"Ritz"-y Flax Crackers

These buttery little crackers are very similar to Ritz crackers! I always ate Ritz crackers with chicken noodle soup when I was a kid. Like Ritz crackers, these gluten free flax crackers love spending quality time with a hot cup of soup or chili.

I made mine a wee bit tiny because I ended up ordering some cute little Japanese carrot shape cutter things from internet land. Their tiny size really makes them perfect for scooping up a handful and sprinklin' them all up in a soup!

As you can see when compared to the size of the apple,
 these are some tiny crackers!

"Ritz"-y Flax Crackers

Recipe from Free Eats Food

• 1-3/4 cups gluten-free flour mix
• Mix: 2 cups brown rice flour, 1/3 cup tapioca starch, 2/3 cup potato starch
• 1/4 cup flax meal
• 3/4 tsp. guar gum (or xanthan gum if you tolerate it)
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1.5 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 2 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. granulated sugar
• 6 Tbsp. non-hydrogenated shortening (Earth Balance)
• 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 cup soy/almond/rice milk + 2 Tbsp. if needed

* Note: I had a hard time with this dough. You most likely will too. It appears extremely dry and I ended up adding an extra 3-4 Tbsp. of liquid before refrigerating it in plastic wrap. The original recipe said to refrain from adding too much liquid, but I had no problem adding the amount that I did. 

1. Place the 6 Tbsp. of shortening in freezer until chilled and firm.
2. In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients. Mix well. 
3. In a small bowl, combine the liquids. Set aside. Reserve the extra 2 Tbsp. of liquid if needed (if dough is too dry).
4. With a fork (or pastry cutter if you're super fancy) work the chilled shortening into the dry ingredients until you have a bunch of tiny crumbles.
5. Add liquid ingredients to the dry/shortening mixture and mix with fork. The dough does not really hold together at this point. If it does for you, great. For me it didn't, so this is where you want to add that extra liquid if you need it.
6. Get out a piece of plastic wrap and scoop the dough onto it. Kind of knead the dough a bit for a few minutes until it seems sufficiently combined. 
7. Press down the dough into a little compact nugget and wrap the plastic wrap up around it.
8. Place dough in fridge for 1 hour.
9. Preheat oven to 375F.
10. Roll dough out on floured surface (or a cutting mat) with a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the dough. Roll dough out to about 1/8" in thickness
11. Cut out whatever shapes you want for your crackers. 2" diameter rounds is more of a typical cracker size : )
12. Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 8-10 minutes, depending on thickness of crackers. 
13. When golden brown remove from oven and cool on racks.

Chewy Nutty Almond cookies

In a previous post I mentioned that I had tried a cookie recipe from the Gluten Free Goddess. These cookies ended up tasting just like caramel! I had to freeze half the batch just to ensure that I wouldn't end up eating them all at once! This tactic didn't really work out because I ended up thawing out the cookies shortly after freezing them... at least I made a legitimate effort, right?
I made some modifications to the GFG recipe - using Honeyville's blanched almond flour instead of Bob's Red Mill. Sometimes I find the taste of sorghum flour a bit too strong so I used a mixture of sorghum flour AND brown rice flour, subbed canola oil for the olive oil, and used a flax "egg".

Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl:

• 1 cup Honeyville blanched almond flour
• 1/2 cup sorghum flour
• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca starch
• 1.5 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. sea salt (NOT kosher salt)
• 1.5 tsp. xanthan gum

Mix/"cream" these together in another bowl:

• 1 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup sucanat
• 1/3 cup canola oil (or light olive oil)
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp. agave nectar (or honey, maple syrup, etc.)
• 2 Tbsp. flax meal mixed with 6 Tbsp. water

1. Make flax "egg" and allow to sit for about 10 minutes, or until it starts to get gel-like. Then mix with other liquid ingredients. 
2. Add the dry ingredients mixture to the creamed sugar mix.
3. If too dry, add 1-2 Tbsp. almond milk, 1 Tbsp. at a time.
4. Stir until mix has a dough-like consistency.
5. Stir in, by hand, 1/2 cup chopped almonds (or pecans, hazelnuts, other favorite nut)
6. Cover bowl and chill the dough for 30 minutes in fridge.
7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 Celsius) and prepare baking sheet. Line sheet with parchment paper.
8. Scoop little balls of dough onto lined baking sheet, 2 inches apart, and press dough balls down just a bit to flatten.
9. Bake in preheated oven for about 18-19 minutes, until cookies are golden. I ended up slightly burning my first batch, and ended up being WAY TOO hard to eat after they cooled. Learn from my mistake ; )
10. Remove cookies with spatula, place on cooling rack.