Gluten Free Treats For the Holidays: Recipes For Christmas Cookies, Fudge, Candy And More


Just because your family is gluten free doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in fabulous Christmas cookies and candy over the holidays. Many holiday treats are naturally gluten free, such as peanut brittle, fudge and peppermint bark, and most other treats can easily be adapted to be gluten free.

There are oodles of wonderful holiday recipes that can be found online, even for gluten free folks who are paleo, vegan or have other dietary needs.

Starting off with cookies, it’s easier than ever to bake gluten free Christmas cookies.

Betty Crocker offers a dozen easy and delicious holiday cookie recipes for everything from gingerbread cookies to toffee bars to snickerdoodles. Most of them are easy to make and rely on their gluten free baking mixes.

Martha Stewart also offers 17 decadent gluten free holiday cookie recipes on her site, including five ingredient chocolate chip cookies made with almond butter, fudgy pecan brownies, French macarons, meringue swirls and no-bake peanut butter rice crispy cookies.

Want even more? The Roasted Root has a compilation of over 50 Christmas cookie recipes, many of which are also paleo, vegan and/or raw, and more. You can find chocolate peppermint meringue Christmas trees, coconut sugar stars, rice flour jam cookies, peppermint hot chocolate bites, gluten free Italian wedding cakes, paleo gingerbread cookies, raw peppermint bark blondies, paleo thin mint cookies and Scottish shortbread, just to name a few of the unique recipes the site offers.

These are just a fraction of the great gluten free and grain-free Christmas cookie recipes out there.

Some holiday treats are usually naturally gluten free, such as fudge — as long as you don’t stir in any wheat ingredients such as pretzels or cookie pieces. You can find 35 decadent fudge recipes at Huffington Post, almost all of which are gluten free or can easily be adapted to gluten free (such as by using gluten free pretzels in their white chocolate, peanut, pretzel and chocolate chip fudge recipe). Be sure to carefully read the ingredients to be sure they are all gluten free, of course.

Mamalew offers another 18 delicious fudge recipes, including eggnog fudge, white chocolate pumpkin fudge and chocolate swirl candy cane fudge. Almost all of them are gluten free, or can be adapted to gluten free (by using gluten free cookies as add-ins, for instance). Keep in mind that some people who are gluten free also avoid oats (even gluten free oats) before making the oatmeal chocolate fudge bars.

Truffles are also great options for gluten free holiday treats. There are many recipes online for paleo, raw, vegan and otherwise alternative truffles, or you can stick with the classic over-the-top decadent variety.

Pinterest is a great source for truffle recipes, with dozens of boards dedicated to nothing but truffle recipes, such as the ones offered at The Kiwi Cook – Gluten Free Cakes, Bakes & Treats. For raw truffle recipes, check out any of these boards that offer goodies like power energy bliss balls and raw pralines. The Raw Vegan Balls and Truffles board alone has over 400 recipes. There are also oodles of paleo truffle boards with treats like fruit and nut truffles, paleo fudge and bliss balls.

For more traditional truffle recipes, check out Gourmet’s chocolate covered raspberry truffles or Leite’s Culinaria’s mocha hazelnut truffles for the grown-ups (since they contain small amounts of alcohol and more sophisticated flavors) or Epicurious’s dulce de leche and nut butter truffles.

Most Christmas candy is also naturally gluten free. Allrecipes has over 30 gluten free Christmas candy recipes, including chocolate covered peppermint patties, coconut ice, cream cheese mints, angel food candy, peanut brittle and candied apples.

Living on a Dime also offers 25 Christmas candy recipes that all happen to be gluten free (again, assuming you don’t coat them or top them with wheat ingredients). Some of the holiday favorites offered here include English toffee, easy chocolate truffles, marshmallow bonbons, homemade jelly candies, peanut butter balls, candied orange peels, spiced nuts, homemade caramel and peppermint bark.

Of course, treats like candy canes and hard candy are naturally gluten free, too.

Happy holidays!

[Featured Image by Swetlana Wall/Shutterstock]

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