Gluten-Free Raspberry Coconut-Almond Bars

Gluten-free almond raspberry bars with coconut are sweet temptation.

Let's be honest. I am here today to tempt you. To coax you. To seduce you with a vegan holiday dessert worthy of the calories. In full transparency, I am admitting up front these are not fat-free. Or sugar-free. These aren't diet food. They're not proper for breakfast (unless you serve them with Champagne). And you won't be able to sigh ever-so-wistfully at parties and mention, off hand, how hard it is to eat gluten-free during the holidays. Because, Darling Reader, you'll score zero sympathy points once people sink their teeth into the luscious raspberry jam filling nestled between buttery toasted coconut-almond crunch topping and tender hazelnut cookie crust. Nope. In fact, these decadent raspberry coconut-almond bars should come with a warning:  

Be careful who you share these with.

Because they are sure to fall madly in love with you.


Continue reading

Vegan Coconut Bars

Chocolate and coconut vegan heaven.

Sometimes you just need a treat. A recipe with coconut and chocolate. After all, you've been so good. You've been munching fresh veggies and brown rice. You've been slurping healing soup with cabbage and drinking green tea. You've been diligent checking labels for gluten, casein, and soy. So it's time for something sweet. Something moist and chewy and perfect with a cup of tea.

Egg-free baking is tricky. And at high altitude, even trickier. Truth be told, I've tossed a dozen egg-free experiments into the trash this summer. But these little vegan gems?

These were keepers.

Continue reading

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cake- An Easy Gluten-Free Recipe

Use a gluten-free pancake and baking mix to make cake!

 

This is one of my most popular gluten-free cake recipes- a divinely simple gluten-free coconut cake studded with chocolate chips. And so easy to make if you keep Pamela's Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix on hand. We are leaving for Los Angeles on Friday and Yours Truly in Gluten-Free Goodness will be off-line for a bit. I thought I might leave you with something sweet to nosh as I prepare for our much anticipated sojourn into Hollyweird.

A simple recipe. No fuss. No frosting. Cake for those of us who aren't gifted with ganache. The kind of cake you can grab on the go (how very un-Zen!) or nibble politely over coffee and a hot flash inducing debate with friends about why naturally beautiful, smart and talented women inject military grade toxins into their foreheads and goddess-knows-what into their lips and bursting apple cheeks until all you can do, Dearest Reader, is stare in frozen horror wondering, What the Tap-dancing Hades have you done to your face?

Please, women. I beg you. Stop.

Your once expressive faces (your numero uno tool of the trade in theater and film) now look like masks or worse. You look like a sky-diving plastic blow-up doll. You do not look younger, I'm sorry to tell you. You look weird. Vacuous. If not desperate. There's an uncanny vinyl aura oozing from a visage that's had "work done" (I guess the new phrase is "been refreshed").

Trust me. Be strong. Be authentic. Think: What would Frances McDormand do?

And go eat some cake.

Continue reading

Almost Sausalito Cookie Bars

The nubby chocolate chip landscape of a favorite gluten-free cookie bar.

I ask you. What beats coconut and chocolate in a cookie recipe- especially if they happen to be gluten-free? Coconut and chocolate and macadamia nuts.

Okay, I confess. My all-time favorite cookies in those innocent pre-gluten-free days were not some hoity-toity gourmet bakery confection but those bagged big and bumpy Pepperidge Farm chocolate chunk cookies you could get in any East Coast grocery store. Yup. If memory serves me well, my go-to favorite featured coconut and chocolate. They might have been called Sausalito. Or some such California-evoking moniker.

In our quest to tweak one of our favorite dessert bar recipes this week my cookie-making husband and I came up with a chocolate chip coconut cookie bar that tastes an awful lot like those beloved crunchy-chewy Pepperidge Farm gems. We didn't happen to have any macadamia nuts on hand- but if we did I would have added some to the recipe.

And for those of you who loved dunking those Pepperidge Farm Nantucket Cookies into a glass of ice cold milk- Babycakes, these are dunk worthy.

Continue reading

Maui Wowee Cookie Bars with Coconut & Chocolate Chips

Gluten-free cookie bars with coconut and chocolate.

Ah. Savor this Maui Wowee goodness- a delicious coconut chocolate chip cookie bar recipe. But first, a little back story. I remember the first gluten-free cookie I ever ate. I was a week into this new gluten-free lifestyle, knowing- by my body's dramatic response to giving up gluten- I was on the right track. I was feeling hopeful, deprived, relieved, angry and curious all at once.

So, Dear Reader, I took my first bite.

The store-bought cookie tasted like dog biscuit dust. Like a thawed frozen pizza box whizzed in a Cuisinart. Like a stale corner crumble from last year's abandoned Christmas cookie tin from your aunt that can't cook and pontificates about politics over instant coffee, Sara Lee pound cake and her gently crushed pack of Virginia Slims.

My husband and sons felt sorry for me (though they masked it with humor, tossing cookies out the back door into the night like so many flying hockey pucks). The worst of it? They felt powerless to help.

That's when I knew.

Continue reading