Holiday Recipes

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Gluten-Free Graham Cracker and Graham Cracker Crust

I admit that I typically do without when it comes to some gluten-free items. I often assume that they just won’t be as good and I’ll just skip it. I may need to change my attitude on that though. I was skeptical at going to the trouble of trying this GF graham cracker crust, but I was pleasantly surprised. It is flavorful, the correct texture, good leftover even after sitting with filling in it for two days, and it held together. And honestly, my non-gluten-free family preferred this pie to the one I made for the rest of them with regular graham crackers.

Here’s the recipe. Try it out. It was certainly a treat for me to have dessert that I could eat and even feel good afterwards.

Gluten-Free Pie Crust Recipe:

Begin by combining the following in a small bowl…

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

1 cup teff flour (or millet if you prefer a lighter color)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

4 tsp cane sugar

Note: This dough will be dark in color because of the teff. If you prefer a lighter color cracker or crust substitute millet for the teff flour.

In a separate bowl combine the liquid ingredients.

2 egg yolks

1 tsp molasses

4 tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

3-4 tbsp milk

Combine the wet and dry together. It should be thick and soft dough. Err on the side of it being sticky rather than dry.

Roll or press on to a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Try to get it thin – like 1/2” or thinner, but don’t worry to much about it being even. They still turn out to be tasty even if they are different thicknesses. And if you plan to turn these into a crust then it really doesn’t matter anyway.

Cut through the dough to make cracker sections using a knife or pizza cutter. Then bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Check and if they haven’t browned, turn the heat up to 350 or 400 for 5 minutes.

Remove and let them cool before breaking into crackers. If making a graham cracker crust follow the instructions below.

Gluten-Free Graham Cracker Crust Recipe:

Place your most of your crackers in a food processor and grind into a crumbs and add the following…

1 tsp sugar

3-4 tbsp butter

Blend adding more butter until the crumb mixture sticks together when pressed between your fingers.

Press the mixture into a pie plate using the bottom of a measuring cup. Bake the crust at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Remove and cool before adding your filling.

I made an eggnog custard for this pie and it turned out delicious! Enjoy!

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Three-in-one recipe: Gluten-Free Egg Nog Biscuits, Cinnamon Roll Biscuits, or Gluten-Free English Muffins

This recipe came about by accident. I was experimenting with recipe that I could use for Christmas morning as a gluten-free sweet roll option, and happily my mistake turned out delicious. The nice thing is that this recipe is really a three-in-one recipe. With the same base recipe you can make a delicious gluten-free sweet roll or biscuit either egg nog or cinnamon roll flavored, but one little tweak and it is an excellent whole grain gluten-free English Muffin.

So if you have any leftover egg-nog from Christmas Eve, pull it out of the fridge and give this recipe, or one of its variations a try.

Gluten-free Sweet Egg Nog Biscuit Recipe:

Combine the following into a bowl:

1 egg yolk

2/3 cups egg nog

3 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp lemon juice

Whisk to combine.

In a separate bowl add…

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/3 cup teff

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp frozen or hard butter, grated into flour

After the butter has been stirred into the flour add your liquid ingredients and stir until all the flour is combined and the batter has a light and fluffy texture. It should be the texture of a thick cake batter. Add more flour or liquid as needed. Cover and let the batter rest for 30 minute. Don’t skip the rest period or the final texture will be sub-par.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Pour into greased crumpet rings laid out on a cookie sheet over parchment paper. (I like reusable parchment paper. Have you tried it?)

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Gently remove from rings and cool on a wire cooling rack.

These are delicious served warm with butter and a little sugar sprinkled on top.

Cinnamon Roll Biscuit Recipe:

For this version make the following changes to the above recipe.

Add 1 tsp cinnamon to the dry ingredients.

Use 2 egg yolks rather than one, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup of milk, and 4 tsp of sugar in place of the egg nog.

Gluten-Free English Muffin Recipe:

Follow the base recipe at the beginning of this post adding 2 egg yolks and subbing 1/2 cup of heavy cream and 1/4 cup of milk for the egg nog plus 1/2 tsp of sugar.

Whichever variety of these recipes that you choose, they will turn out dark in color due to the teff, so they will have the appearance of whole grain biscuits. If a lighter appearance or flavor is desired substitute millet for the teff flour.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄

If you missed the launch of The Art of Gluten-Free Homemade Bread, this is the gluten-free book that I wrote for Homesteading Family. It was so popular that it sold out in less than a week but you can get the digital copy or sign up for the wait list for a physical copy at the link above.

Other Gluten-Free Recipes You Might Like:

5 Minute Gluten-Free Crumpets

Gluten-Free Popovers or Dutch Baby Pancakes

Gluten-Free While Grain Seedy Bread

Gluten-Free Apple Cinnamon Sourdough Batter Bread

Make Your Own Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter from Scratch!

Note: This Post contains affiliate links.

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Cranberry Orange Cinnamon Christmas Punch

For those of you that have made my fermented lemon cranberry relish, pull out whatever you have left from Thanksgiving and use for it for your Christmas parties. 🎄

I improvised this yummy Christmas punch for my daughter’s Christmas party. It was super easy and delicious too!

Cranberry Orange Cinnamon Christmas Punch Recipe:

1 bottle of apple juice
1 – 2 liter bottle of Sprite
3 heaping spoonfuls of cranberry relish
3-4 cinnamon sticks
Slices of 1 large or 2 small oranges

This punch is delicious! It’s best if you add everything but the sprite and let it chill overnight and then add the Sprite right before serving. It’s also super quick to mix up more when your bowl runs low. Just combine everything together again and you’ve got another bowl ready to go.

And if you need to avoid refined sugar, try this sugar-free modification…

Sugar-Free Cranberry Orange Christmas Punch Recipe:

If you need to omit refined sugar, simply follow the recipe above, but instead double the amount of lemon cranberry honey relish that you add, and use orange flavored seltzer water instead of Sprite and you’ll have a yummy holiday punch with no refined sugar.

Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄

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Instant Pot Baked Potatoes – Just in time to free up the oven for Thanksgiving

This is such an easy way to make baked potatoes. I hardly ever heat up my oven to cook baked potatoes anymore. It’s especially nice in the summer when you don’t want to heat up the kitchen. And around the holidays when 5 other dishes need to be in the oven at the same time, it’s a lifesaver. Pull out your IP and free up your oven this week for that Thanksgiving Turkey. 🦃 But, it’s truly a time and energy saver as it cooks 3 times faster than the oven.

Instant Pot Baked Potato Recipe:

I feel like I can hardly even call this a recipe. Just wash your potatoes, set them on top of a metal trivet in the liner of your Instant Pot Add 2 cups of water to the liner (this is the minimum water needed for an 8 quart Instant Pot). Seal the vent and cook on High Pressure using the following times based on the size of your potatoes:

Potato Cook Times based on Size:

X-Large Potatoes: 15 minutes

Large Potatoes: 12 minutes

Medium Potatoes: 10 minutes

Small Potatoes: 8 minutes

Tiny Potatoes: 6 minutes

It takes about 10 minutes for the water to heat up so that the pot will come to pressure.

10 minutes + cook time = much faster than the oven!

When the cooking time is complete, depressurize immediately or let the pressure reduce naturally. It doesn’t really matter either way for this recipe.

Holiday and Sunday afternoon time saver:

This is really a great way to cook baked potatoes for a holiday meals when your oven may be otherwise occupied with other dishes. Or set this up in advance as early as the night before using the Delay Start feature on the IP and you’ll have hot baked potatoes ready for lunch when you come home from church on Sunday morning! 😊

Pro Tip: Try to use potatoes that are the same size to promote even cooking. If you use a mix of tiny potatoes and really big ones, the little ones may turn to mush, or the big ones will not be cooked all the way through.

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Make ahead Pumpkin Spice Quinoa Porridge – an easy and allergy friendly breakfast!

I have made this in a couple of years, but it’s been one of those weeks and I need something easy for breakfast in the morning. Try this easy make ahead breakfast. You can set it up the night before and it’s ready and hot when you wake up. Get the recipe here!

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Extra Cranberries? Try this yummy relish….

Do you have extra cranberries to use up after Thanksgiving? Try this Lemon Cranberry Relish. It couldn’t be easier. It works for Thanksgiving, but I’ll tell you a secret. I made extra this year so that I have some for Christmas too. That beautiful red color will be lovely on my Christmas table.

This recipe can easily be halved or doubled. Here’s what you need:

1 package whole fresh cranberries

1/4 cup chopped lemon peel or 1-2 tbsp lemon zest

Honey

Simply chop the cranberries in your food processor (or leave them whole if you want), cut up your lemon peel into little pieces or chunks (you could use lemon zest too if you don’t want the chunks of peel in there), put in a jar, and cover with honey to 1” above the fruit level. That’s it!

Swirl the cranberries around 2-3 times per day or whenever you pass by the jar to keep them well coated as submerged. After a couple of days you’ll notice that the honey becomes more liquid as the fruit release their juices into it. You can begin eating it at any point, but the flavor is best after a week or more of fermentation time.

Amazingly this is a fermented relish. The anti-microbial properties of the honey are acting as a preservative for the fruit long enough for the liquid to be released into the honey which then allows the honey to ferment. After fully fermented, which takes about 2 weeks (more like 4 weeks if you use whole cranberries) the this will last indefinitely in the fridge. If kept at room temperature it will continue to ferment and eventually turn to alcohol if left out long enough. I keep mine out on the counter, but it never lasts long enough to bother putting it in the fridge. We eat it up.

And feel free to play with flavors. I’ve also tried adding orange and cinnamon, but the lemon is my favorite. 

This recipe makes a great jam substitute if you are trying to avoid sugar. I also use it in baking to make flavored biscotti or scones, or even as a flavoring or sweetener in my morning tea.

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Gemma’s Pumpkin Donuts

Don’t these look delicious!?!

Visit Bigger Bolder Baking for the recipe.

Another good recipe to try out for Fall. Stop by my Conversations page to see other websites, blogs and recipes that I find interesting.

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Spiced Chai Tea

Christmas Chai Tea

A perfect tea for a chilly fall morning. Mix up a batch, and serve instead of coffee with your Thanksgiving Day desserts. Get the recipe here!

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Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Perfect for breakfast or dessert on Thanksgiving day! Get the recipe here!

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Pumpkin Spice Quinoa Porridge – allergy friendly and the perfect Fall breakfast!

This hot pumpkin quinoa cereal is the perfect fall breakfast! And even better, it’s allergy friendly, and you can make it ahead in the Instant Pot! Perfect for Thanksgiving morning when you need to have an easy make ahead breakfast. Get the recipe here!

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It’s Pumpkin Bread Season!

It’s Fall! Time for all things pumpkin. Pumpkin Bread is one of our all time favorites. We’ve been making these loaves for as long as this blog has been around – 10 years and counting.

You can try my regular version on the Family Favorites page.

For the gluten-free version, visit my Allergy Friendly Recipes.

It’s the best!

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Allergy Friendly Pumpkin Muffins – dairy, soy, sugar, egg free

Pumpkin Banana Muffins:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups whole wheat, spelt, flour of choice

1 tsp salt 

2 tbls baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Stir together. Then add…

3 eggs (or 5 yolks)

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup mild flavored oil

3 very ripe bananas mashed

1 1/2 cups pumpkin purée (or my favorite – roasted butternut squash purée)

2 cups liquid (mix of milk, water, or milk substitute)

Mix until dry ingredients are just incorporated.

Allergy Notes:

If you can have sugar consider adding some mini-chocolate chips to these. Mmm.

And if you need to avoid eggs altogether, consider adding 1 cup sourdough starter to your batter to improve the texture.

Spoon into muffin cups and bake at 400 degrees for 20-24 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen muffins.

Cool completely and then store in the refrigerator. Best stored in the freezer if not eaten within 3 days.