Sunflower Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Gluten and Nut Free

Mid week afternoon require some serious cookies. Before kids games you have to have a boost of wonderful aromatic cookies.
Since baseball season is in full swing and tennis tournaments are almost every weekend, I made a system of making healthy cookies and freeze the leftovers so every time we need one we just have them ready to go.
This time I had a sunflower seeds in a pantry so instead of almonds I decided to grind these and use them in a cookies.
Fantastic flavor, tiny bit salty but with semi sweet chocolate chunks make dream cookies.
Plus these are not only gluten free they are also nut free for everybody who needs to avoid nuts.

Makes 12 cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chunk
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup sunflower seeds (grind)
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon organic vanilla sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar, optional

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.
Using double broiler melt chocolate chunks with tea spoon of milk and tiny bit of butter. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally till smooth, set aside.

Grind the sunflower seeds.

In a stand up mixer bowl add cold butter, sugar, egg, vanilla sugar, melted chocolate.

Mix just for a few spins, then add all the flours. Texture should be like a dough.

With hands roll the dough and form balls adding few chocolate chunks and if wanted extra pieces of sunflower seeds for the crunch.

Pop cookies in the oven for 14 minutes.
Let them cool and if you like you can sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

Fantastic aroma and texture combination of trail mix and great cookie.
Enjoy!!

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Red Velvet Whoopie Pies, Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!
Summer is in a full swing. It’s time for grilling, BBQ, fresh ripe fruits, nice desserts, backyard party time-:)
I am guessing there are a lot of lemonade stands on many corners in many places.
Since there is a lot of food served and everybody munches something all the time, I’m trying to prepare and make desserts which are much lighter.
This time I made all time favorite Red Velvet but in the other shape, whoopie pies. So convenient to eat and enjoy, for small and big hands, just grab a napkin and dessert is served-:)
For 4th of July I made special fondant toppers which pieces form The Flag. I am trying to create new fondant toppers all the time and especially love to work on custom orders, big thanks to everybody who is following my store updates and upcoming decorations-:)

Ingredients:

Makes 6 Whoopie pies

For the pies:

1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 stick butter, softened
1 cup plain non fat yogurt
2 tablespoons red food coloring
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
salt, optional

For the icing:

1 cup mascarpone
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor, mix the sugar with the eggs, butter, yogurt, food coloring, vinegar. Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Blend until just incorporated.
Place the liners into a whoopie pie pan or use non stick spray and divide the batter evenly, pouring only halfway so the batter doesn’t overflow. Bake, rotating halfway through, for 10 to 19 minutes. Remove the pies and let cool.
In a bowl, beat the mascarpone, icing sugar, vanilla and lemon zest together until the mixture is smooth.
Spoon and spread cream on the whoopie pie only on one side and then form the pie adding just a cake part.
This recipe has less fat and sugar.
Take a bite and enjoy!
Happy 4th oh July!
Have a great and lovely Summer-:)

Easter Eggs and Orange Peel Vanilla Sugar Cookies

Happy Easter to all people who celebrate Easter today, Hristos Voskrese!
Like every year, we dyed the eggs in the onion skins. Eggs have amazing aroma and flavor from all the herbs, Bay leafs, Black Pepper corns and spices.
My kids helped me to make Easter cookies, crisp snaps made with orange peel, vanilla sugar and honey. So buttery and delicious to snack on.

These cookies are perfect to serve with nice cup of tea or glass of milk.

Orange peel vanilla sugar cookies

Ingredients:
1 stick sweet cream butter
2/4 cup light brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups all purpose flour
peel of one orange
1 tea spoon organic vanilla sugar
1 spoon honey
1 egg white, for brushing

Preheat the oven to 375F.
Put the butter and sugar into bowl of standing mixer and beat on the medium high speed. Add the yolk. Sift together the flour, add orange peel and honey, steer until combined.
Make a ball of the dough, wrap in the plastic wrap and let it chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Line the large baking pan with parchment paper.
Unwrap the dough and using the roller, roll it till desired thickness.
Stamp out rounds with cookie cutter and put them on the prepared cookie sheet.
Bake cookies for 6 minutes, then brush with the egg white and sprinkle with vanilla sugar. Return to oven and bake for additional 5 minutes or until golden brown.
Warning: Cookies smell fantastic and you can really feel the taste of orange and wonderful sweetness of vanilla.
Everybody who loves orange jam will love these cookies.
They are also great addition to ice cream bowls in Summer time:-)
Happy Spring Time Everybody!

Pistachio & Almond Crisp Cookies

Spring time is here again, time to go back to sweets that are light, bite sized but full of flavor powerful enough to fix that sugar cravings.
Kids and I were researching French cookbooks the other night looking for cookie recipes. We spotted this lovely cookies, instantly like the recipe so we decided to make them.
Crunchy, thin, crisp cookies made with the powerful ingredients.
Easy and fast to make, these cookies are truly amazing, love there texture. Pistachio and almonds are great together plus added chocolate makes them irresistible. Great to have them on the go, when we all need something extra sweet, in afternoons….I bet you all know what I mean-:)

Ingredients:

1 egg white
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup pistachios, finely chopped
1/4 cup ground almonds
1/2 stick sweet cream butter, lightly melted

Preheat oven to 325F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Using electric mixer whisk the egg white with sugar, then stir in the flour, pistachios, ground almonds and butter mixing to a soft paste.

Place bonbon size spoonfuls of the mixture on the prepared cookie sheets and use the back of the spoon to spread as thinly as possible.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until golden. When set, transfer to a wire rack to cool.
To make cookies even more amazing I dipped half of the batch in the melted semi-sweet chocolate.

Love this recipe because I reduced the amount of sugar and butter and still they came out brilliant.
Enjoy!

Birthday Cheesecake, Polka Dots and Strawberries

So excited, so emotional, another birthday celebration, another cake this time for my baby girl, preteen-:) Decision on what cake should we have was easy because my daughter loves cream cheese, and her favorite cake is cheesecake without toppings. Lovely cream cheese…. Did I already mentioned that? Whipped cream cheese has to be in stock, top shelf in the fridge-:)
Had to be creative so this time I decided to make homemade marzipan to build strawberries and I was very happy with the result. They look beautiful and taste amazing, wonderful taste of almonds.

This is cute, playful decorated cheesecake, with polka dots and strawberries.

Ingredients:

Crust

1 cup low fat graham cracker, crumbs
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup melted butter

Filling

1 cup reduced fat cream cheese, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare 6 inch round cake pan with opening bottom.
Make the crust by stirring together all of the crust ingredients, mixing till thoroughly combined.
Press the crumbs into the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan.
To make the filling, mix together all of the filling ingredients till smooth. Use a mixer set at low-medium speed.
Pour the filling into the crust.
Place the cheesecake in the oven. Bake it for 20 minutes or till temperature reaches, 165°F/170°F.
Remove the cheesecake from the oven, set it on a rack to cool. When cooled, refrigerate it till ready to serve.

You can decorate your cheesecake with many different toppings, fresh fruit, chocolate sauce, berry sauce or caramel, everything sounds delicious.
Plain cheesecake is our favorite, it is delicious too and has less calories and sugar. That is why I decided to decorate it with fondant and marzipan figurines for the super cute look.
This is very easy recipe, very practical and most importantly everybody was happy with the dessert, fabulous.
Enjoy!