Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1 C sugar
• 1 C dates, chopped
• 1 C coconut
• 1 C almonds, thinly sliced
• 1 ts vanilla
• ¹/₄ ts almond extract

Procedure

Beat eggs and sugar together, then add remaining ingredients and stir until thoroughly mixed.

Turn the batter into an ungreased 2 qt casserole. Bake at 350F about 30 minutes; the eggs and sugar will bubble while the dates will essentially dissolve into mush when stirred.

Remove from oven and immediately stir with wooden spoon, scraping the gooey mixture from the bottom of the casserole.

Let the batter cool until you can handle it. Coat your palms with cooking spray. Scoop up the batter by heaping tablespoonfuls and form into small (1" diameter) balls. Roll in granulated sugar.

Tips and tricks

It helps to have a friend handy when rolling out gooballs; one person scoops and molds, the other pours sugar, transfers finished gooballs to a container, and periodically refreshes the palms of the molder with cooking spray.

Leave gooballs out overnight if they seem too squashy; they will air-dry and harden a bit. Not too long, though, or they will turn to rocks.

Pour the extra rolling sugar into the storage container to help absorb extra moisture.

Ingredients

• 1 ³/₄ C gluten-free flour (Bette Hagman's Four Flour Bean Mix recommended)
• ¹/₂ C sweet rice flour
• 1 ts xanthan gum
• 1 C butter
• ²/₃ C granulated sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 ts almond extract
• ¹/₂ C raspberry preserves

Tools and utensils

• a cookie press
• a pastry bag and round ¹/₄" tip

Using a pastry bag makes adding the raspberry centers a snap.

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In a bowl, combine GF flour, rice flour, and xanthan gum.
3. With a mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and almond extract and beat until incorporated.
4. Add the flour mix to the creamed butter bit by bit, waiting for each addition to be fully incorporated before adding the next.
5. Set the cookie dough in the refrigerator to chill for 10 minutes; it should be firm but not hard when at the proper temperature. While it chills, put the raspberry preserves into the pastry bag.
6. When the dough is ready, spoon it into the cookie press with a flower pattern disc. Force dough through the press onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
7. Use your pinky finger to gently tap the center of the cookie so that there is not a hole between the segments. Pipe in a very small amount (¹/₄ ts or so) of raspberry preserves.
8. Bake at 350F for 12-13 minutes, or until light brown on the edges. The raspberry center should be slightly bubbly.

This is what the cookies should look like before they go into the oven. Too heavy on the preserves and they'll be runny, too little and they just won't taste as good.

Tips and tricks

• Do not try to press cookies onto a hot cookie sheet. The butter will melt and they will run.
• If your cookies will not come off the press, check the dough temperature. Too warm, and the butter will be too soft to separate when you pick up the press; too cold, and the dough will be too hard to separate.
• Make Gf Almond Meringues with the leftover egg whites.