Set the Table... for Dairy and Egg-Free Holiday Cookies

COOKIES! SWEET LITTLE discs of sugar and spice and all things nice. It was a snow day yesterday so we decided to bake cookies to celebrate our extra day at home. Unfortunately, our young baker has recently been diagnosed with number of new food allergies so we had to alter the recipe to fit her dietary restrictions.

Below is a recipe for basic cookies that could be decorated for the holidays or made any time of year to warm up a gray day. We had to take out the eggs and the milk products.

I substituted half of a banana for 1 egg, 1/2 cup of strong coffee for 1/2 cup buttermilk and 1/2 cup shortening for 1/2 cup butter. If you decide not to use the substituted ingredients, you would need only 1 1/3 cups sifted flour and could use baking powder instead of soda. I used baking soda because baking powder has corn starch, and corn is also a no-no these days. If you have to switch to baking soda, you need an acid in your recipe to activate it. The coffee is the acid in this recipe. Believe it or not, we could not taste the coffee in the finished cookies, but the banana flavor was quite strong and complimented the spices nicely.

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup coffee (room temperature)

1/2 banana

1 1/2 cups sifted flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp fresh ground cloves

1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 375.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the brown sugar and shortening. It does not cream together quite as nicely as butter, but it worked fine in the finished product. Add the coffee and mix it thoroughly with the shortening and sugar. In a small bowl, mash the banana and then mix it in with the first three ingredients. Sift the flour and measure out 1 1/2 cups. Put the flour back in the sifter and add the baking soda and spices. Sift these together into a separate bowl and then slowly mix them into the wet ingredients.

Prepare a cookie sheet either by greasing it or lining it with parchment paper. Spoon drop the cookie dough onto the sheet in about teaspoon-sized dollops. Bake for fifteen minutes (peek in on them at 13 or so minutes) and place the cookies on a cooling rack.

These cookies are spicy, not-too-sweet and a little chewy. This recipe makes about 2 dozen. Enjoy with a glass of milk... or your favorite allergy-friendly substitute.