Winter/ Holiday baking ideas

[SweetSilver]

After my daughter just devoured her 4th batch of the pumpkin/ maple bars I created for her, I got to think about trying to make little gingerbread houses.

Do you have special plans for the season?  Have you figured out a rolled cookie recipe that pleases the kids?  Invented your own goodie?  Allergy friendly pie?

And what's the best replacement for fondant to glue house pieces together?  Plain frosting?

Cheers!

[scsigrl]

Have you checked out kids with food allergies?  There are a lot of people there with great ideas.  If you become a family member ($25) they have a database that is searchable by allergen that's really nice.

We do a lot of saw Chex chocolate mix, rice crispy treats, chocolate suckers.  I also ordered some candy from Indy Candy Co. who make Top 8 free candy!

What are you looking for?  What are your allergens?

[SweetSilver]

Primarily I'm looking for a rolled cookie recipe that bakes up crisp and sturdy enough to spread frosting on. Plus a gingerbread-house dough recipe.  I might need a fondant substitute, but I need to do an out right challenge on egg whites.  She is OK with yolks (hardboiled from her sister's egg) and has not reacted to a cake with a single egg baked in.

Her main allergies are wheat, dairy and almonds.  

[scsigrl]

KFA has at least 3-4 GF/D/E free sugar cookie recipes.  

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Rolled-Marshmallow-Fondant

This fondant actually tastes good :)  Fits your need just fine!

[SweetSilver]

It does look good, but it brought up a persnickety point:  this is for rolled fondant.  Is the piped stuff in gingerbread houses also called fondant?  I just assumed, or perhaps remembered (incorrectly?)  I know it has egg white or powder and stiffens up nicely enough to make icicles.  Now, I don't expect icicles (though it would be nice!) but just a good, sturdy "glue" to hold the gingerbread "cabin" together.

I will be attempting to make the walls from oat flour (whoops, left that off the grocery list).  Maybe I'll add one egg to try to firm it up.  We haven't challenged egg whites outright yet, but some in a well-cooked cookie I don't think will be a problem.  We need to keep it from getting too chewy, and oats have that tendency.  We are still off rice for now.

 Any suggestions to get the dough sturdy?  This will help for rolled cookies as well.  

[scsigrl]

Oh, royal icing :) That's what you use the egg white powder for is royal icing.  In the past I have just done a real thick powdered sugar/water mixture and it's worked well.  

Are you actually going to be eating the house? If not, maybe try making one out of ground cinnamon mixed with applesauce (I am sure you can find a recipe online, they usually make ornaments out of it).  It rolls out and could be cut easily.

[SweetSilver]

Eating the house, of course!  As a kid I used to snack on stale gingerbread houses and it was a fond memory.  I'm sure ours will be tastier-- and more ephemeral!

I'd also like to figure out how to put sugar windows in.  I think I'll try spreading shortening and sprinkling sugar over it.

Now if only candy could be sold in little gingerbread-house-collection packets instead of giant bags...

[Wugmama]

WE made these and they turned out great, but were a royal PITA to roll out - totally stuck to everything.  I ended up rolling out directly on the parchment paper then cutting out and scraping off the dough in between the cookie cutters.  But they held up!  I've been advised my problem may have been because I subbed brown rice for sorghum.

I plan on trying this vegan icing and subbing brown rice flour for the corn syrup:

http://www.food.com/recipe/vegan-eggless-royal-icing-404594

Good luck!

~Tracy

[SweetSilver]

How sturdy did they come out?  I guess I'll just have to find out with ours.  We used quick oats ground in the blender.  Makes for a very crumbly cookie usually, so we'll see how it works for house walls.

Using parchment is an excellent idea.  At this point, our houses will end up being New Year's houses, which is a good thing because I can use up some of the Christmas candy.  

I cooked a batch of chocolate cookies with eggs yesterday, and let dd have some.  No obvious reaction, so I think I'll use them in the dough, which will help.  I accidently made the icing too thin (Earth Balance, corn-free powdered sugar and soymilk) and I ran out of sugar, so I ended up dipping the tops flat onto the icing.  They ended up like the icing on store-bought molasses cookies, really craggy and snowy.  Beautiful!