Gluten Free Maple Cinnamon Breakfast Pastries

I used to love those pop tarts, but they have gelatin in them so I haven't eaten them since I was a kid.  So I also really wanted to taste a "pop tart" again!  Making these was a little time consuming for 8 pop tarts...but they were absolutely delicious!  Bursting with real maple syrup flavor and warmth from the cinnamon.

Also sorry I've been on a bit of a hiatus...I actually had surgery to fix the tendinitis in my wrist that started back when I was a full time decorator so my hand has been a little out of commission for a few weeks leading up to it and after.

Homemade Maple Cinnamon Breakfast Pastries

Recipe adapted from Back to the Cutting Board, made gluten free by Jesicakes
Makes about 8 tarts

Pastry Ingredients

- 2/3 brown rice flour
- 2/3 sorghum flour
- 1/3 tapioca flour
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
- 3 Tbsp shortening, chilled
- 2 Tbsp real maple syrup
- 6-8 Tbsp ice water
- 1 egg

Maple Cinnamon Filling Ingredients

- 1/2 cup maple or light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 - 2 tsp cinnamon

Maple Icing Ingredients

- 1/3 cup powdered sugar
- 2-3 Tbsp maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Doctor Who Cookies

I am a huge fan of anything scifi/fantasy...so it's pretty much a given that I'm a huge Doctor Who fan.  I posted this photo a few months ago in a post about a few events I did.  I did these for fun do I didn't really do a tutorial but I did do vine's for them!  So I figured I would post my vine's which while not the same as a tutorial, do show my decorating process and give a little bit of an explanation on how planning and executing more complicated cookies works.

Go-to: Cookie Cutter Sugar Cookies

Before the new year, I posted in my opinion, the best chocolate sugar cookie recipe.  It is my go-to for chocolate dough, and while I love how the colors pop off the darker base, sometimes I also crave the classic sugar dough taste.  I have been working on getting this recipe just right, since it's such a staple for my decorating, and I think I finally got it!  Easy to roll out, cut easily, hold their shape...everything you want from a cookie you're going to decorate.

Go-to Cookie Cutter Sugar Cookies

Recipe a Jesicakes Original
Makes about 2 dozen 4" cookies
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Ingredients

- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (gluten free)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup sorghum flour
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 2/3 cup tapioca flour
- 1/3 cup white rice flour
- 3/4 tsp xanthan gum

Go-To Gluten Free Pie Crust

Summer is the perfect time for fresh fruit pies.  Especially fruits like peaches or berries which are in season.  I have to admit, I was intimidated by the idea of making a pie crust gluten free.  Pie crust can be very unforgiving.  There's a lot that can go wrong, and it typically doesn't like to be rerolled if you mess up.  But intimidation is not a good enough deterrent!  Too my surprise this turned out great on the first try!  Just a hint of sweetness, flaky, buttery but not oily, crispy edges yet not dry.  It's the best all-purpose gluten free pie crust - great for sweet pie or for more savory I'd just leave out the sugar.  It's also very easy to work with and roll out.  So go pick up some fresh summer fruit and this will be your go-to pie crust!

Go-To Gluten Free Pie Crust

Recipe a Jesicakes Original
Makes a double pie crust
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Ingredients

- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 1 cup sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup white rice flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
- 3 Tbsp sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup butter (2 sticks, cold, cut into pieces)
- 3 Tbsp shortening (1.5oz)
- 5 Tbsp ice water
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Summer Fun Cookies Decorating Tutorial

I love making decorative cookies that are bright and fun, and summer is the perfect time to make them!  If you remember my ocean cookies you may remember the starfish, sailboats, and seashells, but this time I wanted to amp up the color even more.  What more perfect cookies to do to celebrate summer than brightly colored beach themed cookies?

Summer Beach Cookies

Decorating level: Easy-Medium
Concept, design, and execution by Jesika Rose

• Gluten Free Sugar Dough Recipe or my gluten free chocolate sugar dough
• Royal Icing Recipe
• 4" round cookie cutter, starfish cutter, sailboat cutter, and seashell cutter
• 6 Decorating bags, couplers, tips, and rubber bands
• Three-Six #2 round tips
• Three #3 round tips
• Food Safe Markers
• Toothpicks
• Gel food coloring:
• Lemon Yellow
• Sky Blue
• Deep Pink or Soft Pink with a drop of Fuschia

Go-to Chocolate Chip Cookies (Revised!) plus a Coconut Variation!

Almost two years ago, I posted my Best Ever Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Recently, I decided to see if I could revise the recipe and make it even better!  I changed some of the ratios a bit, added a secret ingredient or two, and although I didn't think it was possible, this version is even better than my original!  While I was at it, I also made a variation that included organic coconut flakes and more dark chocolate.  While the first version was good, this version is sure to be your go-to gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe!

Go-to Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe a Jesicakes Original
Makes about 3 dozen cookies
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Ingredients

- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup granulate sugar

- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla, gluten free
- 3/4 cup brown rice flour
- 3/4 cup oat flour
- 1/2 cup white rice flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
- 1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
- 3/4 cup chopped 60% or 70% cocoa chocolate

How to: Make Character Cookies

A month ago was my Grandma's 90th birthday, and to celebrate my family all went to dinner.  I made these cookies to go on the place settings when everyone was seated.  My Grandma loves Tweety so we went with him for the cookies.  Decorating cookies is what I specialize in...especially character cookies.  Once you learn how to do a basic character it's easy to take that idea and use it as a template for any other characters you do.  Especially animation characters with black outlines.  This tutorial is to show you how to do a basic character.  The more you decorate the more you'll learn how to break down a design and in what order to decorate it.  This tutorial will show you how to decorate Tweety, with general instructions that will apply to any cartoon character!

Tweety Bird Cookies

Decorating level: Medium
Concept and execution by Jesika Rose, Tweety Bird is a creation of Bob Clampett, Looney Tunes, and Warner Brothers.  I claim no ownership of his design and these cookies were for personal use only.

• Gluten Free Chocolate Sugar Dough Recipe or the gluten free regular sugar dough recipe of your choice.  I'll be posting a "regular" gluten free dough recipe in the next few weeks =)
• Royal Icing Recipe
• 4" Circle Cutter
• 7 Decorating bags, couplers, tips, and rubber bands
• Two #3 round tips
• Four #2 round tips
• Four #1 round tips
• Toothpicks 
• Edible Ink Food Safe Markers
• Gel food coloring:
• Sky Blue
• Lemon Yellow
• Orange
• Black

Cake Pops

I wouldn't necessarily call cake pops the new cupcake, but their trend definitely is going around.  Personally, I find them a little too time consuming to be worth the effort.  I am a cookie person though and if I'm going to spend my time on decorating I'd rather decorate cookies!  However, I had some leftover cake from an event and I didn't know what to do with it...and then the idea struck me to finally try to make cake pops!  I didn't want to do any crazy decorating, just something bright and cute and perfect for spring but that had great flavor.  The leftover cake I had was my Honey, Lavender, & Lemon Cake and a plain yellow cake, and I thought it would be nice to do a Lemon Cream Cheese Icing since I also had leftover lemon curd.  For me cake pops are the perfect way to re-purpose left over ingredients in a new, bright, fun form! The result was sweet and floral cake with a bit of tang from the cream cheese and lemon.  Between the flavor and the bright colors they were the perfect spring treat!

Below I have the recipe I used for the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting and a link to the cake recipe I used...but this post is really a template to do any flavor you'd like!  All you need is cake and icing essentially and just follow the instructions below!  Like I said before, the perfect thing to do if you have any leftovers!  Especially if you were carving or leveling or forming cakes...don't waste all those little pieces!  Turn them into cake pops!

Cake Pops

Recipe for Lemon Cream Cheese Icing adapted from The Hobby Rome Diaries
Makes about 3 dozen cake pops
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Ingredients for Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 8 oz cream cheese

- 1/3 cup of lemon curd

- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

- 1/2 sheet cake.  I used my Honey, Lavender, & Lemon cake.

Cupcakes for Two!

Have you ever just wanted one cupcake??  Sometimes I have a craving for cupcakes, but I know I don't want one dozen sitting around my apartment.  This recipe comes to the rescue!  It's so simple, takes less than a half hour to make, and yields just TWO cupcakes (or in my case 1 dozen mini cupcakes).   This is the perfect recipe to satisfy a quick cupcake craving!!

Cupcakes for Two

Recipe adapted from How Sweet it is
Makes about 2 standard cupcakes or 1 dozen mini cupcakes.
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Ingredients

- 1 egg white

- 2 Tbsp sugar

- 2 Tbsp butter, melted

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/4 cup - 1 Tbsp brown rice flour

- 1 Tbsp tapioca flour

- 1/4 rounded tsp gluten free baking powder

- pinch of salt

- 1 1/2 Tbsp milk (dairy, almond, or soy, I use almond)

Vegan Apple Peanute Butter Cookies

My mom recently switched from vegetarian to vegan.  As a congratulations for her first month, I wanted to make her some celebratory cookies.  The only complication was I had never made cookies before that had neither butter, eggs, nor refined sugar (regular refined white sugar or any brown sugar is not vegan.  Only organic white sugar  or brown sugar is.  You can find lists of vegan white sugar online). So I did some research, found ways to substitute that I preferred and found a recipe that I thought she would like and that I could also make gluten free easily.  Apples and Peanut Butter and a perfect match.  They're healthy but they're also something I used to have when I was a kid as a healthy treat--and still frequently have!  These cookies are for everyone, not just vegans, looking for a healthier version of a cookie, while still being just as indulgent any other cookie.

Vegan and Gluten Free Apple Peanut Butter Cookies

Recipe adapted from The Tolerant Vegan
Makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies
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Ingredients

- 1 Tbsp flax, ground
- 3 Tbsp water
- 1 1/2 cups brown rice flour*
- 1/8 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I used Earth Balance Natural Shortening)
- 1/2 cup Peanut Butter (I used Nature's Promise Smooth, Salted Organic Peanut Butter)
- 1 cup organic brown sugar (I used Florida's Crystals)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 tsp gluten free vanilla
- 1 apple, peeled, cored, and diced (I used a fuji)

*When I made these I used a mixture of flours (1/2 cup brown rice four, 1/3 cup oat flour, 1/3 cup white rice flour, 1/3 cup tapioca flour).  The result was the cookies were very soft when baked.  The were delicious but a little too soft.  I think using only brown rice flour, or maybe even brown rice and oat flour, will toughen them up and make them the correct texture.  If you try it let me know the outcome!!  I will update this when I try the recipe again!

Jesicakes has been very busy...

...but I will return with new recipes next week!  I'm planning on trying a vegan and gluten free recipe inspired by my mom who just made the transition from vegetarian to vegan.  Also I have a lot of lemon curd in my freezer left over from of the reasons I haven't posted in a while so I'm going to make Poppy Seed Lemon Linzer Cookies.

So the past few weeks I did the dessert tables for two events! 

Vanilla Bean Whoopie Pies

I love Whoopie Pies but I've never made them myself, let alone tried a gluten free one.  I recently acquired some vanilla bean pods and wanted to think of a recipe to use them in.  I decided to make simple vanilla bean whoopie pies.  Then was the question of the filling.  I wanted something to compliment the vanilla bean but not overpower it.  I decided to go with a light mocha buttercream.  Once I made everything, I was 4 whoopie pies short of filling them all.  So I also whipped up some really quick strawberry buttercream as well.  Both were delicious although I think I preferred the mocha buttercream.  Coffee with a hint of chocolate didn't outshine the vanilla bean cake but paired nicely with it.  The cake was light and moist and filled with vanilla flavor.  They're a perfect balance of delicate and flavorful.  And as my boyfriend put it, the coffee flavor makes it acceptable to have them in the morning!

Vanilla Bean Whoopie Pies with Mocha Buttercream

Recipe adapted from Tracey's Culinary Adventures
Makes 2 1/2-3 dozen cookies
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Ingredients

- 3/4 cup brown rice flour
- 3/4 cup sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/4 cup white rice flour
- 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (gluten free)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, roome temperature
- 4 Tbsp shortening
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 2 Tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 Vanilla Bean Pods, split and seeds removed

Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies

I had this bag of Nestle half Mint half Semisweet Chocolate Chips, so for the past month I had been wanting to come up with a recipe for perfect soft center with crispy edge chocolate cookies to put these in. I found a recipe for inspiration and the outcome was exactly what I wanted. Not as dense or as extremely rich as the Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookies or the Andes Fudge or Peppermint Bark Cookies, but still nice soft, centers with crisp edges. Not too intensely rich but still having a strong chocolate flavor to pair with the mint while not overpowering it. The mint chips are perfect little bites of freshness and lightness to the cookie. These cookies are the perfect after dinner treat...chocolate and sweet with a nice bit of refreshing mint!

Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies

Recipe adapted from Ginger and Berries
Makes 2 1/2-3 dozen cookies
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Ingredients

- 1/2 cup room temperature unsalted butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 3 oz 60% chocolate
- 1 oz unsweetened chocolate
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey's, use any non-Dutch processed)
- 1/4 + 1/8 cup brown rice flour
- 1/4 + 1/8 cup sorghum flour
- 1/8 cup tapioca flour
- 1/8 cup white rice flour
- 1/8 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups of mixed Nestle mint chocolate chips and chocolate chips

Peppermint Bark Brownies

For the holidays this year I wanted to do brownies for my family and friends, with a wintery twist.  One of my favourite winter treats is peppermint bark.  I worked at a chocolate shop in college and come December I'd be anxiously (and impatiently) waiting for the first bath of peppermint bark.  Personally, I think peppermint bark should be a layer of dark chocolate, then white chocolate, and topped with the peppermint.  So this year I made my own peppermint bark and created my own perfect seasonal brownie.  Chunks of peppermint bark spread throughout the brownie, then topped with white chocolate drizzle and crushed peppermint candies...these brownies were irresistible!  I was really glad I had to bag them up as gifts otherwise I would have eaten way too many!  For this recipe you need my Brownie Bliss Recipe, plus this recipe for Peppermint Bark below.

Peppermint Bark Brownies

Brownie Bliss Recipe

Peppermint Bark Ingredients*

- 16 oz 60% cocoa Ghiradeli bittersweet chocolate chips (or chopped bars)

- 11 oz white chocolate (I mixed Ghiradeli and Nestle) plus extra for the drizzling

- 1-2 standard bag Starlight Peppermint Candies (typically around 3 or 4 ounces) OR you can also use Candy Canes

*This recipe is for a full 9''X13'' pan.  I made a 9'"X13'' pan AND a 9''X9'' pan and I still had some extra peppermint bark.  Which I was totally fine with!  And actually gave two little bags as gifts too.  So if you're making less brownies, just but this recipe in half...or make it all and have a lot of extra delicious peppermint bark!