a try. Instead of wheat, it uses potato starch, sorghum flour, tapioca flour, and corn flour.

I made the “cream cheese brownie” recipe on the package and was very happy with the flavor and texture of these brownies. The mix is a good value too because it makes a lot of brownies and is more reasonably priced than other gluten free baking mixes.

I noticed that these brownies were tastier the second day, and they also held up beautifully when I froze part of the batch to eat later. These have a permanent place on my counter, they’re officially my favorite wheat/gluten free brownie mix.

This brownie mix is available at amazon.com

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1 cup cashews, chopped fine
1 cup almonds, chopped fine
1/2 cup raw honey
1/2 carob (you can also use cocoa if you prefer)
1 tsp sea salt
1 T. all natural vanilla flavoring
1 cup grated coconut

Warm honey by placing the jar in a bowl of hot water. Mix honey, carob or cocoa, salt and vanilla and mix well. You can either chop the nuts in a food processor or the blender. Process until finely chopped. Add coconut and pulse until blended. Place in bowl and add cocoa mixture, blending well.

Place greased wax or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Spread mixture on top. Place in refrigerator until firm, typically several hours. Then form into balls, or cut into small squares. You can also use other nuts if you wish.

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This is a slightly less sweet, healthier version of the classic 7 layer cookie bar.


1/2 stick organic butter or 1/4 cup coconut oil
1 cup crushed whole grain crackers or graham crackers
1 bag organic chocolate chips
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup chopped dried apricots or cranberries (or other dried fruit of choice)
1 cup organic milk
1 cup chopped walnuts

In a square or small oblong glass pan, melt the butter in the oven while it preheats
at 350. (Or pour in coconut oil.) Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top. Then sprinkle on
chocolate chips, coconut and dried fruit. Pour milk over top, then sprinkle on
nuts.

Bake for 20- 25 minutes.

Technorati Tags: 7 Layer Dessert Bar, Healthy, Coconut, Chocolate, organic

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