Stacey's Gluten Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

These are absolutely the chewiest cookies I ever made. Seriously good stuff. For our "free-from" month my main "bake" was to make a gluten free veggie lasagne, but I didn't like the way it turned out so I went ahead and knocked up these vegan and gluten free cookies instead. The recipe below started it's life over on this blog here, but as usually I messed with the quantities and stuff. Seriously - I think I have a problem where I'm not actually able to follow a recipe.

I think next time I make these, I may leave 50g of my oats whole to give the cookies a little more structure. I'll post pics/update to let you know how it goes!

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 8-10 minutes
Makes 18 cookies

Ingredients:
150g rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder

250g crunchy peanut butter

150g dark muscovado sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp water (if needed)

1. Preheat your oven to 180 and line a couple of baking sheets with grease proof paper
2. Pop you oats into a blender, and whizz to a fine powder. Don't worry if there are a couple of rough bit. Stir in the baking powder and put to one side.
3. Beat together the peanut butter, sugar and vanilla extract until well combined. Stir in the oat flour until a crumbly dough starts to form, then knead this gently with your hands until the mixture comes together. If you find the mixture is too crumbly, add a little water until you get smooth dough.
4. Roll the dough into balls and pop on the baking sheets, making sure to leave ample space between as the cookies will spread! 
5. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown and starting to get crisp on top. Don't worry if they are still gooey when you take them out of the oven, they will firm up slightly as they cool. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes, until transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Enjoy!

Tom's Autumn Apple Cake

I copied this recipe down a long time ago, and I think I forgot to halve the apples along with the rest of the ingredients.  If you like apples a lot use the full amount (I did for my bake, and it works), but it turns out very apple-y!

It's gluten free, but probably also works fine with normal plain flour. But then obviously wouldn't be gluten-free.

Ingredients

1lb peeled, cored and sliced apples
1½ cups GF flour (or Polenta)
½ tbsp GF baking powder
Pinch salt
1¼ cups granulated sugar (I used brown)
½ cup oil
2 large eggs
1½ tsp Vanilla
Zest and juice of 1 small orange

Method

Put the everything except the apples in a bowl and mix it together well.
Line a 8" square tin and pour in half the batter.
Layer on half the apples.
Pour on remaining batter.
Layer on remaining apples.
Sprinkle some brown sugar and little pinch of cinnamon over the apples.
Bake for around 1½ hours at 180°C/GM4.

Lorna's Gluten Free Orange and Coconut Cake

I've got a couple of friends who are gluten-free. One out of choice which really doesnt make sense; choosing to give up cake! But anyway, every now and then i send cake to their work via my fella to keep them happy. This is the latest to make the trip

Ingredients:
100g ground almonds
70g shredded coconut
150g fine cornmeal/polenta
2tsp baking powder
juice and zest of 2 oranges
270g butter
270g caster sugar
4 medium eggs


Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease an 8" round deep cake tin, lining with greaseproof as well if you want. In a large bowl, mix together the almonds, coconut, polenta and baking powder. In a separate bowl beat the butter with the sugar until light and fluffly, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Don't worry too much if it splits a bit - a tablespoon on polenta should bring it back together as with a regular cake. Beat in the orange zest.
Pour the dry mix into the buttery mix and add in the orange juice. Mix until well combined. Pour into the tin and bake for about an hour. I baked for 45mins then covered the tin with foil so the top didnt go too brown and baked for another 25 minutes. Poke with a skewer to check if its done. Pop out of the tin and leave to cool on a cooling rack.
When he's nice and cool you can cut him in half and ice with any icing you want. I had a packet of Polish Dr Oetker icing in the cupboard (for reasons i fail to remember) which, from my apt skills on Google Translation, i made up as instructed. I did confirm it was gluten free first. Tasted a bit like hot chocolate, but not so hot...