Making dessert during the holidays can be tough when you are trying to avoid gluten! Thankfully, there are great flours available now that allow for our family to enjoy treats that taste practically the same as their gluten-full counterparts.

Here are two of our favorites! I like to have the banana bread ready Christmas morning. I mean, who doesn't love having their house full of that warm, fresh-made bread smell? It makes everything that much cozier. We usually make the cookies a couple weeks in advance so we can share with others! It's a little bit different this year, but we are still making some for our own family.

High Protein Gluten-Free Banana Bread

Banana bread is so comforting and delicious, and if I could eat it every morning I would! I wanted to add a little bit more protein and fiber to my traditional gluten-free banana bread recipe, so I added one of our Instant Grain-Free Hot Cereal packets in the flavor Banana Bread! It adds in 8g of fiber from the flaxseeds, some texture from the sliced almonds & cacao nibs, and 8g of protein to it! 

Here is my tried and true recipe:

Prep time: 10 minutes

Bake time: 55 minutes

Ingredients:

• ½ Cup of Grass-Fed Butter or Ghee
• 1 Cup of Sugar
• 2 Eggs, beaten
• 4 Ripe Bananas
• 1.5 Cups of Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten Free Baking Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• ¾ tsp Sea Salt
• ½ tsp Vanilla
• 1 Packet Wild Zora Banana Bread Hot Cereal
• ½ Cup Dark Chocolate Chips (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350℉. 
2. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
3. Add the eggs and ripe bananas and mix on medium speed for 30 seconds. Scrape out the sides with a spatula to make sure there aren't clumps of butter stuck to the sides.
4. Mix all dry ingredients, including the hot cereal, in a separate bowl.
5. Fold in dry ingredients & vanilla extract to banana mixture with a big spoon or spatula, but don’t overmix.
6. Optional: If you want it a little bit more chocolatey without extra sugar, add some dark chocolate chips!
7. Pour into a loaf tin that is greased or lined with parchment paper. 
8. Bake for 55 minutes and check your loaf. It should have a nice golden brown color on the top, and when you poke at the middle of the loaf it should spring back at you, not sink. If it is sinking, bake for 5 more minutes at a time until the middle is nicely risen.
9. Enjoy!!

Gluten-Free Christmas Sugar Cookies

We've always LOVED frosting sugar cookies as a family, but my husband Josh is really sensitive to gluten, so he's always missed out on the eating part (which is of course the best part). So, I wanted to make a gluten-free sugar cookie that didn't completely crumble the minute you took it out of the oven. These one's really do the trick! But, I really only recommend this specific Bob's Red Mill flour, the other one's I've tried didn't quite work.

Prep time: 1 ½ Hours

Bake time: 11 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c butter or ghee 
• 1 c sugar or coconut sugar 
• 1 egg 
• 1 TBSP almond milk 
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups Bob's Red Mill1-to-1 Gluten Free Baking Flour 
• (plus more for sprinkling)

Directions:

1. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy (3 minutes).
2. Add egg, almond milk, and vanilla and mix until combined.
3. Whisk dry ingredients separately, and add to the wet mix. Mix thoroughly.
4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or more.
5. Once ready to cut out cookies, preheat the oven to 350°.
6. Sprinkle plenty of flour on your rolling surface, and roll dough out to 1/8" thick.
7. Use your favorite cookie cutters and cut out cookies.
8. Bake cookies in the oven for 11 minutes or until the edges of cookies are very lightly golden brown.
9. Let cookies cool on tray for 15 minutes before you work with them so they can fully solidify. (You know how temperamental gluten free things can be!)
10. Frost them and add all the fun sprinkles!

Please let me know if you get a chance to try either of these recipes! I love to see your pictures on social @wildzorafoods or hear about it in the comments!

Happy Holidays!