am I insane? aka help me bake these cookies

[*mama moose*]

ok, I was just looking at pics from last christmas and saw DD1 eating her first greek cookie. My grandma has made these every single year since before I can even remember, without them its almost not christmas!! I have made a few different cookies, sugar cut-outs, snickerdoodles and the like...I feel confident I can re-create it, but I need to replace literally every ingredient.....so I might need some help

Heres the recipe/picture: http://www.fredshouse.net/archive/000450.html

the ingredients are:
1 lb. unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
1 T vanilla extract
4 C flour
1 t baking powder
1-2 boxes powdered sugar

So I'm thinking: spectrum shortening, flax eggs (will this work to replace just yolks?? any advice here?), GF flour blend of brown rice/white rice/tapioca, baking soda/cream of tartar for BP, white sugar/tapioca starch blended for the powder sugar.....that leaves the vanilla, is there any corn-free type out there, or a good sub (maybe cinnamon?)

Do you think its just too much to still be good? It also usually has almonds but my grandma said I could easily leave them out and that recipe doesn't even call for them so I'd say they aren't critical. I do have sunflower seeds I could sub but I feel like they would ruin it....

Anyways, any input? Am I just delusional? My grandma thinks its impossible without the butter....

[waluso]

It's definitely worth a shot! I think Vanilla from Tahiti (www.vanillafromtahiti.com) has corn-free vanilla. I think you can only order it online.

[Chinese Pistache]

I don't know, but I had to lol at replacing every ingredient! I did a quick search on subbing egg yolks and it seems flax is supposed to work. Try it!

[~Megan~]

In my GF cookbook it says you can replace unflavored gelatin with egg yolks so I bet that would be a good solution. When I don't have a sleeping baby on my lap I'll try to look up the quantity of gelatin needed for each egg yolk.

[xekomaya]

How do you feel about the texture of your flour mix? Right now I'm -ing sweet white sorghum - it is giving me a fluffier, smoother texture than my brown rice was... i'm using the sorghum + potato starch though, can you use that?

Hain makes corn-free baking powder if you want to simplify - I've ruined waaaay too many things with too much baking soda. And I would add even more than the recipe since flax goo is heavier. Gelatin + tapioca + baking powder might replace the eggs better.

I assume you want these fairly soon or I would suggest you just make your own vanilla. You could perhaps just whiz up a vanilla bean (or just add the seeds) instead of extract. That might even be better since it is a pretty butter intensive recipe and palm shortening doesn't really taste like butter, you need to replace some flavor somehow.

It is going to be pretty hard since you'll be adding flavorless things (palm & egg replacer) for the main flavors in the cookie, but I'm sure you can come up with something fairly similar.

[menomena]

FWIW...

Homemade baking powder:
1 part baking soda
2 parts cream of tartar
2 parts arrowroot starch
ETA: I put it in a mason jar and shake. When I need baking soda, I just measure up the desired amount from the jar.

Also, I agree with the sorghum suggestion. We do 1/2 sorghum, 1/2 brown rice. Much smoother, fluffier texture than rice alone.

[*mama moose*]

thanks for the input!

A few notes:
can one be allergic to gelatin? I've never trialed it in.
the other loophole in this is I'm very limited in my access to specialty items, I used to be able to get to whole foods which has a HUGE GF baking section but without a car I'm limited to the local store's small "health food" section. I know they DO have the featherweight baking powder, I think I will buy that before making these. I don't think they have sorghum flour though....
I think you guys are right about the flavors though, I thinks its going to be important to find a way to get a corn-free vanilla, esp since its also missing the almonds....

BTW, doesn't my cute little DD make you want one of these cookies? lol

[crunchy_mama]

Originally Posted by xekomaya

How do you feel about the texture of your flour mix? Right now I'm -ing sweet white sorghum - it is giving me a fluffier, smoother texture than my brown rice was... i'm using the sorghum + potato starch though, can you use that?

Hain makes corn-free baking powder if you want to simplify - I've ruined waaaay too many things with too much baking soda. And I would add even more than the recipe since flax goo is heavier. Gelatin + tapioca + baking powder might replace the eggs better.

I assume you want these fairly soon or I would suggest you just make your own vanilla. You could perhaps just whiz up a vanilla bean (or just add the seeds) instead of extract. That might even be better since it is a pretty butter intensive recipe and palm shortening doesn't really taste like butter, you need to replace some flavor somehow.

It is going to be pretty hard since you'll be adding flavorless things (palm & egg replacer) for the main flavors in the cookie, but I'm sure you can come up with something fairly similar.

I think these are good suggestions. I like sorghum much better as a replacement, the texture is less gritty than rice and it has a slightly sweet flavor that is good for desserts. I think the vanilla bean in there would be good as well.

[kjbrown92]

I just made shortbread the other day and that would have HAD to have had butter, but it didn't. I used palm shortening. However, I can use almond flour and that gave it a little more taste. I've just been scraping vanilla beans and using that instead of vanilla extract. What do you have to lose? That's how I get some good recipes. Sub away! Regular gelatin like Knox has beef in it so if you can't do beef, I wouldn't trial that.

[xekomaya]

You can be allergic to anything, but you can check what the gelatin is derived from. I thought knox was fish gelatin for some reason, but beef makes sense too. If you guys are allergic to any animal sources I would call and double check what it is derived from and then give it a try.

Your HFS should be willing to order sweet sorghum flour for you - bob's redmill makes it so it is pretty accessible if not commonly carried.

[lil_miss_understood]

Those remind me of my mom's "Christmas tradition cookies", crescent cookies, which I found out are also called Mexican wedding cakes. (No idea why but..)
Crescent cookies/Mexican wedding cakes don't contain eggs nor baking powder though and *always* call for nuts of some kind. I was considering trying to make them allergen-free this year but, at this point, I'm just trying to get into the new house before Christmas.
Let me know how your experiments go, Phoenix. I'd love to try them- I Greek food.