Guilt-Free Almond Flour Pumpkin Cookies

Get your festive Halloween sweet fix without the guilt! These sugar-free, gluten-free, low-fat cookies will be a surprise and delight to your taste buds. I tested them out on my boyfriend who normally loves his butter and sugar in baked goods, and was happy to hear his praise for the sweet taste and fluffy texture of these cookies. 


Pumpkin Cookies

2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp all spice
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 egg
1 egg white
1/3 cup pumpkin purée
1 tsp vanilla


Preheat oven to 300F/150C. Line baking sheet with baking paper, or lightly grease. Arrange oven rack in the center of the oven.


Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice, and salt in a bowl and set aside.


Combine agave nectar, and egg in a medium size bowl. Mix in vanilla, then the pumpkin purée. Add dry ingredients slowly to wet (add 1/3 of dry ingredients, then combine, until all the dry ingredients are well incorporated.)


In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white until soft peaks form. Gently combine the egg white into the batter. The egg white will make the cookies more like a meringue and help it stay light and fluffy.


Drop Tblsp fulls of batter onto the baking sheets and gently shape each dollop as these cookies will not spread out and flatten during baking. Bake for 20-22mins (until slightly browned). Remove from oven and allow to cool. 

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Eat Guilt-Free Pumpkin Cookies wearing chic Halloween inspired looks...

 Paris street style, images courtesy of HarpersBazaar.com

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Flourless Chocolate Walnut Cookies with OMFG Blog

The inception of this blog has always been for the enjoyment of food, and especially stressing the enjoyment of food in what I call "the lack of culinary enjoyment in my line of work" (that being the modelling industry.) It is an industry where fashionable standards do not sync with food as fashionable, where a chocolate cookie wouldn't generally be allowed to come within 10 yards of "thin" and "beauty", and where a model du jour wouldn't be caught dead near a doughnut du jour (let alone eating one). Going out to eat with your modelling agent calls for the worst meal (or non-meal) of your life. This all has proven to be a challenge for me considering that I don't feel I need to compromise my enjoyment of food to "fit in" to the industry standards. 

Now I understand that models need to be somewhat thin to fit sample sizes, but the point is that when an industry, which is shaping societal norms and aspirations of beauty and image, takes "thin" too far, the result can be significantly dangerous. There are models who eat like myself and manage to stay thin, but indulging in food (even healthy food!) in fashion is still somehow seen as a faux-pas. I'm not sure how to change these entrenched perceptions within the industry as one person alone, other than by being an example; as a model, I express my enjoyment of food, that food doesn't necessarily equal fat, and that perhaps skinny bitches could afford a cookie or two.

Sheila Hui, a fellow model, close friend (who eats!) and writer for OMFG SheilaKins Blog and BallnRoll.com, lent some thoughts on the subject...

"As Toronto Fashion Week takes over the city, models once again are in the spotlight, ready to be scrutinized by the media, fashionistas and the general public. Whoever said modeling was an easy job has never done it -- only those with thick skin should apply. Thick skin, however, is the only part of a model that is allowed to be thick as rail-thin is still the ideal body-type. I don't care how many fashion organizations vow to use models with body types of a certain BMI, or cast "curvier" models every once in a while: fashion has always featured extremely thin women. Everything else is simply for good publicity or sympathetic smiles from the fashion elite. We're all dying to be thin, thin and thinner. 

Well, not all of us! I've been lucky enough to be naturally quite thin (while still being able to eat as much as I please for the most part) and find that the girls I become close friends with in the industry share my view on food: eat what you love, just don't stuff your face. I've never been one for extreme dieting, unhealthy means of staying skinny (read: laxatives and other unpleasant forceful removal..), juice cleanses or anything else along those lines. It's all too impractical for me. Life is for living, and that, in my opinion, includes ordering dessert when out for dinner with your boyfriend, making grilled cheese when you feel like vegging out and doing nothing at home, or sampling all the various gourmet hor d'oeuvres when at a party. Anyone who has the willpower to censor themselves every minute of the day with food is probably not the happiest...after all, a starving model is never a happy model. Give me the happy glow of a well-fed woman over the greyish tinge of an emaciated waif any day.

My closest friend from modeling, Elizabeth Minett, (or Minny as I call her) shares a similar philosophy when it comes to chowing down: mainly that we both turn into miserable cows when hungry, and become gentle purring kittens when with a bellyful of delights...." Continued story at OMFG- SheilaKins Blog by Sheila Hui. 

Right, enough talking, onto the recipe!

OMFG and Haut Appétit highly recommend...

Flourless Chocolate Walnut Cookie

This recipe is from François Payard, but I added an Haut Appétit twist!

2 3/4 cups walnut halves
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 tsp jamaican all spice ** à la Haut Appétit
4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Spread the walnut halves on a large-rimmed baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 9 minutes, until they are golden and fragrant. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Transfer walnuts to a work surface and roughly chop.

Position two racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and lower temperature to 320F/160C. Line two large-rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. It is important to do this, opposed to buttering the baking sheet, otherwise the cookies will stick!

In a large bowl, whisk the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, and salt followed by the chopped walnuts. It is important to add the walnuts before the wet ingredients, which will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cookie during baking.

While whisking, add the egg whites and vanilla extract and beat just until the batter is moistened (do not overbeat or it will stiffen). 

Spoon the batter in small mounds (do not flatten) onto the baking sheets, and bake for 14 to 16 minutes, until the tops are glossy and lightly cracked; shift the pans from front to back and top to bottom halfway through to ensure even baking. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Store cookies in an air-tight container for up to 3 days.

Eat what you love, and love what you eat.

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Interview for Good Food Revolution

I talk cake, wine, and pickled herring for Canada's leading food and wine movement Good Food Revolution with Director/Senior Editor Jamie Drummond! Watch!


Check out the full review at GoodFoodRevolution.com

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Pumpkin Spice Cake (Gluten Free)

The fresh fall streets of New York are alive with festive decorations signaling that autumn is here! Hot apple cider is warming up restaurant cafe menus, ghouls and goblins are looming at customers from restaurants windows, and notorious pumpkins are lining up by the bucket full, making storefronts unabashedly orange.

Every time I consider the squash family at this time of year (as one does) I think, "How did that one horny, oblong, and awkward variety of squash make its way into fall desserts?" The bloody pumpkin. Always stealing the spotlight. What does the pumpkin have that the others don't? Well... Try making this cake (to die for) with butternut or acorn. Just wouldn't be the same now would it? 

Pumpkin Spice Cake (Gluten Free!)

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 + 1/4 cup pure cane sugar
2 Tblsp. maple syrup
1 egg + 1 egg white
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 cup brown rice flour
1 tsp (jamaican) allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup almond milk
1 cup pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350F/176C. Butter a loaf or cake pan approx. 9x5x3inches. 

Cream butter and sugar, then mix maple syrup, and the egg. (Set aside egg white for whipping later.) Stir in walnuts.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and combine. Then stir in the almond milk. Add another 1/3 of the flour mixture and combine. Then add the pumpkin puree. Finally add the last 1/3 of flour mixture and combine.

With the egg white set aside, whip until light and frothy with a whisk or electric mixer. Gently fold this into the batter.

Poor the batter into the greased baking pan, and bake for 50-60mins. Remove from the oven and cool for approx. half an hour.

Finish by drizzling the cake with frosting glaze.

Sugar Frosting Glaze

Approx. 1 cup of icing sugar
Approx. 1/2 cup almond milk

Whisk together until you develop a runny, smooth consistency. I like to approximate my frosting ingredients depending on the consistency that I seek. In this case, the frosting is more like a glaze, so should be more runny. You could certainly make a thicker frosting, in which case you would add more of the icing sugar.

It seems pumpkin is making its way onto the runways too
 (Amaya Arzuaga)

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Lavender Heart Cookies

This morning, I'm stressed. I've been moving around like an ancient nomad, hustling each day to keep up with the seasons. I'm one step closer to chewing my nails off with anxiety. I need one of those hunting hawks that the Mongols use (and still use) to hunt their prey - someone to do my dirty work. Chocolate just isn't doing it for me right now to temporarily help me forget my stresses. I need a more potent remedy for the current state of affairs…

Lavender is my cure all. I put lavender essential oil on and in everything, from blemishes on my face to a few drops in my bath. How silly of me that I hadn't yet put it in a cookie! So of course, I give to you... 

Lavender Heart Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 cup flour

2 Tblsp. fresh lavender or 1 Tblsp. dried lavender florets (I used dried)

2 Tblsp. superfine (caster) sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 375F/180C. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Stir in flour and lavender, and bring the mixture into a soft ball. Cover and chill for 15 mins.

2. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface, and stamp out 16-18 cookies with a 2inch (approx.) heart-shaped cookie cutter. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 5-10mins. (Usually you bake until golden brown, but I took them out a bit before to preserve the white colour which looks nicer underneath the sprinkled sugar)

3. Right from the over, lightly sprinkle with superfine sugar then leave the cookies to cool. 

Makes about 16-18.

This recipe was adapted from one in the recipe book "Cookies" by Hilaire Walden (one of Mom's...)

I need one of these guys today... And these embroidered pants!

Fur and embroidery inspiration from the Mongols.

Mongol Battle

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