The things we do--cooking, DIY-ing, gardening, and more.
Our house was built in 1983. The very first thing we did after we closed on it back in 2004 was rip out the old brown cut pile carpet in the living and dining rooms (yes, carpet in the dining room, it’s an eighties thing). …
My husband travels quite a bit. Last year he tried some meatloaf that had chorizo in it, and he liked it enough to tell me how amazing it was. Well, if he likes something that much, I feel a need to try and recreate …
My husband and I are following a ketogenic diet, and it’s Christmastime…we don’t want to go off plan but we like a few “legal” treats now and then.
This man loves snickerdoodles. Seriously. The other night we were watching Elf and a commercial for some new TV show came on with a young couple arguing about whether snickerdoodles are just a type of sugar cookie or are they a cookie in their own right…after six repeats of this, I asked my husband if he would like some keto snickerdoodles, and of course he said yes. We are highly suggestible people.
Anyway, I looked to my favorite source for recipe information, Pinterest, and found several recipes that I didn’t quite like. The thing about snickerdoodles is they traditionally contain some cream of tartar. This adds just a little “tang” to the flavor. Many of these recipes didn’t have any. I finally found one that seemed very authentic from Averie Cooks, called appropriately, “The Best Snickerdoodles.” All her cookie recipes look wonderful! These are full-on sugar and flour, so I had to adapt them to use keto ingredients.
To adapt a regular cookie recipe to low carb, I sub almond flour (prefer Bob’s Red Mill, I can get it at Sam’s Club) for the regular flour. You usually need to increase the amount of almond flour. So for 1 1/2 cups AP flour, I use 2 cups almond flour. Then see how much sugar is in the recipe and sub an equivalent amount of your preferred alternative sweetener. I am really liking Pyure Organic Stevia Blend (this is stevia extract and erythritol). Pyure Blend is twice as sweet as sugar, so you need half the amount. This is good because too much erythritol is NOT good. Sugar alcohols can wreak havoc on your gut, depending on the amount you ingest and your own personal tolerance level. I like to combine sweeteners to enhance their effect, so I added 6 drops of liquid sucralose to up the sweet factor to 3/4 cup total sugar equivalent. You could use another tablespoonful of the Pyure instead.
A few tips to ensure nice puffy cookies: Don’t melt your butter to a liquid consistency. It should be soft, not runny. Cream the butter and sweetener well before adding your egg, then blend that some more until it’s really fluffy. Add the rest of the ingredients and continue to mix well. At this point, you should pop your dough into the refrigerator for a half hour or so to get it firm (longer than that is fine). Softer dough has a tendency to spread. If you want crispy cookies, this can be a good thing, but for puffy snickerdoodles, chill it. On this baking occasion, I did not chill the dough and they came out a little on the flat side. I was in a hurry. 😀
I use a tablespoon size cookie scoop to shape the balls but you can certainly use your hands. This recipe makes at least twenty cookies. Roll the balls in the Pyure/cinnamon mix and place on parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
Bake at 350 for 10 or 11 minutes. They should be just set but not really browned. I suggest letting them sit on the baking sheet for a few minutes to cool and firm up before moving them.
We are big cinnamon fans here, so I increased the cinnamon to sweetener ratio for the rolling mixture.
I hope you enjoy these as much as we have!
A soft, sweet, cinnamony cookie. Sugar, grain, and gluten-free.
Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter and sweetener, add egg and blend until fluffy. Add sucralose, vanilla, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, molasses, and combine. Add almond flour and mix well. For puffy cookies, chill for at least 30 minutes. Form into 1 Tablespoonful balls and roll in 1/8 cup Pyure and cinnamon mixture. Do not flatten. Bake on silicone mat covered baking sheet for 10 to 11 minutes.
These are very fragile until they cool a bit. Makes about 20 cookies.
Adapted from Averie Cooks.
Macros per cookie: 72 calories, 6 grams fat, 6 grams carbohydrate, 3 grams fiber, 1 gram protein, Net Carbs 3 Calculated from MyFitnessPal based on a total of 20 cookies.
Last December, as our Christmas present to each other, my husband and I took a weekend trip to Colonial Williamsburg. We stayed at the Parkside Williamsburg Resort, which is just a few miles from downtown Williamsburg. We had visited in April 2009, and I had always wanted …
One of the things people love most about a fresh Christmas tree or wreath is the amazing scent. We don’t have a fresh tree or wreath so far this year, but I do happen to have a bottle of Rocky Mountain Oils Spruce oil so …
Years ago, my brother-in-law and his wife gifted us a little ceramic Texaco station for Christmas. They gave us two more over the years, and since you can’t have a village composed solely of filling stations, I had to get more little houses. I added one or two little buildings each year until they outgrew my display space.
Here’s how I set up a very simple village display on a buffet in our living room. One tip for a nicer display is varying the heights on your houses. You can use anything underneath, but I use the foam packing boxes that the houses are stored in. They are white and sturdy. I have twelve buildings so I put six foam inserts on the back of the buffet.
Then I set all the houses in place on the buffet. They all have light bulbs that go inside so I have to get the bulbs and cords arranged. I put the houses on the floor in order, then lay out the cords on the buffet with bulbs in place. If you have at least five houses, I highly recommend a multi bulb string so you don’t have so many cords to plug in. I have two 5 bulb strings and use a 2 bulb string to get the last couple of houses. I fiddle around with this until it makes sense. Tip: check your bulbs to make sure they all work at this point. These generally take a 4 watt bulb. I use a power strip to light the village because I need at least three outlets and you can easily switch the whole village on and off. I store it with the village so there is no hunting it down every Christmas.
Christmas villages must sit on a blanket of snow (it helps hide the cords!), so I use a length of cotton batting. You can find these with the Christmas decorations or get some from the fabric or craft store. There are different thicknesses available. The one I have now is on the thin side but it works. I would love to create a Styrofoam village base at some point, but this is not the year for that project.
Once the cords and bulbs are in place, I drape the “snow” over them. At this point I used scissors to cut little slits so the bulbs will fit through them and carefully worked the bulbs through the “snow”.
Next I placed the houses in their spots, putting the light bulbs in the houses as I go. Some fit through the bottom and some go through the back.
Once they are in place, I add little goodies like figurines, trees, and firewood. I made a little pond from an old locker mirror with some cotton around the edges. The tiny “logs” are maple branches I cut up with pruners.
All done!
Here are a few close ups:
