after returning home for holiday break yesterday afternoon, i was eager to begin holiday baking. this semester was so much fun, but super stressful, so i am so happy to be home and re-focusing on dressing, dining, and creating blog content over the next month!

this year, our traditional recipes have shifted slightly, as i’ve recently discovered that i have a gluten intolerance. as someone who lives and thrives on bread and pasta and enjoys baked goods more than most (as you can probably tell), i started looking for gluten-free alternatives to my favorite foods almost instantly. christmas cookies have a constant presence in our house around the holidays, immediately placing them at the top of my list of my list of gluten-free recipes to find.

the recipes that we made yesterday included gluten-free stained glass-inspired sugar cookies, as well as chocolate avocado truffles coated coconut. both were so delicious and neither hinted at their hidden health benefits.

to craft the star-shaped sugar cookies, we followed a recipe from noshtastic that replaced traditional flour with wheat-free and gluten-free flour and yielded a final product that was perfectly chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside. after simply cutting out the centers of the cookies and filling them with crushed jolly rancher candies, a little time in the oven produced the colorful, delectable and perfectly festive confections.

 

our second creation was a far healthier version of a classic chocolate truffle that incorporated avocado and all natural chocolate protein powder. taylor kiser of the blog “food, faith, fitness” originally published this recipe to mimic almond joy candies, but omitting the almond extract to be allergy-friendly led to the creation of these rich, chocolatey truffles. following her recipe, we crafted this gluten-free alternative to a holiday staple that can be made vegan with the replacement of regular chocolate chips with vegan chocolate. as much as healthy alternatives have a bad rep for tasting nothing like the real thing, i can assure you, as a health food non-devotee, that these truffles are just as good, if not better, than any gourmet truffles that you’ll come across this season.

gluten-free or not, these recipes will definitely be crowd pleasers at your holiday get-togethers and i totally urge you to try them out and switch up your dessert selection this season!

stay tuned for more posts and follow along to be notified as soon as new content hits the site!

happy holidays!