These have been proclaimed the house favorite by all three of my roommates out of all the things I’ve baked so far while living here in the UK. They’re THAT good. These gluten free pecan pie bars aren’t just any old pecan pie bars, they’ve got a buttery shortbread crust, they’ve got bourbon, they’ve got chocolate, and they’ve got a so much richness that you may just fall asleep after eating one. I wanted to make a pecan pie for our belated house Thanksgiving + early Christmas dinner that we put together last Friday in our little row house here in Oxford, but after pondering making a pie crust (something…
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Gluten Free Maple Pecan Granola
I started making this gluten free maple pecan granola for my dad because he would it granola every morning with his eggs for breakfast before he went off to work. As I’m sure you’re aware, granola, let alone gluten free granola, can be pretty spendy. Gluten free granola also tends to come in pretty small packages for its steep price. However, once I created this recipe, I can make a batch which fills a liter glass jar in our pantry and keeps us happy for about a month. I make this granola for gifts at the holidays, and always include a ziploc of it in the care package boxes I’ll…
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Gluten Free Chocolate Caramel Pecan Tart
Currently looking for a boatload of friends who want to share this MASSIVE bottle of gorgeously rich 10 yo Tawny Port while indulging with a slice of this gluten free chocolate caramel and pecan tart because WOW I need to eat some real food and not just this glorious combo all day. But hey, it’s a heck of a way to start a Friday! This is our second collab with a brilliant wine-expert friend in Vienna, Austria, Iker Berasaluce (check out his Instagram here!!) pairing incredible wines with incredible gluten free desserts, and it does not disappoint. The first collab we did was bright, fresh, very citrusy, and AMAZING. Props…
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Gluten Free Bourbon Balls
Thank goodness for Instagram, or I wouldn’t have even thought to make these delightfully indulgent holiday goodies last week! Calgary Glutenfree, another top-notch gluten free blogger, mentioned that their favorite way to use bourbon in baking was bourbon balls, and that sparked a full-fledged recipe hunt for how to make our own! I’d heard of these southern delicacies before but had regrettably never tried them, and after perusing various recipes, determined that I had everything I needed to make them right then and there. So I did. And I’m not disappointed with the result – quite the opposite! Now, apparently, the original bourbon ball was created by Ruth Hanly Booe…
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Mini Gluten Free Fruit-Topped Cheesecakes
Sometimes you have to improvise. Or, better yet, you’re given the opportunity to. Like when you make mini cinnamon roll pavlovas and have a MASSIVE amount of cream cheese custard (aka pretty much the same as cheesecake filling) leftover and some extra time in the day. So, with waning light for a photoshoot, I set to work adding a few extra things to the giant bowl of custard, and tossing together a quick, nut-based crust. I really had to get creative with the toppings for these, seeing as I hadn’t been to the store in a week and the fruit I had left in the fridge was…a bit sad. Thankfully,…
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Gluten Free German Chocolate Cupcakes
I distinctly remember scooping giant spoonfuls of Betty Crocker German Chocolate Frosting out of the plastic tub it comes in, and eating it gleefully when I was maybe eight or nine. Prying off the red plastic top to find perfectly-solidified caramel custard, pecan and coconut goop was like finding buried treasure. How I got my hands on the tub of frosting in the first place is the real question – either very impressive childhood sneaking into the kitchen and up into the baking cupboards, or maybe we all just indulged after making a cake or cupcakes or something more reasonable. Overall, this penchant for German Chocolate topping aligns with what…
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Gluten Free Butter Pecan Cupcakes
Anyone else have deep nostalgia for summer garage sales that start early in unfolding crisp July mornings when the sun is way ahead of everyone else sleeping in on a Sunday but as a nine year old, the most profitable day of the year is about to commence? Growing up in Eagle Point, Oregon, we had great garage sales – at least one big one a year, usually in July or August, on a weekend when the summer heat pulled neighbors from their air conditioned living rooms to shout hellos across the street or meander through the maze of tarps, folding tables, and drive ways covered in memory-soaked legos, stuffed…
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Gluten Free Brown Butter and Pecan Shortbread
When I was first diagnosed as Celiac in 2004, life as a 10 year old seemed immeasurably miserable: no more Oreos, sourdough toast, mac and cheese, Costco croissants, or hotel danishes. No more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! (my staple for packed lunches). It was a rough few months, to say the least, and those few months getting used to the new diet and figuring out what few items in the pantry I could still eat felt like a LIFETIME. Bowls of hot rice with butter felt like the best I could ever do, simply because the few brands in the US that were producing anything gluten free were woefully…
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Cheesecake Pecan Bars
You may notice a theme here: fall treats laden with hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds…autumn seems to be the perfect season to celebrate the brilliance of the nut. Buttery and rich, a touch sweet, and with an earthy variance in flavors as subtle as the gradient in fall colors. These cheesecake pecan bars simply jump on that nutty bandwagon, with the added bonus of a creamy, vanilla-packed layer of cheesecake to balance out the sticky sweetness of corn syrup and brown sugar caramelized around the pecans. What’s extra fun about this recipe is the magical switch that seems to happen after popping them in the oven: when you pour all of…
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Classic Pecan Pie Bars
Sometimes a baked good just exudes coziness. Oozes curled up evenings under the covers with a good book (or four) or with the projector on and a Harry Potter movie playing out on the canvas of your apartment wall. These pecan pie bars do just that, with a kick of wickedly sweet corn syrup custard and the nutty fall crunch of caramelized pecans held together by the flakiest of shortbread crusts. If this sounds like the perfect Saturday evening, then by all means, read on. And, if you toss them in the oven before dinner, they’ll be done just in time for that movie night, or start them on the…
