The more things change.....

So... it's been over a year gluten-free.  The second Thanksgiving dealing with this.

Last year was not so good.  Stuffing in the turkey (which my husband assured me his mother never did) and dealing with everyone not fully understanding just how serious to take this (no, you can't flop the pan de queso I brought into the same basket as the rest of the rolls, since now I can't eat those), etc.

I'm glad to say this year was much better.  Once I asked and explained to my mother in law that I couldn't eat turkey when the bird was stuffed, she was more than happy to make a separate turkey breast, sans stuffing, so I could easily eat.  And it's also very nice that she had become a label-reader when she's making a prepared dinner - she said she was thinking of calling me to see how she could do the gravy gluten-free until she looked at the chicken stock that she used for her turkey stock again, and saw that had wheat in it (happens a lot with stocks, which is why I am a firm Kitchen Basics gal). 

Last year, I had no sweet stuff at the end of my meal for Thanksgiving.  Thankfully, not this year.

While I have done an okay pie crust using a 30/70 ratio of mixed non-wheat flours, it was just okay.  I wanted to be able to do my good old tart crust, the way I used to.

Enter... Cup4Cup flour.

Yes, it is pricey.  Yes, it it worth every cent.

I had already used it to make some wonderful fried chicken....

(um... yeah... the breading kinda fell off that piece, and we had already greedily gobbled up the rest of the chicken by the time I got around to thinking about pictures)

Also used the recipe off the Cup4Cup website to make some apple spice muffins for the husband's birthday (and used cream cheese rather than the goat cheese... we're not goat cheese people).

For Thanksgiving... I got ambitious.

The usual pecan pie...

And a totally new recipe for something I've never even tried with wheat flour... Baked Apple Dumplings.

The dough was a little too wet, honestly, and getting the dough formed around the dumplings was not the easiest thing in the world, but since it's not a gluten-developing flour, I was able to go "oh well" and peel the dough off the apple half, flop it back on my board, add a little more flour, and work it into a circle again and give another go.  Worked out fine in the end.

It was like cooking with wheat flour again.  Just as easy... no special tricks or anything needed.

One fantastic thing about Cup4Cup is that it's not gritty.  Rice flour usually is gritty, and while you may not notice it as much in baked cakes and muffins, it shows in things like breading and pie crust.  Even working with it while making the fried chicken, it felt like "regular" flour.

Out of the single bag of flour, I got the whole fried chicken, the muffins, the pecan pie crust, and what pretty much equals two batches of pie/biscuit dough for the dumplings.  Not a bad haul.  And considering the amount of other things that have ended up going right into the trash with other gluten-free flours.... I'm a convert.

I went to buy a back-up bag before Thanksgiving just in case, and while checking out the sales person told me her family has been gluten-free for years and she absolutely loves this flour (she said she bought eight bags - yikes! - when it first came out).  She said the recipe for plain old Toll House cookies is AWESOME with this flour, by far the best one she's used - she said she likes the flour in the Toll House recipe more than the Cup4Cup cookie mix.  I still have to try that.

In fact, I have a lot of recipes I want to try. 
I can make cookies this Christmas.  And they won't all end up in the trash.  I like the thought of that.

Nuttle Family Pecan Pie

Tart Pastry:

Larger Pan (ceramic pie dish, etc.)	9-inch pan (disposable pie plate, tart pan., etc.)
1 ½ cups flour (210 grams)	1 cups flour (140 grams)
¼ teaspoon salt	¼ teaspoon salt
9 T cold butter, cut into small pieces	6 T cold butter, cut into small pieces
2 egg yolks	1 egg yolks
2-3 T water	2 T water

Mix the flour and the salt. Using a food processor or a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles course meal or tiny peas. Whisk the egg yolks with the 2 tablespoons of water and add to the flour mixture. Mix or pulse until the pastry is smooth and holds together in a ball. Slowly add more water if needed. Wrap in foil or plastic and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.springform pan, do not remove the sides until you are ready to serve the tart.

Pie/Filling:

Tart Pastry dough	1 cup dark corn syrup
3 eggs, lightly beaten	2 t butter, melted
¾ cup sugar	1 t vanilla
1/8 t salt	1 ½ cups pecans, lightly chopped

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line the pie pan with the pastry dough. Combine the eggs, sugar, salt, corn syrup, butter an vanilla in a bowl and blend well. Stir in the pecans. Pour into the lined pan. NOTE: You may have some extra leftover syrup filling – the Nuttle way is to pack more nuts into the pan so it's not like a layer of nuts on top of the layer of gooey filling.

Bake for 10 minutes the reduce the heat to 350 and bake for another 35 minutes. Serve with whipped cream.

Pie Party - Gluten-Free Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie

Anyone who has been on a diet misses pie.

And when the word "diet" no longer means "what I am doing temporarily to drop a few pounds" and it means "the dietary restrictions that I have to follow and can't 'cheat' on for the rest of my life", it may seem like you'll never be able to have a pie again.

Yes, I get irrationally (or maybe rationally) angry about all the talk of "The Gluten-Free Diet" as the next big weight loss diet.  It is not a weight loss diet.  It is dietary restrictions that you need to follow, and those things are very, very different.  A few break crumbs WILL make me sick.  (And as I often say, you never hear of anyone offering someone with a peanut allergy a scoop of peanut butter asking them to cheat a little, but it happens ALL the time when you say you're allergic to wheat).

It's been 10 months since I learned I can't have anything wheat.  And that includes pie.

I tried last Christmas to be normal and at least make some cookies and things to try and feel normal.  It was a horrible failure.

I bought the Culinary Institute of America's Gluten-Free Baking book, and I had a couple of successes and a couple of failures (I blame silicone pans).

Then I finally ran across Gluten-Free Girl and all the talk of ratios and how it plays into using non-wheat flours.

Well, duh. Of course.

Thank you, Shauna.  I can at least bake something again.

It makes so much sense, when you actually think about it.  The reason why white wheat flour works like it does is a magic ratio of elements.  And the 70/30 ratio of whole grain to starch.  My mix was brown rice flour and potato starch (I had both on hand in amounts needed to make the blend).

For the actual pie recipe, I was thinking of actually attempting a rolled dough.  But I still have yet to replace my rolling pin (used on flour items before, and gluten hides in wood) and really, I know the reality of any time I try to roll out ANYTHING.  It end up shaped more like Texas than a circle.

Well, you have the ratio and weights and a kitchen scale, dummy, why not just try it on your favorite crust recipe??

Again... duh.

My favorite pie crust recipe is actually a pressed (not rolled) tart crust recipe from an older version of the Fanny Farmer cookbook.  It is the recipe my mother has used for years to make pecan pie, and it was the recipe I used when I moved out and started making pies on my own.  When I decided to buy my own copy of the cookbook I sadly learned it was not the same in current editions of the cookbook (the first copy I bought went to my mother-in-law, and I thankfully found a used copy that was the edition I needed).

I've also adapted the recipe to make more dough, since I always seemed to be a little short on dough.

I know my recipe calls for a cup and a half of wheat flour, which translates to 210 g of flour.  Measured that out from my flour mix.

Threw that into the Cuisinart, and pulsed a few times to mix up the flour.

Then comes 9 T of cold butter.

After I pulsed that for about 30 seconds, I added 2 egg yolks and pulsed for about another 30 seconds.

Kinda looks like panko, doesn't it?

At that point, I started to add ice water until it all started to come together and look like a dough.

After it looks like a dough, you can flop the stuff right into your pie pan, no rolling needed, and press it into shape.

Since I was making this and adding cooked fillings, I docked the bottom of the crust.  Then I threw it in the fridge to chill for an hour.

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the "just crust".  Although it took a little longer than the original recipe says, it looked like crust.  It smelled like crust.  It didn't crumble into pieces (and when I broke off a small piece just to taste, it tasted kinda like crust).

From there, it was time to work on the fillings.

What... everyone doesn't work off recipe notes on bright pink Post-It notes in their kitchen??  Well, since most of my recipes are digital. this is how I tend to work. 

Once I got the Black Bottom filling done, I sliced in two ripe bananas

When done, topped with the other filling, then put plastic wrap on top of it and put it in the fridge to chill.

Several hours later, I cut out a slice and topped it with whipped cream.

For the first time in over ten months, I've eaten a slice of pie.

And it was good.

Crust might be a little gritty.  My big issue with no-wheat flours is they all tend to be a little more gritty than soft wheat flour... don't know if more resting time for the dough would have helped that, but I do plan on trying that.

Gluten-Free Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie

Flour mix - 70% brown rice flour, 30% potato starch

Crust:
210 g flour mix
9 T butter
2 egg yolks
2-4 T cold water

Bake at 425 for 12-18 min  (original recipe called for 12 minutes, I cooked it for 18)

Filling:
1 T cornstarch
2 T sugar
2 T cocoa powder
pinch salt
1/3 cup milk
1 oz semi-sweet chocolate
-------
2 ripe bananas, sliced
-------
2 T cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 t salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 oz cream cheese, room temperature
-------
whipped cream

1. Mix the first five ingredients together and pour into a small saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens.  Add the semi-sweet chocolate and mix until melted.  Pour into prepared crust.
2. Top chocolate mixture with sliced bananas.
3. Mix the cornstarch through milk together, and same as above, pour into a small sauce pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens.  Add 1/3 of the mixture to your cream cheese and beat together, then combine the two mixtures.  Pour on top of bananas.
4. Cover the pie with cling wrap and chill.  Top with whipped cream before serving.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake

It's a gluten-free desert that anyone can make.  And you don't even need fancy gluten-free flours to do it.  You might want to have a stand mixer, though.

And the tech writer in me TOTALLY needs to re-order this recipe.  It is one of those recipes that might be written in an order that makes sense in the fact you deal with one element at a time, but that means you spend very few minutes doing stuff and way too much time waiting.

The recipe is from Chuck Hughes from the show Chuck's Day Off.  Don't let the tattoos and goofy Canadian accent throw you - the guy does some good, easy to make at home food.

Do the ganche for the chocolate mousse first.  I let that stuff cool for an hour, and it still was warm enough to make my mousse runny on the first go.  But that was easy enough to fix - stuck the runny stuff in the fridge for an hour, then re-whipped it and got it fluffy, then let that go into the fridge for another half hour before I assembled.

Basically, the recipe is two chocolate souffles with chocolate mousse and berries in the middle.  I used a mix of berries sine raspberries were apparently in short supply in the Chicagoland area this Easter.

You whip 12 egg whites...

Then you take your twelve egg yolks...

If you are smarter than me, you'll pay attention to the recipe and NOT add the cocoa powder right away.  If you are like me, at least the recipe is nice enough to tell you how long you're supposed to beat them so it doesn't matter too much anyway (good technical instruction - sometimes it's best to give multiple instructions because even tech writers don't always follow directions).

At this point I was juggling some other stuff, so peekytures stopped happening.  But basically, you mix the egg whites and yolks together, put it in two greased springform pans (note - if you are doing this for someone who needs no wheat or no gluten, line the whole pan with parchment paper if you've baked wheat-things like other cakes or cheesecakes in your pans before - better safe than sorry!).

And they come out of the oven all puffy and wonderful.

And then they totally deflate as they cool.  That is what souffles do.  Don't sweat it.

My ganache was apparently still too hot when I started the mousse and it was originally a runny mess - if that happens, just throw it in the fridge and let it cool, then give it a go again.  I probably could have had a fluffier mouse, but it was still pretty good.

To assemble, you plop one cake down, load it with half the mousse (and there is a LOT) and then add your berries, then plop on the second cake, add the rest of the mousse, and the berries.  I kinda ended up doing the berries on the side since they were making more of a mess than anything else when I tried to add them.  If you also need to watch the seeds, something like fresh cherries mixed with some cherry jam (or even melted cherry jam) would be awesome.

It's not cake - it's still eggy (which isn't exactly a bad thing) but it is tasty.  And rich.  And chocolatey. 

Oh... and also a note for gluten-free - read the labels on the chocolate you use.  Hershey's chip chocolates are usually OK, and I used some dark Lindt bar chocolate (their plain chocolates seem to be fine but others can have wheat-cross contamination, I've discovered). 

Ingredients


Chocolate Cake

12 eggs, separated

1 cup sugar (250 ml)

1/3 cup cocoa (80 ml)

Raspberry Filling

1 cup raspberry jam (250 ml)

4 cups fresh raspberries (1 L)

Chocolate Mousse

2 cups 35% cream (500 ml)

1 1/2 cups dark chocolate, chopped (375 ml)

1/4 cup soft butter (60 ml)

5 egg whites

1/4 cup sugar (60 ml)



Directions

Chocolate Cake

1.For the chocolate cake batter, preheat oven at 350F (180C). Butter a 9-inch round cake pan (about 2 inches deep) and line bottom with a round of parchment paper.

2.Beat the egg yolks with sugar until thick and pale, about 3 minutes using a hand or stand mixer. Sift and fold in the cocoa using a spatula.

3.Beat the egg whites until firm peaks form. Slowly add the egg whites to the chocolate mixture in three times.

4.Divide the batter in the pans lined with parchment paper and bake in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, or until it spring back with the touch of your fingers. Let cool slightly and unmold. Cool off completely.

Raspberry Filling

1.Melt the raspberry jam in a small saucepan. Transfer jam to a bowl and add the fresh raspberries. Stir delicately to coat the raspberries with the jam. Keep aside.

Chocolate Mousse

1.In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil and remove from heat. Pour on chocolate and let stand for 2 minutes. Whisk ganache until smooth. Add butter and let cool at room temperature for about half an hour.

2.Beat the egg whites to soft peak. Add the sugar and continue beating until firm peaks form. Slowly add the meringue in three times to the chocolate ganache. Keep in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Assemble

1.Remove parchment paper from cake and invert one layer onto a plate. Spread half of the chocolate mousse and garnish with the raspberry mixture. Place the second layer of cake on top. Spread the remaining mousse and garnish with fresh raspberries. Top with chocolate shavings and sprinkle with powder sugar.

An actual gluten-free baking success

Chocolate-banana bundt cake.  From the Cuilinary Institute of America's Gluten-Free Baking book.

It actually worked.

Baking has been the hardest thing about dropping the wheat.  Ina Garen's "Outrageous Brownies" were the first thing I ever tried just using some Bob's Red Mill GF Baking Flour mix... and that was not a surprise since that recipe relies on the eggs and chocolate and butter to hold it all together.

There was then the Christmas cookie disaster.

Failed creme puffs (burned on the bottom and raw in the center).

Corn muffins that looked fab on top, and were black on the bottom.

I think my problems may have been silicone pans and my silpat... just get too hot and not good in gluten-free baking.

This time... I used the bundt pan I have used for ONE other cake before, and while it was a bit dense (think banana bread) it was still tasty.

I made the cake for my 35th birthday.  I have to get used to that... if I want cake on my birthday, I gotta make it myself.  I'm fine with that.

Especially now that I found a recipe that I could actually make.


We'll see how the next scheduled attempt - soda bread - goes.