A Wheat-Free “Graham Cracker” Crust
The holidays are fast approaching whether I like it or not. As a family who has various food allergies, especially to wheat and cow milk, the holiday meals can be more stressful than usual. “Who made this dish?” “What is in it?” “What brand did you use?” If you have food allergies, you completely understand the round of questioning that occurs over every dish. If my extended family was not so much fun to be around, I might easily be persuaded to stay home and cook my own meal. If I did stayed home the stress of what to eat would be eliminated, but I would have the stress of preparing a spectacular dinner alone.
When you first get diagnosed with a food allergy, you go through a mourning period. You grieve for the foods you think you can never enjoy again. Bread, cakes, cookies, rolls, pie crusts, etc. Throughout the year, you adapt, you cope, you manage. You are doing great! Then the holidays roll around and the grieving process resurfaces. You think of all the traditional family dishes you cannot eat. You think of dressing, dinner rolls, gravy, pies, and in our family, cheesecake. My grandmother makes the world’s best cheesecake.
Cheesecakes use a graham cracker crust as do a lot of different kinds of pies. One of my husband’s favorite pies that he makes is called a Hershey Bar Pie. It uses a graham cracker crust too. I am sure that your family has some dessert that depends on a graham cracker crust. Until now we could not eat it because it contained wheat.
Occasionally we buy Snackimals Animal Cookies for my boys. They are organic, wheat-free oatmeal cookies. They are good. One day I was eating a few of the animal-shaped cookies and I thought, “This would taste great with cream cheese.” Well, it did not take long before I was looking up my grandmother’s cheesecake recipe. I gathered up the ingredients and proceeded to try to create a wheat-free “graham cracker” crust.
I am happy to report that it worked. I was so excited. The holidays do not look so glib now. My family will have a dessert after Thanksgiving dinner to eat. With this crust, the possibilities are potentially endless. You can fill it with a variety of fillings. Experiment with your favorites.
Wheat-Free “Graham Cracker” Crust
1-1/2 cup wheat-free cookie crumbs*
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 of a stick of butter, melted
In a food processor, finely chop the cookies into crumbs. Add the sugar and melted butter. Then combine well using the processor. Pour the mixture into our pan, whether it is a springform pan or pie plate. With your fingers or the back of a spoon, push the crust into the shape you desire. Place in freezer for 10 minutes.
Fill with the filling and cook according to your recipe’s instructions. If the crust needs to be pre-baked, cook at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool. Then fill with the filling.
*For this recipe, I used Snackimals Animal Cookies by Barbara’s Bakery.
We buy those cookies all the time but I never thought to use them for a crust. That’s a great idea. Thanks!