Egg Free Soft Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I'm really picky about cookies; I'm not a fan of cookies that are hard or crunchy- I'm more of a soft cookie kind of girl, especially when it comes to oatmeal raisin cookies. Blondie Boy and I made these egg free oatmeal raisin cookies and they are REALLY good. I used my cookie scoop again but I wouldn't next time since the dough is quite sticky it was hard to get out! I think I also might add a tablespoon of honey next time just to make them that little bit more moist but they are pretty perfect as is. I adapted a recipe I found on Reci"peas" and to get my version of the perfect Egg Free Soft Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.

Egg Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1 cup oats 
1 cup plain/all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup softened butter 
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk
1 cup raisins





Preheat oven to 350/170 degrees. Cream the butter, milk, vanilla, and sugars together and in another large bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, and salt together. Once the butter mixture is creamed add the dry mixture a little at a time to the wet ingredients, until combined.Fold in the raisins and spoon dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet (I lined my cookie sheet with baking/wax paper for easy clean up), spacing an inch apart. You should get 12-15 cookies depending on how large you make them.

Bake 10-13 minutes or until cookies are set and edges are golden brown. Remember there are no eggs so you don't really have to worry about under-cooking. Allow cookies to rest on cookie sheet for one minute before transferring to a cooling rack or plate to cool. I have stored mine in ziplock bags and they've kept well for a week. 

Blondie Boy really likes them so that is the best seal of approval for me They were super easy to make and I pretty much always have the ingredients in the house so I'm sure I will make them again soon. Even if you don't have an egg allergy in your family I'd highly recommend giving these a try!

Egg Free Cookie Cups and Top Tips

I'm going to be honest these cookie cups are pretty much what you could call semi-homemade. I used a mix for the cookie part--insert shock and horror--but the buttercream is from scratch. The mix I had didn't require eggs so I didn't have to worry about making it egg-free so it worked. So really this post is more about useful tips than recipes I guess!

To make the cookie cups you make whatever your favourite chocolate chip cookie dough recipe is and then put one scoop of dough into a lined or greased muffin tin. Tip number one is to use a cookie scoop so all the cups will be uniform in size. It is really just a small sized ice-cream scoop I got super cheap but works just the same. I noticed the contestants on Cupcake Wars (don't judge my tv habits) using them and thought I'd give it a try and it worked!

Bake the cookies at the same temperature but for rougly 3-5 minutes longer than you would if making them as cookies. When they are golden brown on top take them out of the oven. To turn them into cookie cups all you need is a clean shot glass.

For tip number two slowly and firmly depress the shot glass into the warm cookie and twist before pulling it back up. Crazy easy right? You don't need special molds or pans just a shot glass! I don't know about you but I have tons of shot glasses so I was glad I happened upon Daisy Chubb's recipe and didn't buy some special pan.

Let the cookie cups cool and then pipe in your favourite buttercream. I saw this third and final tip on Our Best Bits and it seriously rocked my world. I hate cleaning out piping bags--it is always messy and never fun.  Make up your butercream (I used a basic buttercream recipe but added a few drops of pure strawberry extract and pink food colouring) and then pile it into a log on a piece of cling-film/sarran wrap. Twist up both ends tightly and you can tie one end if you like.

Put the log-o-frosting into the piping bag and carefully thread the open twisted end through your frosting tip. Pull it out as far as you possibly can before snipping off the tail sticking out of the tip.

Then pipe the frosting as normal. Why do this? This is why.

When you are done pull out the leftover frosting and your piping bag is virtually clean! So you could then stick in a different coloured log-o-frosting (what else would you call it?) and continue on to make a multi-coloured masterpiece. Pretty cool right? I'm a fan of anything that makes clean up easier!

Then just eat your cookie cups and enjoy! Or make a cookie cup pyramid and discover just HOW rubbish you are at taking photos of food. Anyone have any tips for me on how to photograph food better?

Egg Free Cookies & Cream Oreo Cupcakes

I've mashed up two recipes again to make some egg-free allergy friendly cookies and cream cupcakes. The cookies and cream element comes from my all time favourite (and egg free!) cookie, the Oreo. My recipe inspiration this week comes from The Art of Dessert's Chocolate Cupcake, Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Buttercream and Bakerella's Cookies and Cream Cupcake.

Egg Free Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups plain flour 

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking soda/bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 tsp. honey

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325/160 degrees. Line muffin pans with baking cups (again a great job for toddlers!). Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, combine milk, butter, honey and vanilla extract. Slowly add the wet ingredients into the dry mixture. You could add dry to wet if you prefer but I just had the dry in a big bowl and wet in a small bowl so that worked best for me! Stir until combined.  

Scoop the batter into the lined muffin pan to 2/3 full. I used a 2 cookie scoops per liner, but I think I'd use one heaped scoop next time. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean. 

While the cupcakes cool make the buttercream; you will need:

Cookies and Cream Buttercream

250g of salted butter (don't get the cheap stuff you want nice butter)

6-8 cups of icing/powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup of whole mix

5 oreo cookies, turned into fine crumbs (plus extra to decorate)

Combine softened butter, 4 cups of the sugar, vanilla and milk until well combined. Add more sugar, slowly, until you reach your desired consistency which should be thick but not stiff. You may not need all the sugar. Now add in your cookie crumbs (I stick mine in a food processor to get them fine).

Once cupcakes are cooled, put frosting into a piping bag and swirl on top before finishing with half an Oreo cookie. Blondie Boy inhaled a cupcake in literally about 30 seconds so I think they get his seal of approval!

Egg Free Allergy Friendly Tie Dye Rainbow Cupcakes

Finding recipes that are egg-free/allergy friendly and don't contain a lot of random strange ingredients that I never have in the house can be tough. So I pick and mixed from several recipes to create my version of egg-free tie dye rainbow cupcakes. I got my inspiration from I am Baker's Homemade White Cake Mix, Spearmint Baby's Rainbow Cupcakes and Omnomicon's How to Make a Rainbow Cake. I very rarely find a straight up allergy friendly recipe I like so I end up researching and making up my own.

Tie Dye Rainbow Cupcakes

Mix together:
2 3/4 cups self-raising flour (US people just use normal flour)
1 3/4 cups SUPER fine sugar (caster sugar in the UK)
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt

Add in roughly 12oz of Sprite. I added 8oz first and then a little more until it was a cake like consistency I liked. Leave it a little bit thicker than you'd like because you'll be adding food colouring next which will thin it out.

Put 3/4 cup of batter into 4 bowls and then add different coloured dyes to each bowl until you have four different coloured bowls. Don't worry about over mixing because any extra air you whip in will make the cupcakes lighter. Toddler love stirring things so that kept Blondie Boy busy.

Preheat your oven to 160/325.

Line a cupcake/muffin tray with white cupcake liners. Blondie Boy also helped out here. If you have an older child you could have them count out the liners, too. I made 16 cupcakes but if you want slightly larger ones you could do just 12 no problem.

Now spoon one teaspoon of your first colour of batter into each liner. Next drop another teaspoon of the second coloured batter on top of that slightly askew. Repeat with the remaining two colours.

Shove them into the oven; mine took 25 minutes but I had both trays in at the same time. Keep an eye on them as egg-free cupcakes can burn easily. You'll know they are done when a toothpick comes out clean/dry.

For the frosting I got lazy. I forgot I didn't have any icing/powdered sugar and didn't feel like running to the store so I made semi-homemade frosting.

Frosting
Tub of Vanilla Frosting
Zest and Juice of one Lime
Zest of one Lemon & Juice of Half of a Lemon

Mix the Zest with the Juice and let it sit in the fridge for at least one hour.

Strain off the juice (discard the zest) and add it to one tub of vanilla frosting. Mix until well combined and then refrigerate until thickened/stiff but not hard. I couldn't wait for it to firm up so I spread some frosting on rather than piping it and topped with coloured sugar (mix sugar and food colouring and let dry).

I could only find two of my neon food colouring bottles so I wasn't 100% happy with the brightness of the colours but the didn't turn out bad. Gel or paste food colouring will producer brighter colours than regular food colouring. 

If you want to be healthy you can use Sprite Zero, sub in Splenda for the sugar and leave off the frosting. I haven't figure out the Weight Watchers points but I'm more than happy to if someone would like me to do so!

I call the tie dye rainbow because the white paper looks Tie Dyed to me but Blondie Boy calls them rainbow so I've pick and mixed to again for the name. I think they are lots of fun and I know Blondie Boy and I had fun making and eating them!

Egg Free Allergy Friendly Vanilla Maple Whoopie Pies

Yesterday I decided to surprise NotBlondeHusband and make some whoopie pies with one of the box mixes I had in the cupboard.  Box mixes I think are great when you want to bake but can't be bothered making a huge mess or going through lots of steps. They came out lovely but the main problem with box mixes is they always call for egg or have traces of egg so Blondie Boy can't have any.


I had a good amount of the filling leftover so I decided to see if I could find any egg free whoopie pie recipes online. There are actually quite a few allergy friendly food blogs out there so it wasn't too hard to find recipes. A lot of the egg free recipes are also dairy free or vegan so in the end I ended up adapting a vegan chocolate whoopie pie recipe I found to suit what I had in the house and to allow for the things Blondie Boy is allowed to eat.


Anything you bake that is egg-free will generally not rise as much as a cookie or cake with egg in it but I think for the firs time making them and pretty much making up half the recipe they came out pretty well! I don't have a recipe for filling since I just used the leftover mix filling but you can fill them with any frosting or icing recipe or even store bought stuff.

Blondie Boy certainly loved them which is good and I thought they tasted pretty good too. They aren't overly sweet but since they are for a toddler I don't think they need to be. Also check out that last photo that is what he calls his "model face." I guess that is the little weirdo's version of Blue Steel.

Vanilla Maple Egg Free Whoopie Pies

adapted from Mom's Vegan Kitchen Recipe

Preheat Oven to 175C/350F and line a baking tray with baking/wax paper.


Mix all ingredients together by hand until combined.


1 Cup of Flour
1/3 tsp Baking Powder
1/3 tsp Baking Soda/Bicarbonate of Soda
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of Lurpark Lighter butter spread
1/4 cup of milk
1/4 cup of hot water
1 tsp of Ener-G Egg replacer mixed with 1 1/2 Tbsp of hot water
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract*
1 Tbsp of maple syrup* 


*I eyeballed these so it is just an estimate! The flavour wasn't too strong, but again I was making these with a toddler in mind.


Drop roughly a teaspoon of batter on to the lined tray making sure to leave room between the batter. Have an even number of pies as you'll need one for the top and one for the bottom. I made fourteen in total for seven whoopie pies.


Bake for 12-14 minutes (you'll know for you oven but watch as egg-free cakes go brown more quickly) and then allow to cool. 


Carefully peel from the tray, add filling to half of the pies and top with the other half. You can also do what I do and put the pies in a ziplock bag and keep the filling the fridge and make them up as you need them since a toddler doesn't need seven pies at once :)


Enjoy! 

Lemon Shortbread with Lemon Frosting (Egg Free and Allergy Friendly)

I love to bake but it is tough to find recipes that don't include eggs and since Blondie Boy is allergic to eggs that means he doesn't get to help me bake very often. I decided to try and find a recipe online that was egg free and allergy friendly we could try together. I found a recipe for lemon cookies that used Ener-G egg replacer and decided to give it a go. 

Blondie Boy had a lot of fun being my helper and best of all no eggs meant he got to lick the spoon! Who doesn't like the lick the spoon? Now I have no idea if they turned out as intended since the recipe had no reviews or photos but we liked them. 

I tweaked the recipe a little so below is my version of Allergy Friendly Egg Free Lemon cookies with Lemon Frosting. They have a consistency similar to shortbread and the lemon frosting gives them a tangy taste which would make them perfect to have with a cup of tea.

Ingredients

Cookies

3⁄4	cup	softened butter (about 6oz)
1⁄4	cup	sugar (plus 1tbsp)
2 1⁄2	tsp	Lemon Juice (1/2 a lemon)
1	tsp	grated Lemon Peel (zest of 1 lemon)
1⁄4	tsp	vanilla
1 3/4	cup	all purpose flour
1	tsp	Ener-G Egg Replacer
1⁄8	tsp	Ground Cloves

Icing

1⁄4	cup	softened butter (about 2oz)
2 1⁄2	tsp	Lemon Juice (1/2 a lemon)
1⁄4	tsp	vanilla
1	cup	powdered sugar (icing sugar UK)

In mixing bowl, beat butter for 2 minutes on medium speed. Turn speed down to slow and gradually add in the sugar. Mix for another 3 minutes on medium-high speed and scrape down sides as needed. 

Zest the lemon before you juice it or it will be really hard to zest after. Pour in the juice, peel and vanilla. 

In a separate bowl, blend together the flour, Ener-G Egg Replacer, and cloves. Slowly add dry mix with butter mixture. Mix on slow for a few seconds and then on medium until incorporated; repeat until all the flour is mixed in. Place dough on flat surface, roll into a log shape, cover, and refrigerate for an hour. 

After the hour, preheat oven to 360 degrees F (180C). Replace chilled dough back onto surface and cut into 1/4" circles. Set cookies on a non-greased tray so they are not touching (cookies will not rise so you don't need mush space)

Turn oven down to 350 degrees F (175 C) and bake for 15-17 minutes or until lightly browned.

Let cool for 10 minutes before apply Lemon Icing (recipe below).

In a medium bowl, beat ¼ cup soft butter (I used Lurpak spreadable because I was out of butter) for 3 minutes. 

Scrape sides and add in 1 cup powdered sugar, 2 ½ tsp lemon juice (the other half of the lemon) and ¼ tsp vanilla. Blend on slow for 8 seconds, then increase to medium-high speed for 4 minutes, scraping sides as needed. Frosting will be thin but not watery. Add more icing sugar until desired consistency is achieved.