Berta’s Meltaways for GF Zebras - Berta's Table.
The snow had teeth this morning.
Berta felt it in her own joints first, the old ache that always warned her when the cold was going to bite deeper than usual. Then she saw Asha yesterday, standing alone at the far fence, head low, one hind leg cocked so she didn’t have to put full weight on the bad hock. The arthritis had flared again. The zebra’s breath came in slow, steamy puffs, and she didn’t even lift her head when the keeper tossed hay.
That was enough.
So at four a.m., while the kettle rattled and the stove took its sweet time waking up, Berta started something entirely new.
No oats this time. No molasses. Nothing that asked a sore gut or swollen joints to work hard.
Just cream cheese left to soften beside the stove all night, a fist-sized lump of almond paste she’d been saving for months, butter soft as forgiveness, and sugar she’d ground fine-ground with two roasted coffee beans for warmth rather than bite. Vanilla, a cautious breath of almond extract, and enough gluten-free flour to hold it together without turning it tough. At the very end she folded in a small handful of mini chocolate chips, no bigger than peppercorns, because Asha had once stolen a piece of dark chocolate from a tourist’s pocket and looked downright insulted when it was taken away.
The dough came together like thick cream. She chilled it only thirty minutes, just long enough to scoop, then baked the little rounds low and slow so they stayed pale and impossibly tender. When they came out they barely held their shape, fragile, almost trembling, ready to collapse into sweetness the moment they met warmth.
Kelly arrived as the last tray slid from the oven. He stamped snow off his boots, hung his coat, and stopped dead when the smell hit him.
“That’s new,” he said.
“For Asha,” Berta answered, voice rough. “Old recipe was too heavy. This one melts before it ever has to be chewed.”
He didn’t ask how bad it was; he could read it in the set of her shoulders. Instead he poured coffee, took his usual chair, and waited while she let the cookies cool just enough not to fall apart.
They spoke quietly, the way they always did before dawn.
He told her about the winter his granny lost three fingers to frostbite and still baked oatcakes one-handed rather than let the children go without. Berta told him about the Christmas of ’44 when her mother traded a gold brooch for half a pound of real butter and they ate it on black bread like it was cake.
Same stories, softer voices.
When the cookies were cool, Berta chose eight of the smallest, roundest ones, the ones that looked like tiny moons. She laid them in a shallow tin lined with waxed paper, no dusting of sugar this time; Asha’s tongue was sore too.
Kelly stood to leave.
“They’re new,” Berta said, pressing the tin into his gloved hands. Take these down to The Exchange. Kelly nodded once, eyes steady. Let someone else who needs them have some holiday cheer.
Outside, the wind howled around the eaves, but inside the cabin the air still held almond and vanilla and the faint, impossible scent of mercy.
Berta closed the door behind him, leaned her forehead against the cold wood for a moment, then went back to the stove.
She kept the coffee hot -the others would waking soon with hungry stomachs. Time to get eggs boiling, and bread in the oven.
Berta’s Meltaways for GF Zebras
Berta’s Meltaways for Zebras
(Gluten-Free Almond-Coffee-Vanilla Cream Cheese Meltaways with Chocolate Chips) The only cookie Asha can eat on the worst days.
Makes ~24–30 small tender moons
Ingredients
- 8 oz (1 block) full-fat cream cheese, softened overnight by the stove
- 4 oz (about ⅔ cup) almond paste, broken into pieces
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup superfine sugar (or granulated sugar ground fine with 2–3 roasted coffee beans)
- 1 tsp real vanilla extract
- 1½ tsp almond extract (optional but recommended)
- 1¾–2 cups (about 210–240 g) good 1:1 gluten-free all-purpose flour blend (see notes)
- ½ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips (optional but Asha votes yes)
- Extra coffee-ground powdered sugar for dusting
⚠️ BERTA’S OFFICIAL WARNING – READ OR WEEP ⚠️
Gluten-free dough does NOT brown like wheat dough. Do not wait for color. You will wait forever and end up with bricks.
If you must use ordinary all-purpose flour instead of GF:
- Use only 4 oz cream cheese
- Add an extra 4 Tbsp unsalted butter Otherwise the cookies swim and never set.
But if you stay gluten-free (and you should, for Asha’s sake):
You cannot trust colour. Trust touch.
After 12 minutes, gently tap the top of one cookie:
- Still wet or raw → 60–90 more seconds
- Soft but definite skin, center gives like a sleepy cat → done. Pull them now.
They will look underbaked and feel like they’ll collapse if you breathe wrong. This is correct.
They are ridiculously fragile when hot (doubled cream cheese + almond paste + GF flour + superfine sugar = newborn-foal energy). Handle like sleeping fawns. Use a thin spatula, slow movements, no stacking until cold.
Cool 3–5 minutes only, then roll gently in coffee-powdered sugar while still warm. Warmth makes the sugar cling and melt in, forming the whisper-thin shell.
Break these rules and you’ll have expensive almond butter. Follow them and you’ll have mercy in cookie form.
Method
- Cream cheese, almond paste, butter, and coffee-sugar in the processor until perfectly smooth, 2–3 minutes.
- Add vanilla and almond extracts.
- Add GF flour gradually until dough is soft but not sticky (usually lands near 2 cups total).
- Fold in mini chips by hand.
- Chill 30–60 minutes (longer is fine).
- Preheat oven to 325 °F (163 °C).
- Scoop 1-inch balls, place on parchment-lined sheets. Gently flatten if you like.
- Bake 12–15 minutes following the warning above.
- Cool on sheet 3–5 minutes, dust/roll in coffee powdered sugar while warm.
- Finish cooling on rack, spread out like tired stars.
- Store airtight. They keep a week in the cold room or forever in the freezer.
The morning they were born, the snow was cruel and Asha could barely walk. Berta baked these so the old zebra would not have to chew, only let sweetness melt against her tongue like warm snow.
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