Lemon Dream Cookies

Poor wee Lachie has been down with another ear infection so he had to stay at home this afternoon rather than heading off to the pool with Hamish and Robert. Never mind, we did some baking instead! Last week I saw some Dove Farm gluten-free lemon biscuits in Morrisons and felt inspired to attempt something similar. Lachie and I got inventive and adapted a recipe for Dream Cookies that Granny has had for as long as I can remember.

Lemon Dream Cookies (free from gluten, dairy and eggs)

4oz dairy-free margarine
3oz caster sugar
4 1/2oz gluten-free self-raising flour
juice and zest of half a lemon

Cream together the sugar and margarine. Stir in the flour and lemon. For normal dream cookies this would make a mixture you can roll into balls. I thought the gluten-free flour would soak up the lemon juice but this didn't seem to be the case and this actually makes a cakie sort of mix. Spoon the mix into 16 pieces onto a greased baking sheet (Lachie got a bit anxious at this stage, obviously thinking I'd forgotten a key ingredient and started shouting 'Chocolate chips! Chocolate chips!' but I perservered - not all biscuits have to contain chocolate chips Lachie!). Bake in the oven for 15 minutes at 160 degrees celsius and cool on a wire rack.

As you can see from the picture, Lachie couldn't wait to get his hands on one and Hamish also thought they were pretty good when he came home from the pool. They have a crunch on the outside but are chewy within and really very nice. I'll go and try another one now just to make sure...
Mmm yes, subtly lemony too.

Just because they're dairy-free doesn't mean they can't be cow shaped

Now that Lachie is on his gluten-free diet as well as being egg- and dairy-free, his talking has really come on. He has been really extrememly vocal today and his two most commonly used words are 'cake!' and 'biscuits!' which he always says with an exclamation mark. Today he has added a new word in response to my telling him there were no biscuits, which is 'bake!' So bake we did, some gingerbread men and Lachie's personal favourite, gingerbread cows. As Robert said this afternoon, 'just because they're dairy-free doesn't mean they can't be cow-shaped'.
When I started gluten-free baking I steered clear of flour blends and was mixing various flours as we do for our bread. But I am now a convert to Dove Farm flour blends which just seem to be brilliant. For these biscuits I use the self-raising version as the original recipe included bicarbonate of soda, and it seems to work really well.

Gingerbread cows (Gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free)

2oz dairy-free margarine
2oz soft light brown sugar
2oz syrup
7oz gluten-free self-raising flour
1 tsp ground ginger

Cream together the margarine and sugar until it turns light and soft. Mix in the remaining ingredients until they form a dough - this is hard work and everything goes worryingly crumbly for a while. Pop the dough in the fridge for 10 minutes.
Roll out the cooled dough on a gluten-free floured surface to about 4mm (I always have to remember to flour the rolling pin too or the rolling pin picks up the dough!) and cut out whatever shapes you would like. We favour cows and men. Arrange the biscuits on a greased baking tray and bake for 7 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Our cows are usually just turning brown around the ankles at this stage. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy eating your herd.

Lachie took some of these biscuits to share with Hamish when we picked him up from school.