I found this great gluten free recipe at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com and tried it! Great and wanted to share--she has many more! Enjoy!Gluten-Free Raspberry Coconut-Almond Bars
Raspberry Coconut-Almond Cookie Bar Recipe
These luscious little vegan beauties are sticky sweet, buttery and decadent. A truly tempting dessert treat. Go ahead and indulge. Bake up a batch. You can always diet come Monday.
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Prepare a 9x13-inch baking pan
by lining it with parchment paper. Cut a piece large enough to extend up both long sides of the pan- so you can grip it later, after baking, and lift the cookie bars out in one piece.First, make the bottom cookie crust.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk to combine:
1 cup Bob's Red Mill hazelnut flour
1/2 cup sorghum or jowar flour
1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill coconut flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch/flour
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Cut in:
3/4 cup Spectrum Organic Shortening
1 teaspoon bourbon vanilla
I use the whisk attachment
on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer
to cut the shortening into the flour blend. You could also use an old fashioned pastry cutter
. The dough should be crumbly, a bit sandy, but moist enough that it sticks together when you pinch it.Scoop the dough into the prepared baking pan and press it out evenly to form a cookie crust.
Bake the crust in the center of a preheated oven for 7 minutes- just to "set" it.
Remove from the oven and set aside. Keep the oven pre-heated.
For the filling:
14 oz. really good raspberry jam or preserves
For the crumble topping:
1/2 cup sorghum or jowar flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon bourbon vanilla
5 tablespoons Spectrum Organic Shortening
In a bowl, combine the sorghum flour and brown sugar. Drizzle with the vanilla extract and dabs of the shortening. Rub together with the palms of your hands to create crumbles. Set aside.
For the coconut-almond topping:
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
2/3 cup sliced almonds
4 tablespoons vegan buttery spread (I used Earth Balance)
1/2 teaspoon bourbon vanilla extract
In a saucepan, gently melt the vegan butter. Add the flaked coconut, sliced almonds and vanilla and stir to coat. Remove from heat and set aside.
Assemble the bars:
While the crust is still warm, spoon on the raspberry jam and using the back of a spoon spread it evenly over the crust, up to the edges- leaving about 1/4-inch bare crust on all sides.
Sprinkle on the crumble topping.
Spoon on the coconut-almond mixture and spread it evenly all over the top.
Bake in the center of the preheated oven for 22 minutes. The raspberry jam will be bubbling and the crumble topping will be golden and the coconut toasted. The center of the top may still feel a bit soft- that's okay; it will set as as it cools.
Remove the pan to a wire rack to cool. When the cookie bars are completely cool, gently loosen any stuck edges around the sides of the pan. Place a sturdy cutting board next to the pan (at least the same size as the pan). Lift the bars from the pan using the parchment paper as a grip on each side and move the whole big piece to the cutting board. Place the board in the freezer to chill the bars. Say, twenty minutes or so. Remove the bars and slice with a large sharp knife.
Makes 18 generous bars. You could skimp on size to squeeze more serving pieces out of the recipe. But. Then you'll probably end up eating two, anyway.
Wrap leftover bars, bag and freeze.
Cook time: 22 min
Yield: 18 bars
Cool (or even chill them!) before cutting, to keep them from crumbling.
