gluten free baking

Soft Rolls A Popping… Perfection Yet GF

These yeast rolls would be great for Easter dinner!  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. I have made them several times and they never fail to please my company. They are light with a crunchy exterior and a lovely popover like consistence.  Best of all they are so so simple, would be an excellent choice for a first gf yeast baking experience.

rolls

You make a yeast slurry and let it rise while you mix all the dry ingredients in the stand mixer bowl, and dump the wet ingredients all together in with the dry ingredients.  Beat well, glop it into the sprayed muffin pans and let rise a bit. Bake and there they are, golden, puffy and almost like a mini popover! Just one rising, in the baking pan, no tricky shaping.  Simple yet as delicious a gf roll as I have ever tasted.

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. Makes 2 dozen so freezing a few is a great option.  I often cut this recipe in half; pretty easy.  I put the half ingredient list at the end of this post so you can easily halve the recipe.  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 could use rice or almond milk and part of a vegan baking stick if you want it dairy free.  This is a keeper recipe for anyone, GF or not!

Soft Dinner Rolls – makes 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.  I haven’t tried that yet.

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 method although I just use a big kitchen spoon to dollop it into the muffin pans! 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.  You can leave off the egg wash but they won’t be as golden or as shiny.

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

Ingredient List for a Half recipe

1 tablespoon dry active yeast
1 teaspoons sugar
1 cup milk)– warm but not hot
¾ cups superfine or Asian White Rice Flour
1/4 cup Sweet Rice Flour
a touch more then 1/3 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1.5  teaspoons xanthan gum
3/4 teaspoons kosher or fine sea salt
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
2 large eggs – use divided *(pick small eggs)
2 tbsp.  butter plus more for brushing the pans

2 tbsp. honey

1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

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!

I honestly cannot remember where I found this recipe or I would give credit to the original author.

Lemon Shortbread Cookie Bliss

Sometimes you want those fancy, full of stuff kinda cookies and that is fine but occasionally a simple but delicious cookie is the way to go, like shortbread.  Dainty crisp shortbread cookies are great with a cup of tea or coffee.  I hadn’t tried them gluten free until this holiday season.  I now wonder why it took so long.

meyer lemons

I baked lemon ones using Meyer lemon peel but you can use whatever lemons you buy at the grocery store.  Mine were sprinkled with a touch of green colored sugar.  Top yours as you wish or leave them plain.

No forming needed.  You glop the soft dough onto a long piece of plastic wrap, close it and roll on the table to shape.  Chill well and cut the dough into slices, onto the baking sheet and into the oven.  Simple to make and they are perfect for many festive occasions. I can’t wait to try some other variations on these shortbread cookies.

shortbread cookie 001

Lemon Shortbread Cookies

½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

½ lemon extract

1 tsp. lemon zest

¾ cup brown rice flour mix; recipe below

1/4 cup sweet rice flour

¼ tsp.  xanthan gum

1/8 tsp. salt

Directions:

Beat together the softened butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, add the vanilla, lemon extract, and zest and mix.

Mix flour, xanthan gum in small bowl; add to butter/sugar mix.  Mix until a soft dough is formed.

Place lumps of dough in a line along a big sheet of plastic wrap; from it into a 1 ¼ inch log of dough.  Twist ends shut, smooth into a round long by rolling it on the table top.  Chill it at least an hour; until firm.

Heat oven to 350 degrees, racks to center of oven.  Lightly spray 2 baking sheets with cooking spray.

Slice into ½ to 5/8 inch rounds. Place 1 ½ inch apart on sheet, sprinkle with colored or plain sugar.  Chill in fridge 15 minutes. Bake 12-14 minutes until lightly golden. Mine all took 14-15 minutes.  Let cool on cookie sheet 2-3 minutes so they solidify; transfer to a cookie cooling rack.  Store in airtight cookie jar once cooled.

My recipe says the dough can be kept in the fridge for a week or in freezer for up to two months.  It made about 32 cookies. They went fast!

They are delicate; if left out in the air unsealed they will get soggy and loose their crisp, delicate texture.

To make them plain leave out the lemon extract and zest and add another ½ tsp. vanilla.

Brown Rice Flour Mix base mix
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

This recipe is out of Annalise G. Robert’s great cookbook: Gluten Free Baking Classics, second edition.

Crunchy Tasty Cranberry Crackle Tart

Like a fruit tart and a pavlova had a baby: this is the felicitous result.  Light and delicate, making it perfect after a hearty feast.  It is really guilt free if you eat it minus any toppings like the whipped cream or ice cream.

I found this recipe on line, back before Thanksgiving, at splendidtable.com.  I loved the look and sound of it but didn’t find time to make it until Christmas Eve.  Once I tasted it; love at first bite.   I devoured it with vanilla ice cream on top at the Christmas lunch, nice flavor combination.  New Years Eve is coming up and I want to bake another, this time serving it like you do a Pavlova, with lightly sweetened real whipped cream on top. Yumm!

crackle tart 007

It is really easy to throw together.  If you are gf you can use the recipe I provide, I adapted her recipe to make it gluten tree. At holidays like Christmas Wegmans often has gf redi-made crusts. If you are a wheat eater use whatever cookie tart crust you like.  I included cinnamon in the crust and found it added a lot to the complexity of the flavors.  The crust absolutely needs to be pre-baked before you put the tart together.

I should say I seldom use fresh cranberries; I generally make a fresh relish – old family recipe – for Thanksgiving but never got it made this past November.  So I had the bag of cranberries in the fridge in the fruit bin.  Yeah, it sat there a month: I did have to pick through it (you always should) after I rinsed them and remove and squishy ones.  There are usually a few of those mixed in and they aren’t great for anyone to eat.  Let them dry. Anyway, my point is; this tart is fantastic tasting even if you aren’t a huge cranberry fan.

I used some smooth raspberry jam (what I had) but you could probably use most any jam.  Just chose one full of real fruit in a flavor you enjoy as you can definitely taste the jammy flavor mixed in with the crust and the meringue topping. I loved it with raspberry jam, a favorite flavor for me.

crackle tart 005

Fresh out of the oven

I didn’t take a lot of pictures as I wasn’t really planning to blog this recipe but it was so tasty I had to get it out there for people to try.

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Sweet cookie crust, gf

Place the following in a stand mixer bowl and combine:

1 cup GF flour (recipe below)

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 tsp xanthan gum

½ tsp. cinnamon

Add 5 tbsp cold butter, cut into 6-7 chunks.  Mix on medium low until the butter is just crumbs blended in.

Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract and 1 tbsp water.  Blend well.

Pour the crumbs into a ten inch tart pan that was sprayed with cooking spray.  Or a glass pie pan.  Spread it up the sides.  Press gently in so it is a cohesive crust but do not press really hard or it will be like concrete when you finish baking it!

Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes. Set the crust on a rack to cool to room temperature.  Do not let it get more than light brown.

crackle tart 006

Just before cutting it

Brown Rice Flour Mix
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

Filling

2 tablespoons chunky cherry, raspberry or strawberry jam

2 large egg whites, at room temperature

Pinch of fine sea salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups cranberries (if they’re frozen, don’t thaw)

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting.

When you’re ready to fill and bake the tart: Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Gently spoon the jam on top of the crust and spread it evenly over the bottom, I used the back of my big spoon for this operation. In a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the egg whites with the salt at medium speed just until they are fluffy and fairly opaque. With the mixer going, add the sugar in a slow, steady stream, then keep beating on high until the whites are shiny and form definite peaks; they will look like marshmallow.  This is a meringue.

Pour the cranberries into the bowl of meringue and, using a flexible spatula or spoonula fold them into the meringue. Try to distribute the fruit evenly, but don’t mix too much– you want to keep the meringue fluffy. Spoon the meringue over the jam and spread it to the edges, making it swirly if you’d like. The jam might push up around the sides of the meringue, and that’s fine.  Don’t fret if it looks like not enough filling, it will puff up in the oven to fill the pie pan.

Bake the tart for 1 hour, at which point the top will be light beige and cracked here and there. (If you’d like more color, you can bake it a bit longer or even put it under the broiler.)  I did not go there!  Transfer the tart to a cooling rack and cool to room temperature.  I did cut it while slightly warm and we all thought that was just perfection.  If you’d like, and I do, dust the tart with confectioners’ sugar before serving. Whipped cream on top is also great.Storing: The tart is best the day it’s made, although it’s still pretty nice the next day. Leave the tart at room temperature, covering only the cut part with a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap.  I doubt you will have any the second day anyway. It is that tasty.

Almond Paste Holiday Joy

Sometimes I find that it is just easier to make an ingredient yourself when you can’t easily locate it.  Case in point the venerable item of almond paste, found in many old school baking projects.  When I was a kid my mom used it to create marzipan fruit which she painted with delicate colors to resemble the real deal.  These dainty tasty treats were displayed on a crystal plate and served to company. I was lucky to get one itsy bitsy peach which was gone in one small bite of deliciousness. Don’t ask me how a woman with seven children found time and energy to make marzipan fruit.  Maybe because she didn’t have a computer or cell phone?

marzipan fruit

Not my mom’s marzipan fruit but still lovely.

Anyway, I wanted to make almond crescent cookies; had baked some last Christmas to much acclaim.  Forgot to get the paste and I was kinda busy cooking up a storm, so I texted my sisters to get some.  They brought almond filling, not the same, not even close. Bummer as we didn’t have time to shop again that day. I returned to the grocery store for the umpteenth time later this past week to get the right stuff and found no plain almond paste, only coconut or chocolate almond paste; weird.  I bought some marzipan, thinking it would do.  Nope.  Not the same; too sweet for a replacement in my recipe. So I googled almond paste and came up with a recipe to make my own.  Back to the store for plain almonds. I bought whole ones, they were out of blanched ones.

almonds

To blanch you heat a big saucepan half full of water to a boil; dump in the almonds and let them cook a couple minutes until they float.  Skim off and lay on a rimmed baking sheet, let cool a bit and then peel the skins off, your nails come in handy for that part. That can take a few minutes, maybe do it while you watch a Christmas movie or special.  Then bake those damp almonds on that rimmed cookie sheet at 170 degrees for 20 or 30 minutes to dry them out.  Do not brown.  Let cool completely before proceeding with the recipe.  FYI: rimmed baking sheets are the best; they bake things more evenly with less burning than plain un-rimmed sheets.  I found two old ones that are sturdy and with 1/3 inch rims, perfect.

blanched almonds

This recipe went together in just 5 minutes once I had the blanched almonds ready.  It makes really great tasting almond paste; better than the redi-made stuff. Good to know, just in case you can’t find any at the store.  FYI: I will post the almond crescent recipe but not today, one post at a time!

shortbread cookie 009

This was a cool experience because I learned something. Before, I just took almond paste for granted; now I know that it isn’t too difficult to make my own and it is really yummy homemade!  A bonus is that I got to use my ancient Hamilton Beach 2 speed processor, a faded refugee from the 1980’s.  It seldom comes out to play except when I make a big batch of carrot soup as I have a mini one that is perfect for most blending jobs.  This time it was the right size, got the job done and that is what counts!

Almond paste

INGREDIENTS

1.5 cups whole blanched almonds

1.5 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 large egg white, lightly beaten, room temp

1/2 tsp almond extract

Yield: 1 lb (2.5 cups) almond paste

Directions:

  1. Place the whole blanched almonds and 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar in a large food processor (at least 7 cups in volume) fitted with a steel blade. Process the nuts and sugar until the nuts are very finely ground, stopping periodically to scrape the sides of the processor bowl. The sugar will help prevent the nuts from turning into almond butter, but done over process.
  1. Once the almonds are very finely ground, add the rest of the powdered sugar and blend until it is completely mixed into the ground almonds.
  1. Stop the processor and add the egg white and the almond extract. Turn the processor back on and process the almond paste until it comes together in a clump in the food processor.
  1. If it seems very sticky, add a little more powdered sugar, a spoonful at a time, until it is smooth. I didn’t need to do this.
  1. You can use the almond paste at once or wrap it to use at a later date. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and then store it in a zip-top bag. Wrapped this way, the almond paste can be kept for up to 3 months in the refrigerator or 6 months in the freezer. Make sure to bring the almond paste to room temperature before using it in recipes.

PS: I forget exactly where I found this recipe, It is by Alton Brown, (my hero) just google almond paste and it should come up!