From the time Muscadine was 2 years old, I made her birthday cakes. I really enjoyed decorating them. One year, she had a Dora cake that was 2 or 3 layers with some of the characters made out of fondant. When her skin issues got out of hand, I had to step back and regroup. I needed alternatives. After I found an ice cream recipe that I knew would work for her, I decided to make her an ice cream cake for her birthday. And that is when I came across this recipe from Gluten-Free on a Shoestring! This is the original recipe:
1 ¾ cups high quality all-purpose gluten-free flour
¾ teaspoon xanthan gum (omit of your blend already contains it)
½ cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
½ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
8 TBSP unsalted butter, softened
1 extra large egg, beaten
1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
But, of course, at the time I had to modify the ingredients some for her. The only flour blend I was able to use at the time was a mixture of garbanzo flour and arrowroot starch (2:1 ratio). ,If you aren't familiar with garbanzo flour it can be a bit bitter tasting. Since most xanthan gum is derived from corn, and she had a major intolerance to corn, I left that out. The only sweetener we were using was local raw honey – when you use honey in place of sugar the dry ingredients have to be adjusted some to allow for the extra liquid. We avoided eggs during this time, and were not using any kind of vanilla extract. By now, you are probably wondering how I made all these adjustments and if it turned out. Yes, they did turn out pretty good...and here is my adapted recipe:
1 ¾ cups flour blend (garbanzo & arrowroot) plus ½ flour and ½ cup arrowroot starch
2 tsp Baking Powder (I used cream of tartar, arrowroot starch, baking soda)
½ cup cacoa powder
¾ cup honey
¼ cup mineral salt
8 TBS grassfed butter – I made my own from the cream of raw cow's milk
1 ½ tsp virgin coconut oil
Mix everything in a food processor. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with paper and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients with a whisk. Add the rest of the ingredients until the dough comes together. It should be thick and smooth. Divide the dough in equal parts, and roll each out to 1/8 inch thickness between two sheets of unbleached parchment paper. Pull back the top sheet of parchment paper on one piece of dough. With a round 2 ¼-inch cookie cutter, cut out rounds. Transfer the rounds to the prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart (they don't spread much – if you followed my modified version and added baking powder, space 2 inches apart.) Gather the scraps and roll them out again for more rounds. Repeat with the second piece of dough. Place the baking sheets, one at a time, in the center of the preheated oven and bake, rotating once during baking, for 8 minutes or until the cookies spring back when pressed lightly in the center.
Remove baking sheets from the oven, allowing them to cool on the baking sheet until firm. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.