"My new best friend" and one year older

Here it is my new toy and best friend: Kitchen-aid Artisan 5-Quart Stand Mixers! Oh, it is just beautiful! It's a present from my Mom and Grandma (Danke Mama und Oma!) for my 3oth birthday. This machine will hopefully get me motivated to bake a bit more. Especially considering the fact that Lillian has many food allergies. Therefore we have to prepare a lot of food from scratch. This little baby will come in very handy. For those who don't know yet, Lillian is severly allergic to PEANUTS (our enemy). She also is allergic to soy, dairy, eggs, wheat, all kinds of nuts, legumes, and food preservatives.

Here is the first thing I made with my "new best Friend".

Sunflower Butter Cookies

3/4 cup sunflower butter
1Tsp flax seed mixed with 3Tsp of warm water (let it sit for 2 min)-this is a egg substitute
1/2 cup of maple syrup or brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup of orange juice ( I substituted carrot juice-had nothing else there)
1-1/2 cups Arrowhead Mills gluten free all purpose baking mix

Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit. Combine sunflower butter, flax seed, maple syrup, honey and juice in bowl. beat with mixer until well blended. Add gluten free flour mix. Drop dough by heaping teaspoons onto a cookie sheet, 1-1/2 inch apart. Flatten by crisscrossing with tines of a fork , dipped in sugar. Moisten fork lightly with water, if needed to keep sugar to adhere. Bake for 10 minutes.

Here are the results:

yummy cookies

happy children