I’m making cookies for a group of people, and one person is both vegan AND gluten-free. After searching the web for some kind of goodie to make that this person can eat, I’m at the point where I can’t even fathom just what such a diet consists of other than vegetables. Talk about restrictive!
Anyway, I’m making a few batches, most of which will be standard cookies (ie, not vegan OR gluten-free) but I’d sure like to find at least one recipe she can eat. Anyone have anything? Preferably nothing with too crazy ingredients (ie, I’m not going to go buy a $10 pound of fancy gluten-free flour.)
I do have on hand almond flour and coconut flour, so if I can use either of those, great. I’ve also discovered that Lindt dark chocolate is vegan and gluten free, and I have a few bars of that around, so that would be an option.
Assuming you have gluten free flour, the main problem is eggs. So any egg-less recipes will work. You also can supposedly substitute ground flaxseed, but I’ve never tried it. And this replacement list sounds good, even if it is from PETA.
I was going to recommend my favorite easy gluten free cookie recipe (without even any flour), but it turns out it has an egg in it. I don’t know if any egg replacement will work, but it’s pretty simple to try:
1 large egg
3/4 cup sugar, plus optionally enough to garnish
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon baking soda (optional)
1/2 teaspoon gluten-free pure vanilla extract (optional)
1/3 cup chocolate chips (optional)
Combine, dip out, and bake at 350[sup]o[/sup]F for 10 minutes or so.
If fudge is an option, there’s a peanut butter one by Alton Brown that I love that is vegan. Just substitute dairy-free margarine. (Most light margarines are dairy free, if you can’t find anything else.)
You could make a key lime pie in a long narrow tart pan and cut it into bars. Use gluten free ginger snaps instead of graham crackers for the crust. My sister is gluten free and I made this for Thanksgiving and it was awesome. The ginger snaps I found at Harris Teeter. There are also gluten free graham crackers but I could not find them locally.
Dammit - my awesome chocolate macaroon cookie recipe is gluten-free, but it has a 1/2 cup of milk in it. I don’t know if you could substitute soy milk for regular milk.
Chocolate Covered Katie is your answer. She specializes in vegan, gluten-free desserts. I’ve made a few things from her and been very happy with the results. Her tofu chocolate pie has become a standard at our family holiday dinners because a couple of my nephews have egg allergies. It tastes good and it’s very easy to throw together.
When I need to serve dessert to both my gluten-free friend and my vegan friend at the same time, I usually make fruit salad.
But it’s easy to make a vegan fruit pie. I like to thicken it with tapioca (you can find both pearl and powdered tapioca these days.) I usually make a crust with flour, palm oil, and a small amount of salt and water, but you could substitute with the ginger-snap crust. Or just make a crumble with no lower crust and a mix of brown sugar, cocoanut oil, gluten-free oats (you need to find the specially labeled ones, as oats are usually contaminated wit wheat) and some chopped nuts.
For something that looks like a cookie – you could make shortbread using gluten-free flour and coconut oil instead of the butter. I made it once with wheat flour and coconut oil, and it was surprisingly yummy.
For a bar, you could take nuts, dried fruit, and some corn syrup or other sticky sweet thing and mix it all up as if you were making rice crispy treats, but make granola bars instead.
Or, there’s always fruit salad. Delicious if you get good, in-season fruit.
I actually thought it was humorous, and not mean-spirited, although I can see how it can come across that way. The OP herself even says “… I can’t even fathom just what such a diet consists of other than vegetables. Talk about restrictive!” I don’t think he was being jerkish (this time).
A date/apricot/oatmeal bar would be good, with substitutions made for gluten-free flour and butter analog. If you’ve not used gluten-free flour before, the ones without bean products are much better tasting than the ones with.
Almond flour and coconut flour are both delicious (you probably already know this!). They don’t have the starchiness you might need in a particular recipe, but may work very well for your purposes in some cookies.
**
Cat Whisperer**, substituting soy milk for cow’s milk will have no adverse effect at all on your macaroons. I might add a touch more vanilla.
You can use chia seeds or flax seeds to replace the egg in most recipes - Google chia egg or flax egg. In which case these black bean brownies are gluten free and vegan.
These chocolate chip cookies are gluten free (flour is a can of ground up chick peas) and vegan - replace the honey with rice malt, maple syrup or other, and provided the chips are (you could do raisin and walnut). And pretty awesome - my kids are really happy with them.
Thank you. I’ve already replied to** twix**'s PM on this and was going to leave it at that, but this convinces me to add the same comment here.
The posts up to mine, including the OP, seemed more exasperated and puzzled by the need. I wrote the above in what was meant as gentle sympathy, and actually deleted a paragraph about difficulties I’ve seen in meeting an alternative diet when there are medical or religious considerations that conflict. Then the next several posts were very serious about recipes etc., and even I could see my post stuck out like junior high jerk-ery. Not at all my intention and I apologize to anyone who took it badly.
Thanks, AB, I appreciate your apology and explanation – and, as I said in my PM to you a minute ago, I was also rolling my eyes at the expectations of the person the OP is attempting to accommodate.
But – a thread actually containing suggestions for recipes or places to find them isn’t the right place to snark on the special snowflake, and I’m going to let the warning stand.
I laughed at AB’s comment as well. I’m totally OK with it, and don’t feel like it derailed the conversation at all.
Anyway, thanks to everyone else for all the suggestions. I’ll take a look. Forgot to mention that this will have to be transported quite a way, so pies or other delicate things are not going to happen.
The problem with rice krispie squares is the marshmallows not being vegan.
Those look very similar to my chocolate haystacks/macaroon cookies.
I’m going to have to try that. Here’s my recipe:
1/2 cup margarine
2-3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk or soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup coconut
Melt margarine first in a large saucepan, add sugar, cocoa powder, and milk, stir.
Boil for five minutes, then remove from heat and add oatmeal and coconut. Mix thoroughly and drop on cookie sheet.
You can also add chocolate chips or chunks in with the oatmeal and coconut for extra chocolatey goodness.