Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookie Bars

OATMEAL COOKIE BARS 

(Gluten-Free)

INGREDIENTS

  2 cups gluten-free flour mixture
  2 cups gluten- free rolled oats
  1 1/4 cup brown sugar
  ¾ teaspoon baking soda
  ½ teaspoon salt
  2 sticks salted butter, melted and slightly cooled (16 Tbsp)
  12 oz semisweet/milk chocolate chips
35 soft caramel candies
6 Tbsp milk


INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour. Combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter, let it cool, and pour into the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir until a soft dough forms. It should be crumbly. If your dough is too wet and heavy, add a little more flour until the dough is crumbly.
2. Grease* the bottom of a 9X13 baking dish. Press ¾ of the dough into a 9x13 baking dish. Put aside the remaining ¼ for topping. Bake for about 15-17 minutes. (Gluten-Free flours don't brown like wheat flour does.) 
3. While crust is baking, unwrap caramels and melt in the microwave with the cream. Microwave at 15 second intervals and stir until the mixture is smooth and pourable. (You also can do this step in a double-boiler.)
4. Spread the entire 12 oz bag chocolate chips (minus the few you ate :-) over the baked crust. (They will start to melt if you pour them over the hot crust and that is OK.) Pour the melted caramel over the chocolate chips. Crumble the remaining dough with our hands and cover the entire top of the cookie creating a top "crust" (Do not press this crust down). 
5. Bake for another 15-20 minutes, (Remember it won't turn brown like wheat flour does.) Let it sit and completely cool. It needs to be completely cooled off to be able to cut into bars. Eat! Yummy!

*Gluten-free baked goods tend to stick to the pan. We use a homemade "cake release" recipe to grease our pans. You mix together; 1 cup gluten-free flour mixture, 1 cup shortening, 3/4 vegetable oil. Mix together and store in an airtight container. Coat the bottom the sides with this release.

 Step 1: Gather all the ingredients

(forgot the salt in this picture)

Step 2: Add the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Be sure to sift flour first.

Step 3: Pour melted butter over dry ingredients and stir together.

Step 4: Grease the bottom of the pan with "cake release."* 

Press mixture into the bottom of the pan to make crust. Bake crust.

Step 5: Cover entire crust with chocolate chips

Step 6: Melt caramels and pour over top of chocolate chips

Step 7: Cover the entire top with crumbled dough as a top crust 

(Do not press it down)

Step 8: Let it completely cool before cutting. 

ENJOY!!

Gluten-Free Biscuits

GLUTEN-FREE BISCUITS

Gluten-Free Formed Biscuits

     I admit I miss the ease of the pop-out of the can, pop into the oven biscuits. They are so convenient. But they are not gluten-free and they have all kinds of other ingredients in them.

     My husband is an excellent cook. I never liked biscuits and gravy until my husband made it homemade. Yeah, it is so much better than the stuff from the can. So since being gluten-free I couldn't use my pop-out of the can biscuits anymore. We needed to come up with a gluten-free biscuit recipe. Albeit it takes longer to make these, but it is worth the time to make it homemade and my daughter and I can eat them! 

     These can be made as a drop biscuit or a formed biscuit. I like mine to look like the regular biscuits and it makes a flatter surface for gravy. I use the English muffin rings I purchased online. They are very inexpensive and very helpful to make formed biscuits.

English Muffin Rings

     You can use this basic recipe and add cheese and garlic powder to it and spread melted butter with fresh garlic on top and you have gluten-free Red Lobster biscuits! ENJOY!!

Gluten-Free Biscuits

2 c. gluten-free flour 

2 c. corn starch*

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp xanthan gum

1 stick butter (chilled in freezer)

1 1/4 c milk

1 1/4 c water

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar 

1 egg, beaten 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper to insure biscuits come off the sheet. Grease biscuits rings.

In a mixing bowl combine flours, baking powder, salt, baking powder and xanthan gum. (Gluten-Free flours do best when sifted.) Grate butter into the flour with a fine cheese grater. Mix the butter into the flour so not large ball of butter are left. 

Add apple cider vinegar with the milk before added the milk to the mix. Then add milk, water, and beaten egg to the flour mixture and mix.

Place enough batter in to fill the ring half way. Wet fingers with some water and lightly flatten the top of the batter to make a flat top which will create the formed biscuit. OR drop a large spoonful of dough on the parchment paper to make drop biscuits.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 mins until the biscuits don't look shiny anymore. They won't get that golden brown look like wheat biscuits do. Refer to the picture above to see the color of the finished biscuit.

*If you can do corn starch, you can substitute potato starch

Chocolate Chip Cookie Crunch

We make gluten-free treats and bring them with us to events. Everyone tells us how good they are. Many people ask us for the recipes. So we decided that we would start collecting our recipes into a cookbook. But I wanted to start sharing our recipes with you all and you can try them and see how they work out for you. 

With that being said, my 12 year old, almost 13 year old, daughter is the best baker I know. I give her a recipe and how to doctor it and she is able to make some delicious goodies. One day she wants to open her own bakery. Maybe even a gluten-free bakery!

This has got to be one of the best cookies we have eaten. We took a recipe from a book I am reading and doctored it for gluten-free and it turned out wonderfully. I am addicted.

                 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Crunches

1 cup salted butter (2 sticks, melted)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt (omit if you use salted butter like us)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour mix, sifted
2 cups crush corn chex (crush them with your hands, crumbles not dust)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or milk chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips

     Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter, add the sugars and stir. Beat in eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl mix together, baking soda and flour and sift. Add flour and stir in. Crush corn chex in a bowl with your hands. Add crushed chex and chocolate chips and stir. Form dough into walnut size balls with your fingers and place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes on the middle rack.

     Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes. Then remove to a wire rack until they are completely cool. The wire rack is important it makes the cookies crispier. If the cookies spread out too much in the oven reduce to 350 degrees. Do not flatten cookies before baking. They will flatten themselves.