So all you agave haters gather round.  These gluten free chocolate chip cookies are completely free of agave, I have used yacon instead.

What is yacon?  It is a perennial root, composed primarily of water and Fructooligosaccharide (FOS). These short chain sugars have a lower caloric value (as they are digested anaerobically) and high fiber content. FOS is a prebiotic that is extremely helpful with digestion. 

I use yacon as my "brown sugar" or "molasses" in my recipes.  For example, in my book, The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook, I use yacon in my recipes for Gingerbread Men and S'mores.

So, for those of you that are agave averse, what is your favorite substitution for this ingredient in my recipes?  I've heard of people using everything from apple sauce and stevia to honey.  If you have a formula or a favorite recipe that replaces agave with another ingredient, be sure to leave it in the comments section!

One of my favorite bloggers, Chris from Celiac Handbook is featuring me on his Facebook page this week.  Chris is an amazing guy who does so much to spread awareness of celiac disease and is always selflessly promoting other bloggers in our community.  He is fabulous.

These cookies were inspired by Dorie Greenspan's delicious looking Molasses Spice Cookies which I saw in a recent Parade Magazine.  I read Parade every weekend (it comes in our local paper), and I especially enjoy checking out the recipes in it and then renovating them for my gluten free higher protein desires.

Spice cookies are perfect for this time of year, a little zing and boost after the holidays and warming as well, which is nice given all of the cold spells we've been having here in Colorado.

Molasses Spice CookiesNote: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.
1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup grapeseed oil
¼ cup yacon syrup

1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
2. Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
3. Mix wet ingredients into dry
4. Scoop onto the parchment paper lined baking sheet one tablespoon at a time
5. Bake at 350° for 8 minutes
6. Cool and serve

makes about 12 cookies

For those wondering about my use of yacon syrup in this and other recipes, I have a section on my ingredients page regarding the benefits of Yacon syrup and the reasons I use it in place of molasses.

It's so nice to see food bloggers adapting recipes from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. Heather from the Heather Eats Almond Butter blog recently posted pictures of the Classic Carrot Cake (that she made into a birthday cake) from my gluten free cookbook. Johanna over at Slow Cooked RX posted her version of my Chocolate Chip Scones recipe using chia seeds and cocoa nibs. Check out her Cocoa Nib Scones recipe!

Stay warm and have a spicy New Year!

I love making candied nuts during the holiday season.  There's something very festive about them and they are satisfyingly sweet and filling at the same time.  Lately I've been on a candied pecans kick.  They're super easy to make and my husband loves them.

You could jazz up this recipe with some spices like cinnamon and cayenne (I think both together would be delicious), however I've been enjoying the simplicity of merely sweetening the nuts lately.  These nuts make one delicious gluten free snack --and there is nothing like it in my gluten free cookbook, so enjoy it here for the taking!

Gluten Free Candied PecansNote: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.
2 cups pecans
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons yacon syrup
½ tsp celtic sea salt

1. Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl
2. Place in a 9x13 inch Pyrex baking dish
3. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes
4. Cool and serve

Thanks so much to Alisa over at godairyfree.com for recently doing a giveaway of my gluten free cookbook, The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook on her personal blog, onefrugalfoodie.com.

For those of you interested in the Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten Free (Grain Free Cakes) round-up, remember there are only 7 days left until the submission date, November 25th.  So far I have received many wonderful entries for this blog carnival.

I can't count the number of times I've been asked for a vegan eggnog recipe.  This gluten free, dairy free (egg free) eggnog is not too challenging to make and full of filling rich yumminess.

Unlike other eggnogs, it's not too sweet and has a nice delicate nutmeg flavor.  If you want to decrease the sweetness further, go with only 1 tablespoon of agave in the recipe below, or eliminate it entirely.  You'll still have the natural sweetness of the almonds and the rich round sweetness of yacón.

Vegan Eggnog (dairy free, egg free, gluten free)Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.
3 cups almonds
4 cups water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons agave nectar
2 tablespoons yacon syrup
2 teaspoons nutmeg, ground
¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ground
pinch cloves, ground

1. Soak almonds overnight
2. Discard soaking water and rinse almonds in a deep bowl of water, repeat until water is clear
3. Place soaked almonds and 4 cups of water in a Vitamix
4. Blend on highest speed for 90 seconds
5. Strain milk through a fine mesh paint bag, discarding solids
6. Place almond milk in a half gallon mason jar
7. Add vanilla, agave, yacon, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, then shake well
8. Refrigerate until cold and serve

Serves 6

As you all know, I love almonds.  I wrote an entire gluten free cookbook on them called The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook.  So it was a lot of fun when I found this very positive article on almonds over at Men's Health Magazine.  Men's Health is on the almond bandwagon!

It's Friday again and the winner of last weeks Friday Freebie is Lauren!  She won the Virgin Coconut Oil book from Tropical Traditions.

For this weeks Friday Freebie I've received a 5lb bag of blanched almond flour from Honeyville to give away (again).  Go ahead and leave a comment below to be entered. On top of that, Honeyville currently has special on almond flour --a 15% discount that continues until November 17th, 2009.  To receive your discount, enter the coupon code VETERANS into your order.

UPDATE: this giveaway has ended, the winner was Sarah Yao

These gluten free carrot muffins make a great addition to any brunch menu, though especially one for Mother's Day.

These lightly sweetened muffins are made with high fiber coconut flour.  Don't let all that healthy stuff scare you off though, they're mighty tasty.  And with yacon sweetening them, they're not too sweet.  If you want to replace the yacon with agave your muffin will be just a bit sweeter.  I tried making them both ways and preferred the yacon version.

I would say that yacon compares to agave the way molasses compares to honey.  Yacon and molasses have a more subtle, round flavor, whereas agave and honey have a sharp, sweet flavor.

Either way, these muffins are a healthy treat great for breakfast, snack or dessert.

Gluten Free Carrot Mini MuffinsNote: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
3 eggs
¼ cup grapeseed oil
¼ cup yacon syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup carrots, grated
¼ cup currants

1. In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon
2. In a large bowl, blend together eggs, oil, yacon and vanilla
3. Blend dry ingredients into wet, then fold in carrots and currants
4. Grease a mini muffin tin with grapeseed oil and then dust with coconut flour
5. Spoon approximately 1 teaspoon tablespoon of batter into each greased mini muffin cup
6. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes
7. Cool and serve

Makes about about 32 mini-muffins

Just before we ate dinner last night, my boys were packing their lunches.  Much to my surprise, my older one put 5 or 6 of these carrot mini-muffins in his lunch.  He's more of a brownie kind of guy and doesn't usually go for my fruity (or in this case vegetable) type treats.  When I told him I was so glad that he liked these new muffins, he responded that he did not.

He then explained that the boys in his class really like my baked goods and he trades them for fruit leather and candy at lunchtime.  Whoopee.  You can imagine how happy I was about this.  Not.  Overall, I would have to say that the children he trades with are getting the better end of the deal!  At least my son is a good label reader and is hopefully not getting glutenized.  Though that's not really the point in this case.

I want to take a moment and thank all of you for your comments.  While I love what I do and get satisfaction from it day in and day out, it is great to hear from all of you.  I so appreciate the contact and community.  Your comments really are the icing on the cake!

And to thank you all for your wonderful comments, for this week's Friday Freebie I will be giving away an Elana's Pantry tote bag made of 100% recycled cotton.  Leave a comment on this post and your name will go into the Yankees hat for the drawing (to be done by my boys) next Thursday evening.  We will announce the winner next Friday.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

How low can you go?!  This gluten free chocolate peanut butter tart is sweetened with a delicious alternative sweetener that I have been enjoying of late --yacon syrup.

This lower glycemic sweetener is derived from the yacon plant which is often referred to as "apple of the earth."  Yacon is high in fructooligosacharides (FOS), a form of fructose that is lower in sugar than others and is in fact, also a pre-biotic.  This sweetener feeds the friendly bacteria in the colon and can also aid in digestion. You can read more about Yacon Syrup on my Ingredients page.

Of course, as we all know, the best sweetener is no sweetener at all.  I believe that humans were not made to digest large quantities of sugars.  Fruit is available in most climates a couple of months of the year, if that.  And then there is my family.  They like their sweets regardless of the season.

And then there are my readers.  While it's pretty easy to find a recipe for gluten-free roasted chicken or gluten-free burgers, the pages of Sunset and Parade are not exactly swimming with gluten-free dessert recipes.  As we all know, in our culture, gluten-free just isn't the norm.  And of course, finding gluten-free desserts that are lower in sugar, higher in protein and dairy-free?  Well, there's not exactly a lot of that out there.

Thankfully, I found this dessert on a fabulous blog that I follow called healthyindulgences.com.  While I don't utilize some of the ingredients that the lovely Lauren uses on her site, I do admire her low-sugar gluten-free recipes and think this one is a total winner.  After all, who doesn't want a little peanut butter with their chocolate?

I haven't tried to use yacon and agave interchangeably, so am not sure if that would work in my recipes and others. Whenever I want to see if an ingredient works in a recipe I make sure to test it.

In terms of flavor, I find that yacon is not as sweet as agave and its taste is not as "sharp."  Its flavor is more mellow and "round."  On its own, yacon has a flavor similar to that of molasses, however, in the pudding recipe above, the chocolate mostly hides that flavor.  If you try yacon, please stop by and let us know what you think.

And have a great Passover everyone!

In a break from all inauguration news all the time, I present you with these chewy, yet crispy ginger cookies!

This recipe is based on Heidi's "Triple Ginger Cookies" from 101Cookbooks.  I've made them gluten-free, dairy-free and turned them into "single ginger cookies" as well.  Basically, I'm just too impatient to use three types of ginger.  Though I bet Heidi's cookies are every bit as amazing as they look in her photograph and well worth the effort.

You could also call these gluten-free gingersnaps.

Update: In response to many of the comments I've received thus far, I haven't tried making these without yacon, though feel free to experiment; just be sure to stop back here and let us know how your version turns out :-)  I use the yacon in place of molasses (it's a pre-biotic that aids in digestion). Yacon gives these cookies their dark, rich flavor.

Per the questions regarding the type of ginger called for in this recipe, I use dried ground ginger, the kind you can purchase in a bottle at the supermarket in the spice section.

Fig newtons seem to be everybody's childhood favorite. Especially my husband's. I made a batch of homemade, gluten free fig newtons this weekend and he ate the cookies so quickly that I had to hide some for friends.

What makes these little fig newtons so special? Well, I'm told they taste like the real thing. And besides, unlike the original, they have no white flour, white sugar or artificial flavors. They're gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and naturally sweetened, making them a perfect treat for just about anyone --including those on the GFCF diet.

Lately, a number of parents have been in touch with me about the GFCF diet. Through these correspondences I have been introduced to TACA, as well as Jenny McCarthy's memoir about her son, Louder Than Words, in which she discusses her journey to heal her son's autism.

I am glad to have encountered this strongly networked group of parents and to provide GFCF recipes such as the one below that offer fun food for the whole family.

The other day we had friends over and made tons of gluten free gingerbread men cookie. So many little hands rolling and cutting out dough. We decorated our gingerbread men with dried fruit and nuts. The kids even cut loose and made free form cookie shapes as well.

I have been working on this gluten free, dairy free gingerbread recipe for years. At last, I find myself sufficiently satisfied with the recipe and offer it to you for some Christmas cookie baking fun.