By Yvonne

Halloween is fast approaching and for most of us this is a time of excitement - looking forward to going trick or treating, eating candy, attending parties and enjoying delicious spooky foods. But, if you are a celiac or have food allergies this can be a difficult day.

Homemade treats for parties are great! Surprise your family and friends or make it a group project. This year I decided to revamp one of my Mom’s gluten sugar cookie recipes into a gluten-free version. It took a couple of tries, but I think I finally succeeded!!! Yeah! I do find it a challenge converting regular baking recipes into gluten-free versions. How about you? Any tips?

Here is the gluten-free version. I need to share that one of the problems I had was that her recipe did not give the amount of flour to use! The directions stated, “Flour to make a soft dough”. What is that?? How much flour? What is a soft dough? Unfortunately, my Mom is no longer with us, so I couldn’t just call and ask how much even though in my head I was like “What kind of direction is that?” No response came, so I played around with the amounts and types of flour until I found a combo that worked. I think that they turned out great and kept their shape.

My Mom’s Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp flavouring (I use vanilla extract)
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ cups of your favourite gluten-free flour
• 1/2 cup ground almonds

Directions

1. Cream butter and sugar, add the beaten egg, flavouring and the dry ingredients.
2. Flour your rolling surface with gluten-free flour and roll out – I rolled mine to about a ¼ of an inch in thickness – then cut into desired shapes.
3. Bake for about 8 – 10 minutes in a 375 F oven. Be careful they don’t burn.
4. Cool and decorate as you wish.

I used a store bought cream cheese icing for the ghosts and made the eyes and mouth with glacé icing. (Glacé Icing: a mixture of confectioner’s sugar, water and food colouring). I used the same glacé icing for the pumpkins and bats. I mixed an orange and a blackish (it is hard to make black) in bowls and just dipped the cookies in. I tried some orange sugar sprinkles on some of the pumpkins too.

I have also been working on some savoury items for a breakfast and snacks. Because yes, you can sometimes have too much sugar! It is fun just grab a knife or some Halloween cutter shapes and use your imagination!!! Go on the internet for inspiration or use a child’s Halloween book or colouring book if like me you are artistically challenged in the drawing department. I made some grilled cheese sandwiches with Halloween shapes and also a version of egg in toast. Does everyone know what egg in toast is? Usually you just cut a shape (a circle with a glass) in a piece of bread and butter both sides. Put in a frying pan and toast the one side then flip and pour an egg into the cut out shape and cook. Serve with the toasted cut out shape next to it and if you are me lots and lots of ketchup! Yummy! Use your cookie cutters to cut out shapes in bread to make cute Halloween ghost, bat or pumpkin sandwiches. It is hard to see in my photo, but that weird shadowy shape in the bread is egg. Haa Haaa! Yeah, well, I put too much egg in the space and it spilled out over obliterating the shape, but still tasted great! Also that is cream cheese – regular not frosting on the ghost with cheddar cheese eyes and mouth.

For my Halloween snack plate I played with making cucumber and carrot pumpkin shapes. Ghost and pumpkin cheese shapes and I used mushrooms to make bones. I made sandwiches using my ghost cookie cutter on the bread and fillings. Witches fingers were made using celery, hummus, your favourite nut butter and almonds for nails. Olives are great googly eyes!! The mummy pizza crackers are gluten free garlic rounds, salsa, cheese eyes and cheese bandages and then a scattering of raisins as creepy bugs!!

Here are some gluten-free candies that I saw this year in my local grocery stores: Rockets, Treetop fruit chews, Lollipops, Skittles. I couldn’t find any gluten-free mini chocolate bars.

What type of gluten-free candy do you have where you live? Do you make your own treats? How do you handle going out?

There are so many cool ideas out there. Have fun!