Category: soy free

 

Building gingerbread houses is a favorite tradition at Christmas time.  As you may know I have one child with gluten allergy, one with gluten sensitivity, and one with soy allergy. Most gingerbread house kits contain these allergens. So do most graham crackers which is what many people use instead of kits.

For the past few years I have made homemade gluten free gingerbread dough, rolled it out, and cut out pieces with a template and baked them. It’s not much more effort than anything else I do for my children with food allergies. I really wouldn’t have it any other way because almost everything I make is from scratch.  Even if they didn’t have food allergies, I’d still prefer to make that effort because homemade foods are much healthier.

However, we’ve had a busy break so far. Some of our traditional activities have sneaked up on me.  So today was the best day for us to make our gingerbread houses, but I did not have time to make them from scratch. There are no stores near us that sell gluten and soy free graham crackers.

I did some research and found a wonderful alternative: cereal treats. You know, those old favorites made from crisped rice cereal or cornflakes and marshmallows. I rushed out to my local store and they were all out of gluten free crisped rice cereal. So, I scanned the aisle and racked my brain for a good substitute.  Cocoa Pebbles were my choice. They do contain more chemicals and sugar than crisped rice, but they are gluten and soy free, and they are brown–perfect for a house!

So I gathered up some of their favorite gluten and soy free candies.  I grabbed some marshmallows, ingredients for icing, and rushed home for some fun with my two youngest blessings.

When I arrived home I made a batch of treats using the traditional Rice Crispy recipe.

Gluten Free Rice Crispy or Cocoa Pebble Treats

• 3 tbsp butter
• 10 oz bag mini marshmallows
• 6 cups

Melt butter in a stock pot.  Pour in marshmallows and continuously stir until melted. Dump in the cereal and coat completely with melted marshmallows.

I greased two mini loaf pans, packed most of the mixture into the pans, and inverted the pans onto a plate or cardboard. Then I put them into the freezer to set and harden a little.

Once they were set, I dumped them out of the pans back onto the plates or cardboard. I used the remaining mixture to make roofs for the houses. I greased my hands and molded roofs into the shape of triangles onto the houses. Then I put the houses back into the freezer to finish setting.

While they were setting, I made homemade soy free, gluten free buttercream icing.

Buttercream Icing

• 1 cup butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp milk
• pinch of salt

Soften and cream butter, milk, and vanilla. Gradually and slowly add powdered sugar while mixing. Add salt. Mix until nice and smooth. Add icing to piping bags or use plastic zipper storage bags by cutting a small corner of the bag after filling.

Allow kids to squeeze or spread icing onto their houses wherever they would like to add accents of snow and candy. We used gluten and soy free sprinkles, gumdrops, peppermints, candy canes, and holiday Skittles. I melted soy free, gluten free chocolate chips into a square plastic dish, froze it, and broke the hardened chocolate to make shingles or stones for pathways. You could decorate with peppermint flavored marshmallows, gummy bears, or red hots, too.

One of the best things about these houses is NO ROYAL ICING! Let’s face it–it’s not that tasty. We weren’t wishing we were an octopus trying to hold panels of gingerbread or graham crackers waiting for the royal icing to harden like glue. Many times in the past our houses have broken during the decorating phase, but not these!

My twins made some beautiful houses this year, and we had so much fun!