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Apple Pan Dowdy, a Delish Dessert

If you don’t have quite enough apples for a pie you can make this quick and delish apple pan dowdy. It sounds very old fashioned and I think it is just that: old school yummy.  I believe the name comes from the messy way you create the final look; turning the crust under the hot fruit and baking again so that crust get finished as it soaks in the juices and your dessert becomes a bit more like an apple crisp than a pie. I believe my recipe came originally from a very old Betty Crocker cookbook.  I have adapted it to make it gluten free. Its one of my favorite quick fruit desserts for cold winter nights.

Dowdy means not very pretty, drab and this is a bit of a hot mess in its looks but the flavor is spicy, fruity and far more exciting than a plain apple pie. I think it has spoiled me from apple pie. Definitely worth a try.

I have made it with golden raisins, regular raisins or currents which are tiny raisins. All work great.

Please use a firm baking apple that will hold its shape for a decently long bake. I used yellow delicious this time. I have used a number of different baking apples for this; Rome, Braeburn work fine; just don’t use red delicious which is an eating only variety. Green granny smiths tend to be a bit too firm for this recipe while Empire apples get a bit too squishy and applesauce like. Most any other type of apple will do.

This might be my second favorite apple dessert; after my French apple tart that I make regularly; easy, fairly low sugar and oh so delightfully cinnamony and lemony at the same time.

apple pan dowdy

Messy but oh so tasty!

Apple Pan Dowdy

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

6 Tbps. cold butter cut into 6 chunks

1 lg egg

2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

Butter the inside of a glass baking dish: I used a 9 inch glass pie pan.

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 while you prepare the filling.

Filling:

1/3 cup golden or regular raisins

2 Tbsp. peach schnapps

5-6 large Golden Delicious apples

1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup sugar

Heaping ½ tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Sprinkle ground cloves

1 tsp. lemon zest if you like

1 -2 tsp. softened butter

Directions: Put raisins in a small glass dish, add schnaps, microwave one minute on high. Let stand so the booze soaks into the raisins. Peel apples, cut in quarters, remove cores, cut each quarter into 4 or 5 slices. Place in a large mixing bowl, sprinkle with lemon juice.  Mix the dry ingredients in a cup; pour over the slices, toss with a big spoon; sprinkle with lemon zest if desired.

Pour the apple mixture into the glass pie pan that you had rubbed with soft butter. Get out the crust and roll it out; just slightly bigger than the top of your baking dish. Lay it on top of the apple slices and tuck in the edges so nothing hangs down over the edge.  Bake for 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Remove from oven, use a sharp knife to cut a cross hatch into the top (4 big cuts) so you end up with 9 pieces. Use a big serving spoon to gently tip up the crust and get it under some of the hot apples.  Don’t worry if it breaks up further or looks like a mess.  That’s part of its charm! Let bake 25 to 30 more minutes.  The crust (whatever peeks out of the messy fruit pieces) should be very lightly browned and the apples are bubbling. Let it rest a bit; don’t serve boiling hot but warm will be awesome.  Slice and top with a big dollop of vanilla ice cream, crème or yogurt if you like that sort of thing.  We ate it with ice cream and then the next time I had some plain – just my favorite way to appreciate the flavor and texture of this spicy treat. Enjoy!

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.

Turkey Posole Stew; Different yet Delish!

I am betting you have some roast turkey in the freezer, maybe a pint of gravy too?  Well, I have just the recipe for you, courtesy of Rachel Ray and foodnetwork.com.  It is nothing like most traditional turkey leftover recipes.  It is a slightly spicy Mexican stew; posole stew can easily be gluten free. Just use care choosing your chicken broth and your tortilla chips that accompany this savory soup. One of these years I will remember to buy an extra carton of gf turkey broth and use in instead of chicken broth; turkey broth disappears immediately after thanksgiving; a bit of a bummer….

I have been making it every fall after Thanksgiving and always look forward to a few bowls of it.  Spicy, crunchy, tangy; unlike any other soup I make.  Posole stew can be made with roasted pork and I have done so but I like it far better created with leftover roast turkey, especially the dark meat.  I have served this stew to many people, and it is always well received and enjoyed, even by my elderly mother.  I made a batch yesterday and it was so delish! You can cut this recipe in half easily which I did this time; didn’t have enough turkey for a whole recipe and my fridge is pretty full anyway; my posole turned out great and I am thrilled to be enjoying it again. 

Ingredients

2 tbsp mild olive oil or canola oil

2 medium onions chopped

4 cloves garlic chopped fine

1-2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped fine –use two if you like it spicy, I use one!

1 tbsp. ground cumin

1 GF beer (can use 1 cup water if you want but it gives more flavor)

Coarse salt and pepper

12-16 tomatillos; about 2 lbs, take off the paper cover, rinse and chop up.  Can coarsely chop in food processor

5-6 sprigs fresh thyme; chop it up off the stems.

2   15 ounce cans hominy

1.5 qt chicken stock (can be part gravy)

1 ½ to 2 lbs chopped turkey meat; can be mixture of light and dark

1 lime juiced

Chopped cilantro leaves to garnish (optional)

Tortilla chips; the ones with lime go particularly well with this.

tomatillos

Cook first six ingredients about 5 min in a large stock pot.  Add beer or water, cook one minute.  Add chopped tomatillos and cook 5-6 minutes until softened.  Add hominy, thyme and stock and cook 15 minutes.  Add chopped turkey and lime juice, stir. Taste and add salt and pepper, stir well.  I never use cilantro; something I just don’t like, but feel free to add it as the original recipe uses a bunch of it.turkey posole soup

Then ladle the posole into bowls and serve lots of white tortilla chips to crunch over the top of the hot soup.  As the soup disappears from my bowl I like to add more chips to keep the crunch going.

Notes:  I halved the garlic and tomatillos this time. Used most of a good sized jalapeno pepper and one 20 ounce can of hominy. I used a cup and a quarter of water for the beer and a carton of gf chicken broth. About a tablespoon of homemade turkey gravy this time: ate the rest on hot sandwiches. Anyway, it was delish!

tomatillos

The more jalapeno pepper you add the hotter it will be. I have tried canned tomatillos and they are not really a good substitute.  You can get them fresh (found near the fresh tomatoes) in many stores including Giant.  They are used in Hispanic and Mexican cooking and add a lot of flavor and tartness to the soup. I have heard that some folks use salsa verde instead of tomatillos but it really isn’t hard to chop them up so I recommend the real deal.

Hominy is a corn product; whole kernels soaked in lye to swell and soften.  The kernels have a mild corn flavor plus they soak up other flavors quickly and add a certain texture and body to the stew.

The wild turkey is native to North America and one turkey species is originally from Mexico.  So turkey is a natural component in this stew.  The Aztecs revered corn and liked to cook it with meat.  Tomatillos are native to Mexico, related to cape gooseberries.  They are used in salsa verde and other Mexican dishes. So this compilation of turkey, corn, tomatillos and lime is a natural combination that will be easy to make and fun to eat. Go on, be adventurous and enjoy a steaming hot bowl of delicious posole and use up that turkey in a totally different way!

Sourdough Can be Gluten Free and Delicious!

I have been making some gf sourdough breads and other baked goods for quite a few months now; since last winter. Hiatus over summer due to hot kitchen although I did continue to make sourdough bagels regularly. I love them with eggs for breakfast and I often have an open-faced bagel sandwich for lunch. The starter I use is make of brown rice flour and water. Occasionally I treat it to some honey. Currently it sits in the fridge until the day before I bake. Then I feed it more flour and water and stir it up to get active. Hey, I know, sourdough is not for everyone, and it has the reputation of being super tricky and unreliable. I can attest to some of that, but I have my secret weapon; a teaspoon of active yeast is my little helper. Added to the dough with the majority of ingredients it gets that dough to puff up, albeit over about 5-6 hours. Shhh! Don’t tell any serious sourdough bakers; they are somewhat fanatical bakers who are incredibly dedicated to their starters, recipes, the lengthy process and are fairly willing to waste lots of ingredients and hours of time waiting for a rise that often is minimal at best. After a few months of up and down results I have gone over to the dark side; that teaspoon does the trick; it is less than half a packet of yeast but it is enough to boost the rising power of my dough to results that are delightful and give me great joy. Until this year, I hadn’t had sourdough since going gf in January – February 2007. My mom loved sourdough and I sure missed it and looked longingly at the loaf of it at family gatherings. No more longing; I am making my own delicious sourdough breads and bagels.

The recipes I use come from a few sources, Aran Goyoaga bakes an amazing looking loaf of sourdough, but my favorite site is Bakerita; I belong to a fb group dedicated to her recipes and advice. Her boule is delicious if exacting in construction. I use her recipe for gf sourdough bagels, and it is super easy and super forgiving. And for those who think bagels are too difficult to make; Wrong! It is a one rise of the dough in the mixing bowl, cut into 8 equal chunks, roll into a ball, poke a hole through the ball and shape into a bagel. Let rise an hour or more, give each bagel a bath in boiling water with baking soda in it; 30 seconds on each side; place back on baking sheet. Dress up with poppy seeds, sesame seeds or Everything bagel mix (my favorite). Bake for an hour and there they are, chewy, golden and just lovely to munch on. I was driven to making my own when I found all the store gf bagels were lacking in texture and flavor and when Aldi’s stopped selling gf Everything Bagels. The last straw for me!! I slice them in half and freeze. Usually get through them in 3 weeks and I bake again.

Bagels, bathed, sprinkled and ready to bake

You can look on facebook for Bakerita’s site. Also for a gf sourdough baking group although I warn you, they are so deadly serious about it! And on both these sites there are recipes in the notes for a wide variety of baked goods. I have two of Aran’s cookbooks. I do tend to do the Bakerita recipes more often; if you follow them closely and add that tsp. of instant yeast you will get great results. Aran’s cookbooks have a detailed step by step recipe for creating your own sourdough starter; not that difficult to do. I have made sourdough scones too; see a few past blogs. I tried sourdough crackers with some limited success. The most recent recipe was the Bakerita boule but made as a loaf and allowed to rise 6 hours before baking. It has lovely even holes in the bread and my guy swears it tastes just like sourdough bread he buys. [He is not gf except when he is at my house so he eats wheat-based products regularly and can easily compare my breads to them.]

blueberry rhubarb sourdough scones

I find it a fun and almost scientific process; you weigh all the ingredients; strongly urge you to get a good electric scale that can do both ounces and grams. Essential. As is a stand mixer for most recipes. The bagel recipe can be made without a stand mixer. And bonus, far cheaper than buying the bread and far better flavor! Plus your house wil; smell fantastic as the bread bakes. Finally, there are the family’s accolades at your amazing sourdough bagels. Who know it could be so easy and fun to make bagels. I promise you will love them. Have fun and be adventurous! Sourdough is for us gluten free types! Go out and bake some.

Apple Berry Crumb Pie

This is a twist on apple pie I like for when I am tired of apple pie or in late winter when the apples get sort of sad; they are not as crisp or flavorful so I add some berries to brighten up the mixture. This recipe uses cranberries. I used frozen ones but fresh are great too; lots of them will be in the stores for Thanksgiving. They taste like cherries in this pie! My guy was sure these were tart cherries!! Yay; that means they are a good addition.  I bet you could use other berries or cherries from the freezer case. I am planning on making this pie for Thanksgiving Day.

I have made this pie before I went gf but with a rolled-out crust cutout with big circles. That version had ginger in it. This one is a bit more traditional in the flavors and easier without rolling out a second crust.

The filling is cooked briefly on the stove top to keep the pie from settling too much in the oven.  There are three main components but don’t be scared; this is an easy pie to create.

apple cranberry crumb pie out of ovenCrust:

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

2 Tbsp sweet rice flour

1 Tbsp. granulated sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

¼ tsp salt

6 Tbsp. cold butter cut into 6 chunks

1 lg egg

2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

Spray 9 inch metal pie pan with cooking spray, dust with white rice flour.

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 pie bag or 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 while you prepare the crumbs and the filling.  I have a wonderful pie bag made by OXO that is nonstick, sturdy construction and just awesome! I have used nothing else but that bag since it was gifted to me a year and 3 months ago.

Crumbs:

¾ c brown rice flour mix

½ c sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

5 Tbsp.  cold butter cut into 6-8 chunks

Put all four ingredients in the same mixing bowl you made the bottom crust in and mix well with mixer paddle until crumbs form.

Filling:

4-5 cups sliced fresh baking apples (no red delicious or honey crisp)

1/2 cup 2/3 c sugar (use the higher amount if you like it sweeter)

2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp. fresh orange rind and a Tbsp orange juice

2 tbsp. butter at room temp

2 tbsp. instant tapioca or tapioca or rice flour

Raw or big/fancy crystal sugar to sprinkle on top

Directions: Mix the fruit, spices and sugar in a large bowl, Add the butter to a large sauce pan and melt; dump in the fruit mixture, cook about 6-8 minutes until apples soften and the cranberries are bursting. Then add the rind, juice and tapioca or rice flour, stir.  Let cool a few minutes to room temperature.

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Pour cooled filling into pie shell, top with crumbs; use them all; sprinkle with your fingers. Top with a Tbsp big crystal sugar if you have any – a nice finishing touch.

Place on baking sheet to catch drips (I have a pie drip pan I love!)  Bake for 30 min and turn down the oven to 375 degrees and bake 20-25 more minutes: until crust is golden and you can see the filling bubbling.  Cut it short or lower temperature if crumbs are browning too much. Cool on rack for at least 1-2 hours before serving.  Enjoy! apple cranberry crumb pie slice

First published in April 2020, no changes to recipe; minor corrections/changes to text.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Fall is all about those pumpkin flavored things like pumpkin spice lattes etc. I agree that pumpkin makes homemade baked goods even better tasting. A few years ago I made a batch of pumpkin muffins; they turned out nice.  Next, I did the upgrade version: mini chocolate chips and chopped walnuts.  Really amazing flavors and great texture in the resulting muffins! Today I am baking them with the addition of a heaping 1/3 cup raisins; I tried a few in the batter last time and loved the sweet flavor of the raisins sprinkled throughout the muffins. Doing that but even more raisins!

This recipe is my 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.  I sprinkled them last time with oatmeal, but I do love to use coarse sugar too. Today they are naked; in a rush so no time for sprinkle efforts.

I freeze any I won’t eat in 2 days; in a Ziplock freezer bag.  They make perfect snacks. My guy loves them about as much as I do. Enjoy!

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

1/3 cup heaping of raisins (optional)

2 lg eggs beaten

½ c milk, 1 or 2 percent plus 1 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.  I baked these on the convection setting of my range; done in 17 minutes. Rest for five minutes and then remove from the pans using a fork, cool on a rack. Freezes well for up to 4 weeks.

Brown Rice Flour Mix
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

Originally published in 2016; minor updates to recipe as to adding raisins and using a convection oven.