Wanda's Knotty Thoughts

It’s that time of year when I get really busy, cleaning, baking, and tatting all the things I’ve told myself I would do earlier in the year but didn’t. This year I supposedly have more time to do all this but still find I don’t, I’ve found more things to keep me busy. One thing I have taken more time to do is baking.

Having a gluten intolerance makes baking somewhat challenging. There are flours that say you can use them the same as you would wheat flour, but you don’t always get the same results as you get with wheat flour. This year, with the help of one of my granddaughters, I have already done a lot of baking, and the results have been very good!

This is my first pumpkin pie with a GF flour pie crust. It looks good and it tasted wonderful! And that wasn’t just me saying it, the rest of my family liked it, too.

With help from my granddaughter, I made a pudding pie, cut out sugar cookies, and pecan cookies (this is a small sample of the cookies) as well as the pumpkin pie. I took these to a Thanksgiving dinner at my daughter’s house. I had fun baking with my granddaughter, and eating the results!

One of the problems with using GF flours is that it doesn’t have the elasticity(?)of wheat flour, as in, it doesn’t roll out as nicely as wheat flour. I was pleasantly surprised that both the pie crusts and the sugar cookies rolled out nicely, almost like regular flour!

A few days later I tried making cinnamon rolls. This recipe has you make the dough then shape it into a nine by eleven-inch form by pressing it out with your hands, not using a rolling pin. Then you add the butter, cinnamon, and sugar, and (try to) roll it up before cutting it as a normal roll and baking them. No yeast or rising time is needed with this recipe. I couldn’t get the dough to roll up for me, and they came out not looking so pretty.

I didn’t think to take a picture until after I sampled them. They just came out of the oven and smelled sooooo good! They tasted good, too. I got all of these recipes off of the Internet, and they all came out well.

One recipe I didn’t get from the Internet is for peppernuts. I used a recipe that my Mom always used but changed the flour to GF. My sister makes several batches every year but she halved it to make it easier. The original recipe called for four pounds of flour, so even a half recipe makes a lot of peppernuts. This is the first time I’ve tried them with GF flour, and I still have several ropes of the dough in the freezer yet to cut and bake. They did come out well.

When I was a kid, making peppernuts was the start of the Christmas holidays. When Mom made them it meant it was the start of baking goodies, gift shopping, and family get-togethers. When my sister and I were old enough we’d help roll the dough into the ropes and maybe get to cut them. Ours weren’t always the same thickness, so some would be a bit crunchier than others. It was fun for the first several pans, then we’d get tired and come back later as they came out of the oven to sample them. I wish I could do that now – it takes a lot of time to roll them out and cut them up. But at least I can eat some this year!

I did get tatting goodies this week too. I ordered several things from Tatting Corner from her 12 Days of Christmas sale.

These are my first Dreamlit shuttles, which I am eager to try. I love the way they come apart to fill the bobbin. I discovered quickly that I didn’t order enough thread when I had the chance. I only ordered a little thread and before they arrived I realized there were several other colors that I needed that I hadn’t ordered! I’ll just have to order again, won’t I?

I’ve got the autumn and Thanksgiving decorations put away now and have started putting out a few things for Christmas. I’ve got a lot of decorations but they are all in different bins and boxes that I only labeled “Christmas”, not actually what is in them. I’ll have to go through them and see if I can decide what I want to put out and what I’ll use another time.

What special things do you do for the Christmas season?

“Baking cookies is comforting, and cookies are the sweetest little bit of comfort food. They are very bite-sized and personal.” Sandra Lee