Why, hello there. You may know me as the witch, or my personal favorite, the ‘old hag’ in the classic children’s fairy-tale Hansel and Gretel, but I’m here to tell you a different story and it goes like this.
Once upon a time there was a baker writer lady who grew up in the big city where she had a shop full of indulgent treats, cakes, and candies in which she specialized. People came from miles around to sample her confectionery, but after many years she got tired of the hustle and bustle of the city and decided to move to a secluded little spot in the woods, where a fresh supply of high quality water would allow her to produce some of the purest, most elevated treats of her career. She had many a happy day, listening to music and whipping up fabulously stunning (if I do say so) concoctions in her cabin cottage, going outside to offer her delicacies to the birds and bask under the light of an unpolluted sun.
As there was no one to buy her wares, she began to adorn her house with the heartier varieties, the hard candies and sturdy cinnamon cookies that would last a lifetime, taking a whimsical delight in indulging her own personal fantasy of living in a fairy-tale castle made of lollies and bonbons. There was no one to judge her out in the woods, so her fantasy rapidly became reality and soon the most fantastical cottage of graham and rainbow-colored gumdrops lit her little patch of woods like a psychedelic dollhouse.
She was in her kitchen one day, covered with flour from the newest batch of cinnamon grahams she’d been rolling out to patch a hole in the roof, when she noticed yet another hole, growing larger in pieces, in the corner of her living room.
“What the…” she exclaimed, grabbing a broom and going outside to chase away what she assumed were some ill-bred field mice.
Instead she found herself face to face with two red-faced children, staring up at her with devious smiles and the melted chocolate of her tempered trim on their faces.
“Excuse me,” she said (somewhat huffily if truth be told). “What do you think you’re doing?”
The little girl stood up and twirled around in a porcelain dress that cost more than the lady’s yearly bakery earnings. “This house is made of candy, so we’re eating it.”
“This is my house,” said the lady. “Please don’t do that.”
The little boy burst out laughing. “You live in a house made of candy?!” he exclaimed gleefully, before reaching out to grab one of the spun sugar windowpanes. It shattered into candy shards, which the two children threw in the air before taking one of the pieces and decapitating a gummy garden gnome with it.
“Hey! You two better clear out. Where are your parents?”
“They let us do what we want,” said the boy.
“I’ll see about that,” said the lady. With that she went inside and being somewhat old school and fed up with children who respected no boundaries and lacked discipline, she came outside with her crème brûlée blowtorch, turned it on, and chased the children off her property.
And to make a long story short, the brats ran back to their parents and made up a story about being kidnapped by a witch who tried to eat them. The baker writer lady received a visit from the forest patrol who told her that houses made of confectionery were against the housing code, and that it would have to come down. Far from being defeated, the lady merely chopped up her house and hit the open road, selling pieces of her house gingerbread-style at various markets and bake-sales to fund her cross-country expedition.
So there you have it folks, yet another mistelling of what in the end was a clear smear campaign orchestrated by two property-desecrating minors, who may or may not have learned their lesson but at least never got another piece of my-err-the lady’s awesome confectionery house.
the pieces of which looked something like this (but with more decoration 😉 )
- ½ c cassava flour
- ½ c tigernut flour
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tb ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp cream of tartar
- 2 tb honey or maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
- 1 tb apple cider vinegar
- ¼ c leaf lard/ghee (AIP re-intro) or coconut oil for V
- ¼ - ⅓ c cold water
- The full recipe is available in the Best of Flash Fiction Kitchen cookbook, available here.
Previewing an upcoming s’more post. Is there anything better than a s’more really? Answer me that (but only rhetorically or in comparison to other nostalgic food items of our youth).
This post has been shared on Phoenix Helix’s Paleo-AIP Roundtable.
Love your version of Hansel and Gretal! So appropriate for our day. Thanks for the cracker recipe. They look not only beautiful, but delicious. So glad I have some tiger nut flour in my fridge.
Thanks Monica! Appreciate the comment 🙂
Low Carb Cauliflower Crackers Recipe – This amazing gluten free, grain free, paleo, vegan cracker recipe will fit into any diet! So tasty, you won’t even miss the grains!
Looks amazing!
Is there a way to replace the tigernut flour?
It’s hard to find tigernut flour here in Israel…
If you can tolerate a nut flour, I’d go with that (tigernut adds a similar crunch) – otherwise, you could add up the coconut slightly, or go with another AIP alternative like plantain flour.
thanx so much! i cannot wait to try this recipe!!!
I love Flash Fiction Kitchen and your story is adorable! Thanks for the tale and the recipe. Found this just in time for the holidays. My mother used to spread sour cream on graham crackers and we would beg for them. I wonder if I can find an AIP version of sour cream somewhere? Oh well. If not, I’ll just have to make some s’mores. LOL
Thanks Cheryl! I’ve subbed sour cream using a mixture of coconut cream and lime/ACV in the past, there might be some other good recipes floating around in the AIP community…otherwise these are good with most toppings 😉
I really want to try this. Would it work if I substituted palm shortening for the leaf lard???
I haven’t tried that, but don’t see why not! The texture may be a bit different but you can usually substitute one hard fat for another.
When I was little, I would dunk graham crackers in milk. Do you think these would disintegrate dunked in tea or non-dairy milk? I’m also thinking of breaking them up as a cold cereal alternative – what do you think?
Haha, not right away anyway!
I really want to make these tonight but I’m out of cream of tartar. Any substitutions that you know that would work? or what would happen if I made them without?
thanks!