Dodee Cookies

My great great grandmother, Dodee, would sit out on the porch and drink a beer with my grandfather. She taught my grandmother how to cook meat and kept a sharp wooden three-pronged fork for turning pork chops, which she’d serve with homemade applesauce and sauerkraut. Around her memory hover little unsubstantiated tales involving occasional cigars and outright profanity. She was the best of all idealized grandmothers and even if the facts are a little stretched, her character remains a family legend of love.

I think we would’ve gotten along swimmingly.

Dodee’s cookies are a Christmas tradition for my family. The holiday isn’t right until these emerge golden from the oven, topped with their shining maraschino jewels. I don’t know how long her recipe took to perfect. It probably suffered pinches and prods in her kitchen for years until she honed it into flawlessness. My gluten-free version took ten Decembers.

When a cookie is mostly butter, the slightest tweak to gluten-free flours and starches shakes the recipe to its core. These cookies have been responsible for more oven cleanups than any other recipe I’ve ever created or converted. Now I can’t stop smiling as I write this, having eaten four perfect Dodee cookies that each hold the flavor I remember from way back in my gluten-filled childhood.

I like to think I know a part of Dodee through her cookies. It’s been a long decade of baking chats with her as I change starches, add or subtract ingredients, and strive towards her cookie’s simple genius. This is a flavor meant for sharing.

Happy Baking!

Dodee Cookies

Makes 2 dozen

1 stick real butter or vegan butter (1/2 cup)

85g brown sugar

50g sweet rice flour

45g amaranth flour

55g tapioca starch

raw pecans or maraschino or amarena cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Cream together butter and brown sugar in a medium bowl. Stir in flours until dough forms and everything is well-mixed. Scoop out about 1 tsp of dough at a time and roll it into balls. Arrange on cookie sheet about 1-2 inches apart. Press a fork into each ball just once, then top with either a pecan piece or half a cherry.

Bake about 10-12 minutes, until cookies are golden and just beginning to brown on the edges. Cool at least 5 minutes before removing from sheet. Cookies will be soft when just baked, but will become crunchy as they cool. Cookies with cherries will turn soft again the next day. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Note: Using vegan butter in these cookies works, though their edges will be feathery instead of smooth.

Grammie and me, during a past holiday season

Grammie's Apple Cake

My grandmother died yesterday.

She spent the last 10 years grieving for my grandfather in a constant state of Alzheimer’s-induced confusion. This is her release.

But I miss her.

Grammie loved to bake. Even these past few years, she still hovered in the kitchen, lost but trying to help. Maybe she thought she could bake her way back: muffin crumbs illuminating for her the path of lost memories. It was a hard thing to keep her fingers from my batter. Sometimes, on good days, she could sit on her stool and lick the spoon with that wicked mischievous grin lighting her face. I think on those days she remembered what it was like to be young.

I remember baking muffins in her kitchen, green with the forest’s morning light, with the blue jays yakking beyond the window and the soap that smelled like sap. She always produced an extra wooden spoon for me to lick while she filled the tin.

She taught me a lot about baking in that kitchen. We made applesauce every autumn while Granddad pressed apples on the cedar deck just outside. Her sweet tooth sugared the sauce as if she were making apple candy, not a topping for oatmeal or side for pork chops. On Thanksgiving, we always made two types of pie: pumpkin and mincemeat. I learned how to roll the crusts round enough and how to fudge it when they came out oblong. She’d charge me with beating the pumpkin filling while she put the final touches on the mincemeat. Yams, turkey, cranberries, and green beans can wait. You make dessert first.

Her apple cake starred at many family gatherings. Though the original recipe came from a magazine, she made this cake her own through years of use. When I found I couldn’t eat gluten, her apple cake was one of the first recipes I tried to replicate. That delicate crispy top and dense moist body eluded me for years. Just a couple of weeks ago, I finally perfected it.

This is my eulogy for her, the last of my grandparents. She loved people through her baking and never grew too tired to make cookies with her granddaughter. Here is her apple cake made safe from gluten. Bake. Share with your friends and family. Love. There is always time for dessert.

Grammie’s Apple Cake

Makes 9x9-inch pan

65g (1/2 cup) brown rice or sorghum flour

40g (1/3 cup) sweet rice flour

30g (4 Tbls) tapioca starch

60g (1/2 cup) gluten-free quick or rolled oats

200g (1 cup) brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/3 cup canola oil

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp molasses

2 cups skinned and chopped apple

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Oil and flour a 9x9-inch glass pan.

In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients. Mash out any brown sugar or baking soda lumps. Toss chopped apple with dry ingredients then set aside.

In a separate bowl or measuring cup, beat egg into oil with vanilla extract and molasses. Stir into dry ingredients, mixing just until everything is saturated. Batter will be very thick. Spread out evenly in prepared pan and bake 45-50 minutes. Cool before cutting.

At my wedding: Aunt Charlotte, Grammie, Uncle Stan, Mom