gluten free baking

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.

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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.

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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.

Turkish Fig and Yogurt Cake

We enjoyed the most amazing cake last night.  I used 12 of my own homegrown figs in it.  chicken-gumbo-002Some sugar, lots of Greek yogurt, some eggs, some flavorings and very little flour.  It was very easy to put together; sort of like making a soufflé. I mixed the yolks with the sugar and then the flour added in bit by bit with a whisk.  My stand mixer made the egg whites into fluff and I folded them into the yolk/sugar mixture.  Spooned into a buttered cheesecake pan and laid the cut halves of the figs into the batter. Bake it and BOOM; an amazing dessert fit for a king and queen!  It does puff up a lot as it bakes; don’t worry; it will sink somewhat; can’t stay puffed when it is cooled.

The flavor was a lemony, fluffy light cake but the figs were the star attraction.  If you like figs; this is your cake!

The recipe is from fearless dining: here is a link to the original I used to create my cake.  http://www.fearlessdining.com/recipe/gluten-free-turkish-fig-yogurt-cake/.

I made only a couple of changes to fit what I had in my pantry.  This is a spectacular cake to serve to company. Just need those fresh figs and some yogurt. I got mine at Aldi’s.  Their store brand Greek yogurt in a big size has wonderful flavor and texture.

 

Turkish Fig and Yogurt Cake

Ingredients   (at room temperature)

4 eggs, separated

½ tsp. cream of tarter

½ cup sugar

3 tbsp. gf flour – I used King Arthur blend

½ tsp. xanthan gum (leave out if your flour has some in it already)

1 tsp. lemon or orange extract

1 tsp. water

1/2 tsp. lemon zest

½ tsp. orange or tangerine zest (if you don’t have orange extract)

1 ½ cup Greek yogurt, plain

7-12 figs (big ones; only 7, small; use more) Halved

A tsp. of butter for greasing the pan

A bit of powdered sugar to sift on top

Directions:  see the original post for directions –  http://www.fearlessdining.com/recipe/gluten-free-turkish-fig-yogurt-cake/.fig-cake-006

Pear Frangipane Tart for Dessert

Pies are my favorite thing to bake. You might think that muffins would be my choice; they are great snacks and I am often blogging a recipe for tasty muffins but nothing makes me happier for dessert than a slice of homemade pie.  Plus I am ever on the hunt for great pie/tart recipes for my self declared year of the pie!  So when I saw this new recipe come up this September on Annalise Roberts’ website; I knew I had to try it.

I used just barely ripe Bartlett pears.  I didn’t peel them as the skin was very thin.  Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly.  The crust is her regular pie crust and you prebake it and let it cool to room temperature before filling the crust.  Only difference is you make the crust rise up above the tart pan wall; so it is at least an inch to 1.5 inches tall.  You have to poach the pears first and let them cool, she suggests that you could do that the day before.  It is really neat how the frangipane filling bubbles up and surrounds the pear slices to create a tart that is sort of like an upside down pineapple pie but with pears and almonds.

It got a touch darker than I planned but great almond flavor, pears are perfect and the crust as good as any I have ever made.  A keeper for company occasions and totally satisfied my pear cravings.  A certain someone who is not fond of pears loved it and took a piece home with him for enjoying the next day. Winner!

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So, if you like tarts and pears give this recipe a try; it is pretty similar to her cherry frangipane tart recipe although it requires a glaze for brushing on the pears before baking.  I am guessing that if you use melted apple or peach jelly you could skip that step of reducing the poaching syrup to the thickness of a glaze.  I went the whole deal and loved every bite of it; keeper recipe for me.

I ate it with some really good vanilla ice cream, with plain Greek yogurt and with no accompaniment; great all three ways.

The recipe can be found at: http://mygluten-freetable.com/2016/09/gluten-free-pear-frangipane-tart/