Festive Fall Pumpkin Bars

I have not made the Sky-pumpkin pie yet. But below you will find a great pumpkin pie-like cookie bar. It was a hit with kids and adults. You can serve them right out of the oven, but they are messy. I found it best to let the pan cool and then place it in in the refrigerator for a few hours and then serve the bars cold.

Let us be thankful for all we have this holiday season.

Festive Fall Pumpkin Bars
Cook Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
1 1/4 cups Spelt Flour **Rice Flour is not dense enough to use**
NOTE: You can also use Arrowhead Mills Gluten All Purpose Baking Mix
· 3/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
· 1/2 cup chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds, or sunflower seeds (depending on taste and allergies)
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 1/2 teaspoon soda
· 3/4 cup butter, room temperature (soy margarine for non-dairy).

Filling:
· 2 cups pumpkin puree (16 ounce can)
· 2/3 cup milk (1/2 cup rice milk for non-dairy)
· 1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
· Energy Egg Replacer (1 ½ tsp Replacer with 2 tablespoons warm water) · 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice *

Preparation:
Combine oats, flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup chopped nuts, 1/2 teaspoon salt, the baking soda, and the butter; beat until mixture is crumbly. Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of the crumb mixture and press remaining mixture into a lightly buttered 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes.

Prepare filling
Beat filling ingredients until well blended and smooth. Spread filling over the crust; sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture. Return to oven and bake 25 minutes longer. Refrigerate 3-12 hours then cut into bars.

*The following can be combined to make pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice.

Sky-Pumpkin Pie

I have been asked by Sky to create a pumpkin pie he can eat. He told me he hates Thanksgiving because he can never eat the pumpkin pie. He told me that Auntie Mandy usually bakes the most amazing looking pumpkin pie, but it has eggs in it. So, I have tasked myself with making a great tasting pumpkin pie with a no wheat crust and no eggs in the filling. How am I going to do this? I think I will forget about trying to please the "no dairy" family members to create this masterpiece.

I know I can make a great crust with the substitution of spelt for the flour, and I will use real butter. I love a good fattening crust! I think I will use more baking soda in the filling and try the egg replacer. Tomorrow I will start to experiment so that by the time November is here I will have the perfect sky-pumpkin pie.

Yummy Oatmeal Cookies

I have successfully baked oatmeal cookies without flour and eggs by substituting the flour, usually called for in the cookie recipe, with brown rice flour and the eggs with the ENERG® Egg Replacer. The cookies are not very sweet, but they taste sweet enough. Everyone in my household eats them without complaint; a cookie is a cookie. Half the batter is eaten while we are waiting for the cookies to finish baking. I have even heard my son say that the dough is better than the cookies. Try them and let me know what you think.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the ingredients below together:
2 sticks of butter or margarine
(it it easier to mix when the butter is room temperature)
1 ½ cups brown sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
3 tsp Egg Replacer mixed with 4 tbsp water (mix until no clumps appear)

Slowly add to the mixed ingredients and blend together:
¾ Cup Brown Rice Flour
2 Cups of Quick Oats NOTE: You must use quick oats.
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Salt (optional)
1 Cup Nuts (optional)
1 tbsp Flax seed ground and roasted (optional—it is an easy way to add Omega-3 into your diet)
1 Cup Chocolate Chips (optional)

Drop the batter by the tablespoon-full onto a greased baking sheet. Each cookie should be about 2 inches apart on the sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes. You should have about 40 cookies when you are finished baking.

Enjoy!

Why I Bake Egg-less

I learned that my son (on the left in Kauai) has a severe egg allergy when he was 10 months old and I fed him his first scrambled egg; he loved it. Then he turned red, swollen with hives, and started crying. His eyes swelled shut, and his eyebrows became huge—picture Oscar on Sesame Street. He had to be rushed to the pediatrician and given a shot of Epinephrine and oral Benadryl. He was fine; he just CAN’T eat eggs or anything with eggs.

Because of that event, I gave up eating anything with eggs. Until I realized birthday cakes and cookies are a necessity for children. This revelation came about one year after the no-egg diet. I use Egg Replacer by Energy for baking. It does not taste very good at first. But now after at least 5 years of using egg replacer, I can make baking taste as good as it should. Also, the back of the Egg Replacer box has many ideas for using the replacer. I have successfully made the quiche, pancakes, and more.

However, my son also is allergic to wheat. He is only mildly allergic to the wheat, so it is not life-threatening like the egg allergy. I use Pamela’s Products for most of my baking because it is an easy to use mix without any wheat or egg included. You can buy the mix at local health food stores. I can make the most delicious chocolate chip cookies from the recipe on the bag (with the egg replacer substituting the two eggs), and kids love them. It takes a while to learn how to get the consistency for the egg replacer in the recipe perfect, or the cookies come out flat and lifeless—not very appealing to a real chocolate chip cookie lover. So, I am going to use this blog to share recipes that work for me using the egg replacer and as close to wheat-fee baking as I can get. I do use spelt flour often, and some people cannot tolerate spelt as a wheat substitute. I enjoy baking, and can’t wait to share my recipes for those of you who are interested.