Recipes

How to Bake a Delicious Apple Pie Without Sugar, Dairy or Gluten

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A slice of the apple pie I made for the birthday of my partner, Joe Gallivan, on August 9, 2024.
He’s got a gluten/wheat allergy. I’ve got a dairy allergy and avoid sugar. But I revise recipes to accommodate our dietary needs. The topping on the pie is So Delicious (brand) Coconut Milk/Vanilla Bean dairy-free, low sugar, frozen dessert.

Here is a my revised version of a recipe I found online, with my substitutions:

Gluten-free pie crust (see my recipe here). Don’t bake the crust until the apple filling is added.
2 to 2 1/4 pounds of dense, crisp, organically grown apples
1 1/2 teaspons of organic cinnamon powder
8 tablespoons of organic unsalted plant-based butter (or organic unsalted dairy butter)
3 tablespoons of organic gluten-free all-purpose flour or organic tapioca flour
1/4 cup purified water
1 cup of monk fruit and/or erythritol natural granulated sugar substitute (I used Truvia Sweet Complete, a natural sugar substitute recommended by Martha Stewart in her recipes.)

1. Make two 9″ pie crusts and chill them in the freezer until baking time.

2. Peel, core and slice thin, all of the apples.

Slice off a tiny piece of skin the make it easier to start peeling the apple with a peeler.


Peel off all of the skin except above and below the core.

You’ll need a big bowl for the slices of apple. To core the apple, cut away the pieces surrounding the core, then compost the core, or feed it to some happy ungulate.


Cut thin slices from the bigger pieces cut off the apple. and collect them in the bowl.

Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of powdered cinnamon to the apple slices.



Stir well, so that the cinnamon coats every apple slice.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.


Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan over low to medium heat.


Tapioca flour/starch works well for those avoiding grains or gluten.


Whisk the flour into the butter and simmer for one minute, whisking constantly (so no lumps!)



Whisk in 1/4 cup water and 1 cup of natural granulated sugar substitute. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and continue simmering 3 minutes, whisking constantly.




Stir sauce into apple slices to coat all of them evenly.



Spoon the filling into the two unbaked pie crusts.



Place the two pies into the oven, already preheated to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place a baking sheet or some aluminum foil below the pies to catch drips if they bubble enthusiastically.


Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes (use a timer if you have one).




Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes (or until apples are soft and filling is bubbling.)




Let pies cool at room temperature for one hour before serving.

Umami Tofu Paté

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Umami means “delicious savory taste” in Japanese, a taste characteristic of meat broths, dried shiitake mushrooms, fermented soy products, kombu seaweed, cheeses, and fermented or dried seafood. 

This vegan recipe’s umami tastes are imparted by flake-type nutritional yeast and white miso paste.  I can whip up a serving of it in less than five minutes, so it has become my go-to quick high protein dish when I don’t have time to cook.  I often serve it with sliced cucumbers, celery stalks, brown rice crackers, or toasted nori seaweed – or all of them!

Ingredients:

Organic tofu*
Organic white miso*
Organic nutritional yeast
Organic extra virgin olive oil

*Tofu and miso made from organically grown soybeans are crucial to this recipe.  I don’t want to poison myself with the carcinogenic herbicide glyphosate, with which genetically modified [GMO] soy beans are grown.  Virtually all soybeans, unless they are specifically grown by organic farming methods and marked so on their packaging, have been grown with glyphosate.

For each serving, I mash with a fork, a 2-inch slice of organic tofu (neither soft or hard, but somewhere between them, creating a texture like cottage cheese), and then blend in with the same fork one or two tablespoons of organic white miso (less to limit your salt intake).

Then I pour on a tablespoon (or more if desired) of organic flake-type nutritional yeast and a tablespoon (or more if desired) of organic extra virgin olive oil, and continue mixing with the fork until all is well blended.

No-bake Vegan, Gluten-free Mango (or Peach) Pie, Maybe á la Mode

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08-15-20-Panama-home-raw mango pie

Joe Gallivan’s birthday was on August 9th. I usually make a mango pie for that occasion, since it coincides with the height of mango season, but, this year, even though I had all the ingredients and equipment assembled, the mangos were green, and hard as rocks.

So, we waited another six days, until they turned golden and issued their unmistakeable fragrance.

If you live somewhere that has snow in the winter, fear not. Sliced, raw, ripe peaches can be used instead of mangos.

No need to light an oven in mid-August to make this pie.

Crust: Grind in a food processor, first a cup of cashews (neither toasted nor salted), then a cup of shelled walnuts, then, finally, half a cup of de-seeded and coarsely chopped deglet dates. Combine all three in a big bowl with a big spoon, until well blended. (Substitutions: unsalted macadamia nuts for cashews, pecans for walnuts).

Form the dough into a ball (or two), and then press the dough into the shape of a piecrust into a glass piepan or a ceramic bowl. (Or you could make tiny pies in custard cups.) Press the dough into an even thickness covering the bottom and sides of the container. Don’t place it over the lip of the piepan; it will just break off when you are trying to serve it.

Filling: Cut up the mangos inside a bowl, because, if they are ripe, they will exude a lot of juice, which you will want to capture and use. Place the bite size pieces of mango inside the prepared crusts, and measure the juice into heavy pot or a double boiler. Add more liquid, if necessary, to make a total of two cups – coconut milk, juice of another fruit, or purified water will all work. Add two droppers full of stevia liquid (or a commensurate amount of another sweetener, if you prefer), and two tablespoons of agar-agar (kanten) flakes.

Bring to a boil, and then simmer for five to ten minutes – stirring gently – until the agar-agar is completely dissolved.

Then pour the hot liquid over the mango pieces to within 1/2″ of the top of the pie shell.

Place the pies into the refrigerator, covering each one with an inverted ceramic plate, and let them chill for at least an hour.  Overnight works, too.

If you want to serve with ice cream on top, plate the pie slices first, then blend frozen peeled bananas and smooth cashew butter in your food processor and scoop out the ice cream immediately onto the pie slices and serve.

Gluten-free Maple Nut Muffins (Re-purposing Leftover Gluten-free Baked Goods)

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Preheat the over to 380 F.

Line muffin pan with unbleached paper muffin cups (or make muffin cups from squares of unbleached oven parchment paper)

Break leftover gluten-free baked goods into pieces, tossing them into the bowl of a food processor. I used cinnamon-raisin bread to make these muffins tonight, but any sweet (as opposed to savory) flavored bread, roll, cake, cookie or pastry (or a combination) would work as well. Use the food processor to reduce the baked goods to crumbs.

For every cup of crumbs, add:

A beaten organic pasture-raised egg (this gives batter the same expanding flexible structure while baking that gluten does)

1 or more tablespoons of maple syrup (less sweetener needed if the crumbs contains cookies or pastries)

¼ cup of raw organically grown walnuts or pecans, pulverized in the food processor
1 tablespoon of organic virgin coconut oil

Optional: ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon (if you are using cinnamon raisin bread crumbs, you don’t need it)

¼ cup pure water (the amount depends on the inherent moisture of the ingredients. Just add a teaspoon at a time while blending, until the batter is thicker than pancake batter, but more liquid than cookie dough)

Once you have a thick batter, stop the food processor, and stir some organically grown raisins and dried cranberries into the batter.

Spoon the batter into muffin cups, filling them about 9/10 full. They will rise, but not a lot.

Bake about 20 minutes (the sides and tops should brown a little bit).

Leave the muffins in the muffin tin until cool enough to handle, then move them to a rack to cool completely – or, serve them warm.