The simplest gfcf cookie mix your kids will love

Jim's cookie mix

Well, this is what it sounds like. A basic cookie mix that you can use to make several variations of day-to-day cookies -- even for the toughest of diets. It is gluten and casein free. It's soy and egg free. And, the way I make it, it's also free of rice, corn, potato, chocolate and beans. Wow - what's left? Here it is:

Ingredients:
1 cup sorghum flour (or brown rice or chickpea)
1/2 cup tapioca flour (or other starch)
1/2 cup sugar (or other sweetener)
3 tsp egg replacer powder (like Ener-G) or 1 flax "egg" or applesauce/pearsauce/etc.
2 tsp xanthan gum (or guar gum)
2 tsp baking powder (corn-free, if desired)
1 tsp sea salt (optional)
Extra sugar (optional)
Canola oil (or other oil)
Water

Mix this well. Then add, 1/2 cup canola oil and 1/2 cup water. Add extra water by the tablespoon if too chunky. You want this to be smoother, but not liquidy.
Beat with blender until mixed, scraping the sides.
Using WET hands, scoop out small ball-shaped hunks of dough and place on ungreased cookie sheet or in muffin tins. The dough shape can be rough. You can smash the top down with a fork to give it the classic peanut butter cookie look. Or, you can smooth the top down by using a spoon. I sprinkle some sugar on top before baking. Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes. They will be very soft coming out of the oven but will firm up as they cool. When cool, top with some icing or powdered sugar.

This is the standard cookie. And, I actually don't make this version often. Most often I make one of the following versions:

-- Carob/cocoa: add 1/3 cup carob or cocoa powder to the recipe.
-- Spice: no carob. add 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp ginger to the dry mix. Add 1 tbsp syrup (cane, maple, honey, agave) to the 1/2 cup of water measure.
-- Date-spice: no carob. add 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp ginger to the dry mix. add 1/4 cup mashed dates or figs. Mash them by boiling in water for 10 minutes. Drain, keeping the water in reserve. Add 1 cup of the fruit to a blender with 1 cup of water. Blend until smooth. Add more or less fruit to get desired consistancy.

Noah's Bread

You may have heard of Noah's Bread. Like Tom's Bread, its among the most highly requested gfcf bread recipes. Why? Because it works and is versatile. I'll post the original recipe here, as originally posted on the GFCFRecipes Yahoo group message board by Kwan. She created this recipe for her son, Noah. Later, I'll post some of the variations I've used for things like donuts, rolls and soft pretzels. This is a good recipe to experiment with. Try different things you have in mind.

Original Noah's Bread

from Kwan
This is the original version of Noah's Bread, developed by Kwan for her son Noah when she couldn't find any bread he could eat.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown rice fl. (I subbed sorghum)
2/3 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup corn or potato starch
2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg (or sub)
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup CF milk (or water)
1/3 cup sparkling water

Recipe
Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Mix all ingredients well, except the sparkling water. Once the batter is well mixed, add the sparkling water to make the batter rise.

Work quickly and form batter into buns, bagels, roll, etc. I use hamburger form pans and rings from the Gluten Free Pantry but you can also use aluminum foil to make form rings. I also put the batter into large ziplock bags, cut a corner, and squeeze out the appropriate shape of whatever I'm trying to make, such as bagels.

The batter should be thick and look somewhat lumpy. Don't use too much batter or form too high. The bread will puff and rise and settle back down once cooled.

Bake for 20-25 min until the crust is golden brown.
The crust will be hard out of the oven but will soften once cooled.

They freeze and thaw really well.

Tom's Rolls recipe

So, I posted the recipe for the famous Tom's Bread. It's only fitting that I follow with the recipe for Tom's Rolls, a variation of Tom Van Deman's original bread recipe. Good for rolls or burger buns. Here it is in Tom's words:

1 1/8 cup Chickpea flour also called Garbanzo bean flour
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup + 1 Tbs. tapioca flour
3 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbs. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. creme of tartar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/8 cup warm water (uncomfortable to touch but not boiling)
3 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast

Recipe
Turn your oven to 350 degrees. Put your bread machine on the dough cycle
and let your machine make your dough. Your problem with our non-wheat dough
is that it is very sticky. You will need to dump the dough into the middle
of a greased plastic sheet like saran wrap and squeeze out each roll on a
greased cookie sheet. Roll the greased plastic sheet around the dough into a
roll of dough leaving one end open and the other folded it over. Squeeze
out the dough using both hands to form balls of dough about the size of a
tennis tall and about 3 inches apart. Fill up each of your cookie sheets
with the tennis ball size dough. Try to squeeze them as round as possible.
Cover each sheet with a greased plastic sheet and place in a non-drafty warm
place to rise. Allow the dough to at least double in size. As soon as the
rolls are ready take off the plastic and place in the top part of the oven.
Bake for 25 to 40 minutes or until they look brown and sound hollow when you
tap lightly with a spoon. Cooking times will vary according to atmospheric
humidity. From this point I think that you will be able to finish the
baking. Hope that you enjoy the rolls. They can be used for hamburger buns
also.