gluten-free eats

I made an entirely new to me and utterly delicious holiday cookie today. I discovered it entirely by accident. I was reading this article about Hänsel and Gretel and the origin of the idea of witches living in gingerbread houses. The article stated “These houses were supposedly made of Lebkuchen, which according to Linda Raedisch is pretty much exactly like gingerbread minus the ginger”

Being a foodie with both a sweet tooth and an interest in culinary history, I immediately began looking for recipes for Lebkuchen. I initially found two that very exceptionally different from one another. The first was standard Lebkuchen, which indeed appear to be standard gingerbread people (or houses) with minimal ginger - not very interesting and I have a good gingerbread person recipe already.

The other one intrigued me, it was for a fancier variant of Lebkuchen called Nuernberger Elisenlebkuchen, which used candied citrus peel (yum), and nut flour, and was naturally gluten and dairy free. Given that those are my precise dietary restrictions I was impressively intrigued. The recipe had two gluten containing elements – a small amount of flour to mix with the candied citrus peel to keep it from sticking when you put it in a food processor (easily substituted for GF flour blend), and the suggestion that the cookies have a very we dough that is traditionally place on oblaten, which are effectively non-sacred communion wafers and definitely contain wheat.

I wanted to check and see if these were necessary, and I also wanted a replacement. Fortunately, because I do lots of Asian cooking, I have lots of unusual Asian ingredients around, including salad roll wrappers (large disks of rice-based plastic like substance that becomes soft and delicious when moistened. So, I made 1/3 of the cookies with no backing (to prevent sticking I baked all the cookies on baking parchment) and 2/3s on small rounds of this rice wrapper stuff that I cut out. Surprisingly both options worked well.

The recipe also suggested making your own candied lemon and orange peel, since the commercial stuff is somewhat nasty, so I did, and now I have quite a lot of both.

In any case, here’s the recipe I used:

Ingrediants

• 2 large eggs
  
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  
• 1 TBs + 2 tsp cup honey
  
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  
• ½ cup + 1/3 cup cups almond flour
  
• ½ cup + 1/3 cup cups hazelnut flour
  
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1.5 teaspoons Lebkuchengewürz (see below)
  
• 1.6 ounces candied lemon peel
  
• 1.6 ounces candied orange peel
  
• 2 TBS cup America’s test kitchen GF flour blend
  
• 14 2-2.5 inch in diameter rounds of rice wrap for salad rolls (can be omitted)

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Toss the candied lemon and orange peel with about 1/4 cup all-purpose flour to keep it from sticking together and then pulse in a food processor until finely minced. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until foamy. Add the sugar, honey and vanilla extract and beat until combined.

Add the ground almonds and hazelnuts, salt, baking powder, Lebkuchengewürz, and candied lemon and orange peels and stir vigorously until thoroughly combined. (You can use a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat for about 2 minutes). The mixture will be wet but if it is too thin to scoop onto the rice wrapper (if using) add some more almond or hazelnut meal.

Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 25-28 minutes. Remove the cookie sheet and allow to cool completely.
Keep stored in an airtight container. Will keep for several weeks and the flavor improves with time.

Lebkuchengewürz

• 1 tablespoon + ¾ tsp ground cinnamon
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground green cardamom seeds
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground star anise
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg