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Carrot Cake, Not too sweet and also gluten free!

Saturday, December 22nd, 2012

Carrot cakes are ubiquitous, and I find many of them to be cloyingly sweet and too full of stuff like raisins and pineapple. I especially hate it with cocoanut for some reason. This carrot cake was supposed to keep the overall feel and spicing, but to be pure carrot cake and only a little sweet.

Picture to come after I bake this again and before it gets eaten!

I have been experimenting with adding nut and seed mixtures to baked goods after reading Peter Reinhart’s latest gluten free cookbook. He uses all artificial sweeteners, which I generally avoid, so I am sticking with mostly sugar on the premise that you shouldn’t eat too much cake anyway. I have found his cakes a little too fragile, so I have used his approach of the nut / seed mixtures and modified my flour to incorporate more nuts and seeds. Because nuts and seed are higher in fats than other flour ingredients, I have found that reducing fat makes a better outcome. I have made this cake several times now to rave reviews and requests for the recipe, so here it is. I am also trying a few more modifications so I may update this later. Also, don’t be alarmed that after a few hours the carrots oxidize and they look like little green specks. I have usually added buttercream icing on just the top, but the cake is delicious without this as a less sweet nibble with coffee or tea.

Carrot Cake – Gluten Free

Developed by Shelley at Riverleafoods.com

Ingredients

Method

1 ¼ cup Family Mix gluten Free Flour

¼ cup sunflower meal

2 Tbl ground flax seeds

6 TBL sesame meal

¼ cup ground almonds

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

1 ½ tsp soda

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp guar gum

Note: all the meal ingredients were ground in my little spice blender.

Mix all dry ingredients and set aside.

1/3 cup butter

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup buttermilk

2 cups grated carrots

Cream eggs and sugar until fluffy as you would for any cake. Add eggs and blend until incorporated. Add buttermilk and flour mixture in stages.

Add carrots to batter. The batter will be firm and sticky.

Place in cake pan, 9” springform or medium rectangular (one size smaller than 9 x 13). If needed wet fingers and press the batter down in the pan.

Bake at 350 until it looks well done. The nut mixtures tend to need a little more baking time or they can end up undercooked and soggy.

Ice with any buttercream frosting just on the top. I used 1 cup icing sugar to ½ cup butter. The overall effect of this cake should be just slightly sweet.

Family Mix Flour

1cup garfava flour (i use Bob’s Red Mill)

1 1/2 cup arrowroot flour

1 1/2 cup cornstarch (or sometimes I use 1 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup buckwheat)

1/4 cup amaranth flour

1/4 cup quinoa flour

(you can use just quinoa or just amaranth and then use a 1/2 cup)

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Chewy Ginger Cookies – Gluten Free

Saturday, December 22nd, 2012

These cookies are adapted from a recipe in the LCBO Food and Drink magazine. As usual in
gluten free baking, I found that reducing the fat content was important. I also reduced
the sugar slightly, and they are still very sweet. These are chewy if baked until just slightly turning brown, and crispier
if cooked a little longer. They freeze very well.

A note on ingredients, I have been experimenting with using psyllium husk as a binder. What I have found so far is that it really does seem to help with liquid absorbtion and texture. I have been using small quantities so far. I did try a bread recipe with more, and it turned out well.

Chewy Ginger Cookies Recipe

Developed by Shelley at Riverleafoods.com

Ingredients

Method

2 cups family mix flour

1 Tbl psyllium husk

1 tsp guar gum

1/2 tsp xanthum gum

1 tsp cinnamon

1 Tbl dried ginger powder

1/2 tsp grounf cardamom

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 or slightly less chopped crystallized ginger

Mix dry indredients.

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup molasses fancy type like Grandma’s

1 egg

Mix wet ingredients, then add to dry.

The dough should

be soft but hold it’s shape. Make small balls a little larger than walnuts. The larger

cookies will be chewier.

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes depending on your oven.

The cookies will puff up very high at the beginning, then collapse into a crackled

looking flat cookie just before they are done. Let sit a few minutes before removing

from pan, they are very delicate when hot but firm up when cooled.

Family Mix Flour

1cup garfava flour (i use Bob’s Red Mill)

1 1/2 cup arrowroot flour

1 1/2 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup amaranth flour

1/4 cup quinoa flour

(you can use just quinoa or just amaranth and then use a 1/2 cup)

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Tower – Gluten Free Version

Monday, September 5th, 2011

I have had a recipe for chocolate towers marked for a long time in Emily Luchetti’s cookbook, and finally decided I would make it. After looking over the components, it looked like a recipe that could easily be made gluten free. I also thought the coffee flavouring sounded ok, but since I didn’t have any instant coffee I looked in the cupboard for inspiration and found some peanut butter. Alas the inspiration of a chef sometimes comes from sheer practicality.

I made the cake in a rectangular pan and cut out the chocolate rounds. To make the mousse the right size I looked through my dishes and found some souffle dishes that were about the same size.

The chocolate topping is sort of like a really thick sauce, so it slithers over the edge just enough before the frigid mouse stops it in its tracks. The chocolate recipe ended up making enough for another batch, so I made this dessert twice in one week. Greg is tired of it now, but it was a big hit until we ate too much of it. This is a really good company dessert because it can all be made even a day before you need it, and even freezes well.

Emily Luchetti has written several cookbooks, and I have found them all great. A Passion for Desserts is an excellent cookbook, and has the original Chocolate Tower recipe (non gluten-free).

So, with thanks to Emily Luchetti for the inspiration, but the final recipe has been tweaked a fair bit and I am naming it Choco-peanut Tower.

Read on for the recipe… (more…)

Posted in Recipes, gluten-free | 1 Comment »

Appam, Daring Cooks Challenge

Sunday, August 14th, 2011

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host.
Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South
Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

In the challenge, we could make any of several curries, so I decided to choose the recipe for shrimp curry included in the challenge. I had all the ingredients on hand because I make Indian food frequently. I even had some curry leaves salted away in the freezer, thank heavens for my Toronto shopping trips to Albion and Kipling. I followed the recipe, but added dark chick peas, zucchini, and cauliflour to the pot. The resulting curry was very good, so try this recipe (the full recipes are here: http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/28_Appam___Kerala_Cooking_-_DC_Aug_2011.pdf ). I also used my new copper saute pan, and you wont belive it, copper rocks. It heats really evenly and things brown and carmelize, just what you need for a good sauce. Thanks to my son for convincing me of the merits of French copper pots.

I have made dosas, a similar batter before. The addition of yeast made the fermentation go faster, so I will try this technique the next time I make dosas as well. The appams are really nice, the fermentation gives them a subtle complexity of flavour. I used my electric crepe maker and used the wooden gizmo to spread the dough around. I love making crepes!!

(more…)

Posted in Daring-Bakers, gluten-free | 1 Comment »

Daring Bakers Challenge: Framboisiers

Sunday, July 31st, 2011

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

This was a great challenge, and something I had never made before. I really like the Tartine cookbook, and have made several other recipes in it, so I thought the recipe would be tasty. I used the recipes with a gluten free adaptation (explanation below) that worked out well. I have a lovely raspberry patch in fruit right now, so the “Frasier” turned into a “Framboisier” with a few ripe blueberries thrown in. See a very thorough recipe and explanation of the steps here: Daring Bakers Frasier Challenge and Recipes. I used a chocolate ganache for the topping, and pansies for decoration. The final cake tasted great, and looked ok. I would try to have a more dramatic side next time, and strawberries seem to be better for that precise pastry look. I made 4 small cakes just so I could have leftovers that still looked decent.

There are pictures on the Daring Bakers site of amazing creativity with this challenge. One of the best parts of participating in these challenges is seeing what others have done with the recipes and concepts.

I usually use many flours in gluten free baking, but recently saw a gluten free mix in a magazine called Canadian Family that did not have rice, so I tried it and substituted it for the flour amount called for in the recipe. The resulting sponge cake was delicious, and I will definitely make it again.

Changes to the Daring Bakers recipe (link above)

gluten free flour mix instead of wheat flour
added 1/4 tsp guar gum to the flour
used 5 egg yolks and 5 egg whites (instead of three and 5)

Gluten Free Flour Mix from Canadian Family:

1/2 cup garfava flour
1/4 cup amaranth flour
3/4 cup corn starch
3/4 cup arrowroot flour

This makes more than you need, so use it in something else too!

The resulting cake was delicious, you really could not tell it was gluten free.

Posted in Daring-Bakers, Recipes, gluten-free | 3 Comments »

Panna Cotta with Florentines

Monday, February 28th, 2011

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

I have made florentines before and they are very yummy – far better than the ones you find in bakeries, although they are really not too common anymore. Because I needed a gluten free version, I looked through a few cookbooks and found an interesting recipe which used no flour in Chocolate Ephipany by Francois Payard. The result was sort of a butter brickle flavour with crunchy almonds and candied orange. They are absolutely delicious!! The dark side is that you cant stop eating them so between the florentines and the cream in the panna cotta I gained 2 pounds this week!! I am having nightmares about barbells.

For the panna cotta, I used a slightly different recipe than Gina’s because I didn’t have 3 cups of whip cream. I found a similar recipe in Dolce Italiano by Gina De Palma and used it with ricotta for some of the cream. But I didnt have ricotta either so I used sour cream, and the result was delicious. This is my first attempt at panna cotta, and it is very easy. The taste is really similar to creme brulee, but less work and no baking, so I will make this again. I am freezing some to see how it fares, and since I have recently frozen bavarian I think it will work!!. I have to freeze some so I dont gain even more weight!!! so it is really a self preservation technique.

Both of the above are excellent cookbooks. I have seen Chocolate Epiphany remaindered at Chapters recently, and it has an amazing recipe for chocolate cookies that have no butter but are wonderful.

Thanks to Mallory for a great combination of flavours in this challenge.

I am posting the recipe for the florentines because it is gluten free and devinely delicious. If you want the panna cotta recipe there are dozens on the internet, or email me.

Florentines

Recipe Adapted from Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

My attempt at these resulted in a wonderful taste, but the cooked sheets were not easy to handle and I ended up just breaking them up into pieces instead of having nicely shaped cookies from a cookie cutter. I found them really buttery, so next time I will try a little less butter to see if that works. But, these are divinely delicious, so consider making them!

*Ingredients*	*Method*
13 TB (195 grams) unsalted butter 1 1/8 cup sugar 1/3 cup milk ¼ cup honey or corn syrup	Combine all of these and cook in a saucepan until a candy thermometer reaches 230F Remove from heat and add the next ingredients.
2 ¼ cups sliced almonds 1/3 cup candied orange peel	Add to the cooked mixture above. Note: This batter can be kept for about 3 days in the fridge if you want to bake later.
Baking Step: I found the baking quite variable, so you really need to watch this step rather than rely on timing.	Spread the batter very thinly (cover the area completely, but not too think, about 1/8 inch) on a silpat or parchment paper (silpat is better) and bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. The batter should be a golden brown, so you need to watch it and it will depend on how think etc.
Cutting Step: The batter will be very runny even when cooked, but as it cools it becomes malleable. The process is really like nougat.	In the recipe it says to cool slightly and then cut with a cookie cutter. I found this did not work too well, so after trying individual cookies and other experiments I just gave up and treated it like a big sheet of candy bark that I cut with kitchen scissors into pieces. This worked well but they are not too uniform.
Tempered dark chocolate layer: About 5 oz dark chocolate (I used house brand candy bars from Metro that is 72% chocolate)	Melt the chocolate, then spread in a thin layer on the back of each cookie piece. The recipe says to spread with a fork to get the characteristic wavy lines, but my cookies were so thin that I gave up and just spread a think layer.
Serve or Freeze	These are best straight out of the freezer. They are very delicate, so freezing is the best way to keep them intact and also my freezer is down stairs so I get exercise before devouring them.

Posted in Daring-Bakers, gluten-free | 57 Comments »

Tempura and Buckwheat Noodles-Daring Cooks Challenge

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

I am late posting this but trying to do the challenges. I am not posting recipes for this because I had to turn the recipes into gluten free, and although all were ok, they were not great, so you dont really want to have these recipes unless I try to perfect them.

I used fresh ground buckwheat flour for 75% of the noodle mix. Next time I would skip the whole grain buckwheat because it looks nasty and does not really add to the taste. I made lasagna noodles a few days later with just ground hulled buckwheat and I was a lot happier with them. I used a peanut satay recipe on the noodles, and it was quite good. Overall, I don’t really love cold noodles.

I absolutely love tempura at our local Wabura restaurant. I have made it at home several times, but again my conclusion is that this can be made better in a restaurant where they have a good fryer and can serve everyone at once. Having said that, the restaurant version has wheat in it, so I will continue to make it once in a while for poor Greg. Instead of wheat flour I substituted a ration of two parts rice flour to 1 part tapioca flour. The batter came out really good for the first few, crispy and delicious, but then seemed to grow soggy. Maybe it was that the oil was getting a little water in it, who knows.

This was another good Daring Cooks adventure, but I am going back to Wabura for my next tempura fix, and cold noodles….well, just not my favourite dish. Thanks to Lisa for the clallenge. Blueberry Girl blog

Posted in Daring-Cooks, gluten-free | 1 Comment »

Cassoulet – Daring Cooks Challenge

Monday, January 17th, 2011

Our January 2011 Challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. They have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They have chosen a traditional recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

I have had duck confit in France, and it was really tasty. When I made it with the duck available here it was ok, but not as good. Cassoulet is a signature dish and is on many restaurant menus in the southwest of France, but I never have ordered it because there are so many other dishes to try.

I have made Cassoulet before as well, and it was good but not really memorable. This time I followed the recipe from Anthony Bourdain that is in the Daring Cooks recipe. I made confit using chicken rather than duck, and used a combination of olive oil and butter rather than the difficult to find (in this area) duckfat. For beans I used navy beans.

The chicken confit was cooked in a slow cooker, varying the temp setting between low and high, trying to keep it from boiling. The aroma of the confit was devine. For the Cassoulet I used a good pork sausage that had no gluten fillers in it. The confit was made one day, the beans the next, then the Cassoulet assembled the next, and baked again the following day for a comfort food dinner party.

The final baking smelled devine, and the Cassoulet was delicoius. Everyone had seconds, always a good sign!. I really liked the fact that on the day of the dinner all I had to do was reheat the Cassoulet and make a salad to go with it.

Greg and I ate the leftovers the next two days, and they just got better.

In terms of next steps, the confit was interesting, but the Cassoulet would be great without it as well. I will definitely make this again when I want a conforting meal with friends.

Here is a link to the daring bakers recipes. Thanks to Jenni and Lisa for getting me to make Cassoulet again with a better method.

http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/21_Confit___Cassoulet_DC_Jan_2011.pdf

Posted in Daring-Cooks, gluten-free | 1 Comment »

Raspberry Bavarian Cake

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011

I had several people coming for a New Year’s Day dinner, and wanted to make something new to start the culinary year. After several minutes, no I confess hours, reading cookbooks, I settled on a recipe on the Tartelette blog. If you love pastry you must visit Helene’s blog. Not only is she a fantastic baker, her photography is absolutely mouthwatering, and her photos give me inspiration for the skills I aspire to reach.

The technique for this cake was to make dacquoise layers. They are basically merangue layers with almonds in them. I have made similar cookies before but this was my first cake type dacquoise. The server on her website seems to be down today, so I will revise and post a link later. You can just search under Tartelette and the blog usually comes up. It is called Raspberry Rose Bavarian Cream Cake on her blog.

I revised the recipe by using corn starch instead of flour so that the cake would be gluten free for Greg. I also did not have rose water so I used orange flower water instead. The layers turned out great, but perhaps a little soft. In reading other dacquoise recipes such as Julia Child, they did not have any starch in them, maybe that makes them more crunchy. Anyway, the really useful technique that I learned in making this cake was to make the raspeberry layer. You cook the frozen berries until they are dissolved, then add the gelatin, cool, and FREEZE them in a 1/4 sheet cookie pan. When you assemble the cake there is no mess with trying to spread out a thin layer, you just unwrap your thin little package of raspberry ice sheet and plunk it down on top of the dacquoise layer. When I have tried to spread soft gooey fillings on other cakes I often end up with crumbs and a messy layering, so this technique is really useful. I was concerned that there might be too much gelatin, but the cake tasted great, and the layers did not melt at all even when the cake had warmed to room temperature.

The bavarian cream recipe is delicious. It is a pastry cream that is cooked, gelatin added, cooled, then whipped cream is beaten and added to the mixture. The final cake was assembled and refrigerated for a few hours. I never got the lemon layer made, and really the cake was terrific, I’m not sure the lemon layer is needed, but it does add a warm sheen to the cake in the Tartelette Pictures. I have frozen the leftovers, so this is a cake you could make all ahead.

Anyway, My guests seemed to enjoy the cake, and this technique could be flavoured in many different ways, so this recipe is highly recommended, but does take a little time to make all the components. I think maybe the next one could be mango with orange slices on top, ot maybe strawberry and banana, the possibilities are endless!! Thanks to Helene from Tartelette for the recipe, and you must visit her blog. Also, here is another example of the cake on the blog Mad Baker http://www.madbaker.net/2009/11/mad-about-raspberry-rose-vanilla-cream-cake/

Posted in gluten-free | 1 Comment »

Crab Souffle…A Daring Cooks Challenge

Monday, November 15th, 2010

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

I have to compliment Dave and Linda, their explanation and pictures were great, and a nouveau souffle baker would be able to follow their directions easily.

I have made souffles before when I was younger and trying to learn about French cooking. Souffles were considered very exotic, so of course I wanted to make some. My early attempts all turned out, and chocolate was the one I remember making. However, since I have mot made many since, I guess that although they are interesting, souffles are not at the top of my extensive food loving list.

For this challenge I wanted to try a seafood souffle, inspired by some of the ones I saw in the Daring Cooks posts. I decided to look through my several French cookbooks, and guess what, there were very few souffle recipes in them. Finally I went to my foundational French cookbook, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and of course she has a wonderful section that thoroughly explains souffles and gives a generic recipe and variations. So, I ended up using her recipe but using cornstarch and buckwheat flour to make it gluten free. For the additions I used 3/4 cup of canned crab (ok ok for purists, it was what I had in the cupboard!) and about 1/4 cup of chopped up marinated artichokes. I spiced it with a tsp of Dijon mustard, and some fresh grated nutmeg (see, I am not a cooking Cretin, I did use fresh grated nutmeg!). As you can see from the picture, all the sizes of souffles rose to the occasion, and watching them in the oven was the best part of the cooking entertainment experience. The souffle tasted delicious and had a delicate texture and good flavour (ok I have to admit fresh crab would have been better.)

The other souffle memory I do have is that my mother often made a family favourite dessert called lemon pudding. Well guess what, turns out it was a souffle and we all loved it. I think one time my brother wanted a whole batch of lemon souffle for himself on his birthday. If you want a souffle recipe they are on the Daring Cooks website now.

Posted in Daring-Cooks, gluten-free | 4 Comments »