GF Cinnamon Rolls

I love spending time with my little girl.  After dropping Bekah off at school, we decided to have a snack and make some cinnamon rolls.  She was so cute as she tried to spread the cream cheese all by herself. 

Hot cocoa is always a part of our snack too.  

Now off to start the cinnamon rolls.  Hannah loves to help.  She is always the first to jump in and help with anything.  Hannah is so good at stirring ingredients together, turning on the mixer, measuring and pouring ingredients and licking anything she can get in her mouth.

I made these Cinnamon Rolls for my family.  I added a step that my mom always did when making her cinnamon rolls. She would put the pans on the stove and heat them on low with 2 Tablespoons butter and a 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Once the butter melts, turn off the burner and prep the cinnamon rolls. Then place the rolls in the pan. The bottom caramelizes and is amazing.

Hannah helped stir the butter while it was melting.  This is definitely the best part of the whole sweet roll.

The dough took a long time to rise.  However, once it was risen, it rolled out very nicely.  I was surprised since GF dough is normally really fragile.  It held together well and made great cinnamon rolls.  Hannah had a blast learning how to roll out the dough.  She did a pretty good job too!

The butter was really hard since it had just come out of the freeze a few hours before.  I did a trick that I saw on Pinterest for getting butter soft.  They said to grate the butter into a bowl and then use it.  It totally worked.  Here Hannah is spreading the grated butter on the dough.  I found out later that she thought it was grated cheese we were putting in the cinnamon rolls.  She sure makes me laugh.

Hannah put the sugar on all by herself.  She also tried to sprinkle on the cinnamon.  She kind of dumped a bunch in one spot, so I helped spread it out evenly.  I love having helpers.

I split this recipe in half and made two pans of eight.  It was perfect.

Love this girl.

  All ready to let the rolls rise.

We had these for dinner!  They were delicious and were all gone within a short period of time.

Energy Bites

I am constantly looking for healthy gluten free food to make for my family and me.  As I was purusing through pinterest, where else would I be?, I came upon something called Energy Bites.  I had never heard of these before but they looked interesting.  I could easily make them gluten free and super healthy too.  So I pulled up the recipe and made a batch.  As I was putting it in the fridge, I stole a taste.  It was so good and delicious that I immediately made another double batch.  Since then I make a triple batch each time I make them and always have some on hand in the freezer.  They are a quick, healthy and fillilng treat for the girls.  I actually take 3 or 4 as part of my lunch at work.  These are amazing and fun to make.  The girls love to help me make them.  We work on clean technique ( such as not licking the spoon and putting it back in the bowl), measuring ingredients, counting, stirring, sweeping (if they have helped stir), and working as a team. The girls call them injury bites since they keep forgetting how to say energy.   Silly girls!!    Here is the link to make these for your family.
http://fooddoodles.com/2011/06/28/one-bowl-all-natural-no-bake-energy-bites/
Bekah measures the oats and spreads them on a sheet to toast.

Here are most of the ingredients we used in this batch.

Hannah works on adding the honey to the bowl.

This is a great hands on activity to build motor skills.  Bekah works very hard on getting out the peanut butter to fill up the measuring cup.

Hannah loves getting the honey off her hands.

Team work is great thing.

Bekah had to sweep the floor since stirring is very hard work and easy to get the ingredients flying across the room.  Hannah helped with the dust pan and then danced in joy when it was done.

After chilling the dough, it is easiest to use a cookie scoop with a soft back to press the dough into it.

Once they are popped out of the cookie scoop, you can freeze or refrigerate them like this or roll them in a ball. 

This is how much my triple batch made.  Yummy!  I freeze them like this and then put them into a ziplock baggy and store them in the freezer.

For the nut butter, I was just using peanut butter.  Recently I discovered coconut butter and use half of that and half of peanut butter.  It is really good.  I use gluten free Oats so that this is gluten free.  I always add in crasions and/or raisons.  This time I used pistachio nuts as well.  I love adding sesame seeds, poppy seeds and sunflower seeds.  Any thing little and healthy is fun to add in.  Each time I make it, it tastes slightly different.