Day: December 11, 2024

Best Brownies Ever!

Trying to figure out a special dessert? Let me suggest a brownie recipe that everyone falls in love with because of the delicious flavor and perfect texture of these bars.  Plus, bonus points as it is really easy to make.  All of the ingredients can be purchased at a regular grocery store.  I rarely post this recipe because then I want to make and eat them, and I would be a blimp if these brownies were around all the time!  I dare anyone to think these are GF until you tell them! Everyone who tastes these falls in love and begs for some to take home! Make them to please your special someone for dessert this week.

Notes: I prefer to use really great quality chocolate like Ghirardelli for the best flavor.  I sometimes add a 1/4 to 1/2 tsp cinnamon to the flour mix to add extra kick to these kick ass brownies. I am thinking of replacing some of the sugar with coconut palm sugar. I will update with my results.

Perfect Brownies

Ingredients:
– 2/3 c King Arthur Basic GF flour blend or the brown rice flour mix at bottom of post
– ½ tsp salt
– ½ tsp baking powder
– ½ tsp xanthan gum
– 2 oz unsweetened chocolate
– 4 oz semisweet chocolate *strongly suggest Ghirardelli or other top-notch chocolate
– ½ c butter
– 1 ¼ c sugar
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 3 large eggs
– ¾ c chopped walnuts

Directions:
Heat oven to 325 F, with rack in middle of oven. Line bottom and side of 8-inch square pan with foil, spray with cooking spray. Mix dry ingredients in small bowl. Melt chocolates and butter in heavy medium sauce pan over low heat. Remove from heat, whisk in sugar and vanilla. Whisk in eggs one at a time. Whisk until mixture is smooth and glossy. Add flour mixture and whisk just until incorporated. Stir in nuts. Pour into prepared pan, bake 45 minutes until test (I use a steak knife or my fancy long tester skinny metal stick) in middle of pan comes out with wet crumbs. Cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes, remove from pan by lifting out foil. Cool completely on rack and then cut into squares. Store in fridge for up to 5 days or freeze-wrapped in plastic wrap and foil. Frankly, you won’t have much left over by the end of the second day!

Brown Ric Flour Recipe
Ingredients
– 1 c brown rice flour
– 1/3 c potato starch (not potato flour)
– 3 tbsp tapioca flour

Posted originally in June 2014, some changes made for this posting.  This recipe comes from Gluten Free Baking Classics by Annalise G. Roberts.

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Thumb Print Cookies 2.0 – Fabulous!

As children we each had our favorite cookies to make, this was traditionally my next older brothers’ to bake but once grown up I began to make them ‘cause they are addictively tasty.  I love making them with apricot jam, you can used chopped slivered almonds instead of chopped walnuts for that version.  But any good quality jam will work, pick what you like.  I am planning two flavors this time: homemade raspberry jam and some homemade apricot jam. Like getting two cookies out of one batch of dough.

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xmas cookies 002

A few Christmases ago a dear friend gave me a new cookbook “Gluten-Free Christmas Cookies” by Ellen Brown.  I have tried several recipes, and all were fantastic including this one, I swapped the candied red and green cherries for jam, but you can go old school and use those freaky candied cherries. It is made with cornstarch and white rice flour; not a flour blend but you should be able to find rice flour in a gf flour department or in a Chinese grocery store. Every grocery store has cornstarch. I am actually going to swap out some of the white rice flour for brown rice flour to make the flavor even more similar to gluten based flour. I will let you know how that goes; baking it this coming week. Use the jam you like to put on your toast! That is better than using something you are not particularly fond of.

Jam Thumbprint Cookies

Ingredients:

1 ½ cup white rice flour (or a 50/50 blend of white rice and brown rice flours)

1 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar

½ cup cornstarch

1 tsp. xanthan gum

1 tsp. cream of tartar

Pinch of salt

2 sticks unsalted butter sliced into thin slices

1 lg egg

1 Tbsp. whole milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

½ cup jam; apricot, cherry, raspberry, peach, strawberry

INSTRUCTIONS: Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl food processor, steel blade, blend briefly.  Add butter to work bowl and process off and on until it resembles coarse meal.

Combine egg, milk and vanilla in a small bowl; whisk. Drizzle into the work bowl, pulse about 10-12 times until it forms a stiff dough.  If it doesn’t come together, add more milk a tsp. at a time. I added a tsp. more of milk to get the dough to form up.

Chill the dough for 15 to 20 minutes.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put racks in the middle of the oven. Place chopped walnuts in a wide shallow bowl and roll 1 1/2 inch balls of dough.  Roll them in the chopped walnuts, place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.  Press an indent in with a finger and fill with about ½ tsp. jam.  Bake 14-15 minutes, until just firm but not browned.  They will be very delicate to the touch.  Let cool 2-3 minutes on sheet before carefully moving them to a cooling rack using a metal pancake turner. I bumped a couple and they just fell apart on the sheet; very fragile while hot.  They will solidify once they cool.  I store mine in cookie tins or Tupperware containers.  They won’t last as long as wheat flour based cookies but they get snapped up fast so that shouldn’t be a problem.  I supposed you could freeze them for a week or two if necessary.

They are not too sweet and so delicate, great with a cup of tea or coffee.  As good, if not better, then when I made them with all purpose (wheat) flour years ago before I had to go gluten free.  Your family will be amazed that they are gf, no one you serve them to will ever guess.  Totally tasty and fun to make with your kids! Enjoy.

This is a reposting of the same recipe I posted back in 2016. Minor text changes.