Happy Birthday Harry Potter: Gluten Free Canary Creams

Susie — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 11:00:34 +0000

I guess you could say Harry and I are friends. I mean, I’ve read every book at least 3 times. And I listen to the audiobooks to help me sleep or on long car rides. Harry Potter is synonymous with my childhood. So naturally, I wanted to do something to celebrate his birthday.

Well I’ve seen lots of cute Harry Potter cupcakes, and I’ve seen snitch themed things from candies to cake pops. I wanted to do something I hadn’t seen before.

One of my favorite silly treats in the book was Weasly’s Wizard Wheeze’s canary creams. When you eat one, you temporarily turn into a canary. How great is that? A fun, delicious treat, and a harmless prank.

Well, Ron and George wouldn’t let me share the incantation they use to make the cookies turn you into a canary because it’s a trade secret. But, you can make the cookies, and then try to figure it out yourself.

When I bake I usually use measuring cups, but I used my kitchen scale for this recipe, and I found it to be much easier! I’m definitely going to have to use it more often. I’ve only been using it for beauty recipes, but man, it’s great for baking! No worrying about leveling off your measuring cup perfectly- just pouring slowly onto the scale until you get the right amount. I highly recommend it for this recipe.

Here is what the dough should look like when it is ready to be rolled out! You just need to bring it together in a ball with your hands and then roll it out between two pieces of parchment paper.
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How cute are these canaries? This is the cookie cutter I used.

And here they are puffed up and baked. There’s always the worry when you use a cutter that the baked version won’t look as good as the raw dough- but this recipe is perfect for cutting shapes.

Mmm- look at that frosting! So so so thick.

And with a little food dye… it’s canary yellow! The perfect color for the cream part of the canary cream.

And next is the easiest and most fun step- decorating! To make the cream cookie sandwiches just spread a thick layer of frosting and stack another cookie on top!

They’re pretty darn cute as is.. but as always with me I had to keep going and do more cookie decorating. Frosting is just so much fun to work with. And sprinkles. And there was a lot of frosting left over so really- it would have been wasteful not to do more decorating.

Ok.. so here is what you’ve been waiting for. I got the recipe from Gluten Free on a Shoestring

Ingredients:

For the cookies:

2 cups (280 g) all purpose gluten free flour mix
1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your flour mix already has xanthan gum)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
3 tablespoons (22 g) confectioners sugar
8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg (60 g out of shell) at room temperature, beaten
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the frosting:

10 tablespoons (140 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tablespoons milk, at room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons meringue powder
4 cups (460 g) confectioners sugar
Food coloring (optional)
Yellow sprinkles (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper
In a large bowl, place all the dry ingredients (flour, xanthan gum, salt, and both types of sugar) and whisk until well combined
Add the butter, egg, and vanilla and mix to combine. You may need to use your hands a bit to bring it all together
Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper to about 1/3 of an inch thick. Cut out bird shapes and place them about 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheets (I got my cookie cutter here)
Place the cookie sheets in the center of the oven and bake for about 6 minutes, or before there is any significant browning.
Take the cookies out and let them cool completely
While the cookies are cooling, make the frosting. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or, if you don’t have a stand mixer, like me, a hand mixer will do) mix the butter, milk and vanilla on medium speed until well combined. Then turn the speed to high and mix until creamy
Add the salt, meringue powder, and about 3 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar and mix slowly until the sugar is incorporated. Once incorporated, mix on high until the frosting is uniformly thick. If necessary, add the rest of the sugar to thicken the frosting
Optional: Use food coloring to dye the frosting yellow. You can set some frosting aside in other bowls and use other colors as well for decorating
Once the cookies are completely cool, decorate to your liking!

To make the decorations on my cookies, I just put some yellow and red frosting into ziplock bags and cut a tiny tiny piece off the corner of the bag. I then piped the designs onto the cookies. Aren’t they adorable?

The ziplock makeshift pastry bags are super easy to use.

I think Harry will appreciate these for his birthday. It will bring him back to his Gryffindor days. He sure loves to reminisce.

Happy birthday Harry!

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The best, simplest, most delicious peanut butter cookies there ever were. That also happen to be gluten free.

Susie — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:44:49 +0000

When I first went off of gluten, I seriously craved some good baked goods. It’s hard to like the grocery-bought stuff when you remember the taste and texture of wheat cookies, cakes, and breads. This recipe enlightened me to the amazingness of gluten free (and also grain free!) baking.

I don’t have step-by-step pictures, so hopefully I can add them later in an updated version of this post. What I do have is an amazing recipe.

First off- let me say- whoever told you that flour belongs in peanut butter cookies in any form was FLAT OUT WRONG. Wrong I say! Taste these and you will immediately know why.

Delicious with chocolate chips

Ingredients

1 cup creamy peanut butter (room temperature- I prefer all natural peanut butters)
1 egg (works best at room temperature)
1 cup white sugar (brown works too and gives a stickier texture)
Optional:
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- chocolate chips

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
Mix all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until well combined
Lay out wax paper on a cookie sheet
Shape dough into balls. The dough will be sticky
Using a fork, flatten a criss cross pattern into the cookie
Bake for 10 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies begin to turn brown
Let cool before eating. Do not skip this step- or your cookies will literally fall apart, unfortunately. Patience, patience.

This recipe will give you about 12 medium sized cookies. And that will not be enough- so always make more. Experiment with toppings and additions. I’ve made these with white chocolate chips and they were amazing. They are always amazing. My boyfriend’s family makes me make them every time we get together. They also work great as a substitute for cookie crusts- I made an amazing peanut butter crust cheesecake with chocolate topping using these cookies. Gluten free and completely delicious. Enjoy!

supplies used in this post

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