gluten free baking

Best Darn Dinner Rolls AND GF!

If you are searching for easy to make gluten free rolls for Thanksgiving, look no further. I made them for a holiday party and one of my guests asked for the recipe saying they were the best rolls he ever ate, gf or not!  They are very easy to make and taste just as good as any I have made with wheat flour in my past life as a gluten fiend.

You make a yeast slurry of milk, sugar and yeast and let it rise while you mix all the dry ingredients in the stand mixer bowl. Then dump the wet ingredients all together in with the dry ingredients.  Beat the sticky mess up, glop it into the sprayed muffin pans and let rise a bit. Bake them a few minutes and there they are,: golden, puffy and almost like a mini popover!

The flavor is fantastic, so is the texture and love that they keep well for a few days; could make them the day before your big meal and just warm gently.  I cut this recipe in half pretty easily.  For that I used 2 eggs and discarded the excess egg after I glazed the rolls.  I have used regular whole milk and 1 percent milk in my batch but you can use rice milk if you want it dairy free.  This is a keeper recipe for anyone, GF or not!

rolls

Soft Dinner Rolls -24 rolls

Ingredients

2 tablespoons dry active yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
2 cups rice milk (or milk) – warm but not hot
*1½ cups superfine or Asian White Rice Flour
*½ cup Sweet Rice Flour
*¾ cup potato starch
*½ cup tapioca starch
3 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 large eggs – use divided
¼ cup butter plus more for brushing the pans
¼ cup honey
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

*in place of the various flours and starches you can use 3¼ cups GF flour blend.

Directions

Combine the yeast, sugar and warmed milk in a small bowl and whisk to dissolve the sugar. Let sit for 6 or 7 minutes or until the mixture is foamy and had increased in volume.

Combine the flours, starches (or all-purpose gluten free flour blend), xanthan gum, salt and baking powder in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix for 30 seconds on medium-low to combine and break up any lumps in the potato starch.

Add the yeast mixture, 2 eggs, melted butter, honey and vinegar. Mix on medium low until combined. Scrap down the sides of the bowl, turn the mixer on high and mix for 3 minutes. You should have a very thick, smooth batter.

Brush 2 twelve cup muffin pans with melted butter or spray with gluten free, non-stick cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spoon the batter into the sprayed muffin pans, filling about ¾ full. You can also use a small (#60) ice cream scoop and place 3 scoops in each muffin tin (clover leaf). That is my favorite way to form them! Cover with a clean ultra thin kitchen towel and place in a warm, draft free place to rise. Let rise for 30-35 minutes or until the dough has almost doubled in size.  I often put them in a 105 degree oven, uncovered for their rising time.

Beat the remaining egg with 1 teaspoon of water very well with a fork. Gently brush the tops of each roll with the beaten egg.  I used my finger to do the brushing as my brushes were too stiff. Sometimes I sprinkle the wet egg wash with poppy seeds.

Bake for 17 – 18 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool in the pans for 15 minutes.

Note: These rolls can be made ahead – bake them, let them cool in the pans, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days. Warm them for a few minutes in a 350 degree oven.  I froze them for 2 days and then nuked the rolls for 30 seconds to warm up.  Leftover rolls are great with jam for a snack. Enjoy!

Forgotten Kisses Cookies

Ever on the lookout for a great tasting cookie I came across these sweet meringue treats called forgotten kisses. I found an easy recipe on foodnetwork.com.  Made them once we got past the rainy days a week or so ago.  If you can whip egg whites, you can make these beauties.  They have chocolate chips and walnuts in them but if you look at the comments you will see that folks add many different spins and flavors.  They keep really well too.  I put some in my cookie jar four days ago and they still taste as though they were just baked.

I froze some for later.  My Christmas cookie list just got longer with this beauty added on!  Thank goodness hey are simple and they keep well. I used slightly less than the sugar amount here and my version has less chocolate chips in it.  They seem pretty chocolaty to me just as I made them.  My whole house smelled like a chocolate factory while they were baking.

forgotten-kisses-and-spicy-eggplant-001

forgotten-kissesForgotten kisses

Ingredients

2 egg whites, room temp

½ tsp. cream of tarter

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

¾ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

¾ to 1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Directions: Heat oven to 350.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Beat egg whites until frothy with electric mixer (I used a stand mixer), add cream of tarter, keep beating until fluffy.  Then add the sugar a tbsp or two at a time. Add the vanilla when half to all of the sugar is incorporated.  Beat until shiny and stiffly peaked when you put a spoon in.  If it gets a chunky look you have overbeaten it, not a good thing.  Stand mixers are so powerful they can do just that so watch it closely; has to have stiff peaks and look shiny but don’t keep going or you will have the overbeaten which is a no no.  The opposite is bad too; if the egg whites are not beaten to a stiff peak the cookies will flatten out and not look right.  When it looks ready, fold in the nuts and chips with a spatula.  Use two spoons to put tablespoons of batter on a baking sheet 1 inch apart. Mine made about 30 (15 on a sheet) cookies.  I did use a mixture of semi sweet and dark chocolate; was incredible tasting!

Bake at 350 degrees for five minutes, turn off oven, and leave for 2 hours up to 8 total hours.  If your oven is gas you should probably reheat it after an hour back up to the 300 degrees and let them cool in the closed oven for that second hour.  Do not open the oven door for any reason before 2 hours is up.

Here is the original recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/meringue-cookies-forgotten-kisses-recipe.html

Be sure to read the comments for other flavor ideas.  I know I will be trying a few of them.

Apple Fritter Quick Bread

Saw this recipe for apple fritter bread a week or two ago. Incredible looking so I wanted to make it but it was not a gluten free recipe.  A few days later I discovered that Better Batter has an identical recipe up on their website but made with their wonderful gf flour blend.  Didn’t take me long to decide I just had to bake a loaf. Never made anything like it in the past other than an apple coffeecake but that was a bit more cakey and was baked in a tube pan.  So armed with just two good sized apples and a lot of cinnamon and nutmeg I threw this recipe together. It is made with oil; I used canola and my dairy choice was whole milk but I am guessing you could use any sort of milk you like. The batter was kinda thin and that worried me but it thickened up as I compiled it in the 9×5 baking pan.

I used my stand mixer and several smaller bowls; one for the apples which are tossed with cinnamon sugar, a small bowl with brown sugar and cinnamon and a medium bowl with the flour and leavening agents in it.  Nothing tricky or complicated; dump and mix it together both in the stand bowl and then in the loaf pan: you layer it up with batter, then apples, then brown sugar/cinnamon mixture, do that another layer and then run a butter knife through it to swirl the cinnamon a bit.  My loaf baked the full 50 minutes and then I let it sit in the pan a while to cool and solidify.  I did make the glaze; not that much more sugar and it looks so pretty.

Yes there is just about ¾ cup of granulated sugar plus 1/3 cup brown sugar but it is a lovely fall treat and there isn’t much else to complain about; no butter or crisco and the chopped apples add a healthy touch. No one is going to whine when you serve up slices of homemade apple quick bread.  Great with a cup of coffee or tea.  Just do it!  Here is the link to the recipe.  Let me know how you like it.  http://betterbatter.org/fall-time-apple-bread

Fig and Raspberry Galette

Figs are a favorite of mine in the fall. Pricy though. This year my fig trees came through with several dozen figs over about a months time. Some were stuffed with goat cheese and drizzled with honey, and eaten raw.  Some were roasted briefly with that same yummy cheese. Heavenly.  A lot were just popped in my mouth for a sweet treat.  I made a super delicious fig and yogurt cake last weekend. Now for a fig based dessert in the pie family.  Saw this recipe on Tasting Table a while ago and immediately knew I just had to make it. FYI: a galette is a free form flat round French tart. Now you know!

I used my favorite gluten free crust recipe plus some cinnamon.  Lacking almond paste I made some; see my blog post for that recipe: https://myworldwithoutwheat.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/almond-paste-holiday-joy/.  The filling was fairly close to the recipe. You might think the thyme leaves and honey unusual but trust me it is just perfection!  If you love figs or raspberries this is an outstanding and show stopping dessert.

 

Fig and Raspberry Galette

Crust:

1 c plus 2 tbsp brown rice flour mix (at bottom of recipe)

2 tbsp sweet rice flour

1 Tbps. granulated sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

6 Tbps. cold butter cut into 6 chunks

1 lg egg

2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

Line a 15 inch pizza pan with parchment paper.

Mix dry ingredients in bowl of stand electric mixer.  Add butter and mix until crumbly and resembling coarse meal.  Add egg and juice.  Mix until it comes together into big chunks.  Shape into a ball with your hands. Put it on a crust sized piece of wax paper (14 x 14 inches more or less), flatten the crust ball some; put on top of it another piece of wax paper and chill it all in your fridge 15-20 minutes.  Then roll out and put on the parchment lined pan; put back in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

Frangipane filling:

1/3 cup almond paste

2 tsp. sugar

2 tbsp. butter

1 tsp. gf flour

1 egg

½ tsp. black berry brandy or kirsch

Pinch of salt

Fruit part:

6-7 ounces of ripe figs: 8 large or maybe 10 small

5-6 ounces fresh raspberries

1 -2 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves, chopped

2 tsp. honey

1 tsp. orange or tangerine zest (I used tangerine)

1 beaten egg for washing

1 cup crème fraiche or organic plain yogurt or plain Greek yogurt

Directions: Combine the almond paste and sugar in a small food processor, process until broken up into sandlike mess.  Add the butter and process until blended.  Add flour, egg, brandy and salt.  Process some more.  Chill in fridge while you continue tart creation process.

Chop the thyme (remove all stems).  Zest a tangerine or half an orange’s skin. I do this onto wax paper for ease of picking up later.

Get out the tart crust and the almond mixture. Spread the frangipane out; I just dumped mine in the center of the crust and it spread on its own.  Leave 1.5-2 inches of crust around the filling. Top with halved or quartered figs; mine were small; halved them. Next sprinkle the raspberries around; I didn’t need the full 6 ounces.  Sprinkle on the sugar, thyme leaves, then drizzle with honey and dust the zest over it as evenly as possible. Fold up the edges of your crust and pinch together to create the galette shape.  Use a pastry brush to brush the crust with the egg wash.  Bake for 30 minutes in a 425 degree oven.  Mine got a little too brown on the bottom.  Next time I will turn it down to 400 after the first 15 minutes.   Let your tart rest a bit; don’t serve hot but a warm slice will be awesome.  Slice and top with a big dollop of crème or yogurt.

fig-galette-slice

Brown Rice Flour Mix (same as King Arthur basic gf blend)

2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch – not potato flour!

1/3 c tapioca flour

The crust recipe is from Annalise Roberts great cookbook, GF Baking Classics, Second Edition.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

I don’t put pumpkin in my tea/latte or ice cream or candy as I see others indulging in but pumpkin does make homemade baked goods even better tasting. A few weeks ago I made a batch of pumpkin muffins, new recipe for me: they turned out nice.  But I wanted to upgrade them in this latest attempt so I added mini chocolate chips and chopped walnuts.  Really amazing flavors and great texture in the resulting muffins!

This recipe is my own version using the banana muffin recipe from Annalise Roberts’s wonderful cookbook: Gluten Free Baking Classics as my jump off place.  They are easy to make, perfect in texture and totally yummy. I used coconut palm sugar; low on the hypoglycemic scale which is great for me.  I do love to sprinkle the raw muffins with chunky sugar before baking.  Yes, I get the irony there but I only put a few grains and they look so pretty!  Streusel would be nice but actually adds more sugar and calories than my bits of fancy big sugar.

I freeze any I won’t eat in 2 days; in a Ziplock freezer bag.  They make perfect snacks.

chocolate-chip-pumpkin-muffins-011

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (14 muffins)

2 cups brown rice flour mix (see below)

2/3 c granulated sugar or coconut palm sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

¾ tsp xanthan gum

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp. ginger

¼ tsp nutmeg

1 c packed canned pumpkin

½ cup mini chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts

2 lg eggs beaten

½ c milk, 1 or 2 percent plus 2 extra tbsp. if you use the palm sugar

½ c canola oil

Heat oven to 350 degrees, placing the rack in middle of oven.  Spray muffin pans with cooking spray.  One batch makes 12-14 muffins depending on how large you want them.

Mix all dry ingredients in bowl of stand mixer or big bowl. Add nuts and then pumpkin puree, stirring into the dry ingredients. Combine milk and oil, beat in eggs.  Add liquids to big bowl; stir until fully blended.

Fill muffin pans 2/3 full.  Bake 22-23 min until golden brown. Do not over bake or they get dry.  Remove immediately from the pans and cool on a rack. Freezes well for up to 3 weeks.

Brown Rice Flour Mix mix
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour