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Coconut Mistake Cake

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

This is without a doubt the best gluten free cake recipe I have developed so far.  Here’s the story behind the name.

I wanted to make a gluten free cake for G. and had the idea of a cocoanut cake.  I looked at a few recipes, then tried to adapt one from the Jean Pare Decadent Desserts cookbook.

The first time I made this it smelled great, very cocoanutty, and rose beautifully. When I took it out of the oven I smiled and figured I had accomplished something.  Then I happened to glance at the recipe and realized I had left out the sugar!  So, undaunted by this mistake, I made a sugar syrup and soaked the cake before icing it.  Overall, it was still a promising cake. The next time I made it I remembered the sugar, and it also came out fragrant and fluffy.  Anyway, I have since made this cake 4 times, each time tweaking the recipe a little bit.  You will groan at the number of flours I have used, so just substitute if you dont have all of them, but it might not be as good as mine then!

The most recent version of this cake was for G’s birthday, and everyone had seconds.  You really cannot tell this is a gluten free cake, it tastes like a moist, somewhat rich buttermilk cake.  I decorated the birthday cake with Johnny Jump Ups fresh from the garden, but when the birthday boy blew out the candles they all blew off! The naked cake still tasted delicious.

Coconut Mistake Cake

(Gluten Free)

This cake is scrumptiously full of coconut.  It is a substantial buttery cake that is ideal for a birthday or other special occasion. Use real buttermilk – no substitutes. The icing is very sweet.  You can cover most of the cake with the recipe, if you want really thick icing double the recipe.

Ingredients

Method
½ cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

I tsp coconut flavouring

 Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add flavourings
Dry Ingredients:

Flours (total is 1 2/3 cup)

  • 1/4 cup garfava (bean) flour
  • 1/3 cup arrowroot or corn starch
  • 1/3 cup white buckwheat flour
  • 1/3 cup tapioca flour
  • 2 Tbl quinoa flour
  • 3 Tbl amaranth flour
  • 2 T chestnut flour

1 tsp guar gum powder

1 Tbl baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1/3 cup ground almonds

 Mix all dry ingredients together.  I have tried variations on the flours, but this mix is the best.
1 cup buttermilk

½ cup sweetened flaked coconut

 Add the flour mixture and buttermilk in about three batches, Then stir the batter enough that there are no lumps.  I do this all in the mixer. Fold in the cocoanut last.
Bake in 2 – 8” round layer cake pans for about 20 – 30 minutes until lightly browned depending on your oven.  When done check with toothpick.  The cake will mound slightly in the middle and have a fairly firm texture.

Icing

½ cup unsalted butter

2 cups icing sugar

½ tsp coconut flavouring

¼ tsp vanilla

Dash of salt

Whip cream or milk – enough to moisten (1-2 Tbl)

 Cream butter, add sugar and flavourings and beat until smooth.  Add just enough cream or milk to make the icing smooth (Do this a little at a time because it can get too runny quickly)

Spread thin layer on first cake, then top with flaked cocoanut.  Stack next layer and ice the top.  Do the sides if you have enough icing.

Posted in baking, gluten-free, Recipes | Comments Off on Coconut Mistake Cake

Pâté Anyone? Daring Cooks Challenge

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

I used to make pâté quite a bit many years ago, but have not made any for quite a while, so I was looking forward to this challenge.  I chose the pork and liver recipe and  actually followed it to the letter (not something I am usually very good at!) I have a real French  pâté baking enameled pan that I almost gave away a couple years ago but then thought better of it.  The thick cast iron really bakes the pate slowly,  and the narrow shape is perfect, so I am glad I relented when I was in one of my get rid of clutter phases. This was the first time I tried a liver and pork combination.  It is absolutely scrumptions.  The spicing seemed a little light when I read the recipe, however due to the slow cooking and letting it mellow in the fridge for a day, the flavours are really subtle and quite delicious.  The other good thing is that there is no wheat in it.  Unfortunately wheat is often present in bought pâté, so this was a bonus as well.  The recipe is here at Daring Bakers http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/14_Pate_and_Bread_-_June_2010.pdf

For the bread, due to gluten free needs for my hubbie I developed a recipe that was good as bread, but even better as crackers when they were twice baked like biscotti.  They came out so good that I also developed a wheat based version from another recipe, and frankly I can’t stop eating them. The crispy initial bite is followed by the mellow taste of wheat and a hint of rosemary.   So, both recipes are here for you following this post. This made a lot of pâté, so now I am trying an experiment – how does pâté  freeze?

Recipes

Savory Gluten Free Parmesan Crisps

I developed this recipe starting with the concept in a recipe in a cookbook called Grazing by Julie Van Rosendaal to go with a Daring Cooks pate challenge.  It is very good as a quick bread right out of the oven, but also wonderful as a cracker or crisp if thinly sliced and baked again to dry. They are sort of like Raincoast Crisps, a popular but very expensive west coast cracker sold in Canada.

Ingredients Method
Dry Ingredients:

  • ¼ cup garfava flour
  • ¼ cup amaranth flour
  • ¼ cup cornstarch
  • ¼ cup buckwheat flour
  • 1 tap baking powder
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp (or more) dried rosemary
  • 1 tsp xanthum gum powder
  • ¼ cup fresh parmesan cheese, grated
  • 1/8 tsp garlic powder
 Combine dry ingredients. The total flour is 1 cup, so you can try other combinations.

Whisk the ingredients to distribute all the stuff.
Wet ingredients:

  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tbl olive oil (I used extra virgin)
  • ¼ cup water
 Add wet ingredients and mix a stiff batter.  Put in oiled small loaf pans then wet your gingers and push the sides of the batter down so the center is mounded up like a loaf.
Bake at 350, the time depends on the size of your pan, mine were very small load pans and they took about 15 – 20 minutes.  If making crisps, allow to cool, in fact even put the loaves in the freezer for a little while.  Then slice into 1/8 inch pieces and arrange on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 300 for about 12 minutes, then turn opver and bake again until crisp, about 12 minutes more.  Watch carefully towards the end because they go from crisp to overdone quickly.

Try spicing this with other spices like herbes de province, cumin and coriander, etc.  The cheese can also be left out.

Savory Wheat Crisps

I love a Canadian Cracker called Raincoast Crisps, but they are really expensive and sometimes hard to find here.  Julie Rosandaal, in her cookbook Grazing, has a recipe that is close to the bought versions, and I have made it several times with lots of creative tweaks.  This time I tried to develop a savory rendition of crisps.  They were so good as bread that I ate half a small loaf right out of the oven.  They are equally good dried as crisps.  And another great thing, there is no butter or eggs in this recipe, but because of the buttermilk they are moist and rich as a bread, and crisp as a cracker.


Ingredients

Method
Dry Ingredients:

  • ¼ cup whole wheat flour
  • ½ cup unbleached white flour
  • 2 TBL amaranth flour
  • 2 Tbl buckwheat flour
  • 1 TBL almond meal powder (optional)
  • 2 T ground flax seeds
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp dried rosemary
  • 1 Tbl brown sugar
  • 2 TBL chopped pecans
 Mix together and blend thoroughly.

Re flax – grind your own meal in a coffee grinder, it is far better than bought
1 cup buttermilk Add buttermilk and mix quickly.  (Yes, there is no butter or eggs in this recipe!)
Bake at 350 in small loaf pans until the tops are cracked and slightly browned.  Allow to cool.  Eat fresh like this, or cool, even freeze for a little while, then slice very thin.  Bake at 300 on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes, then turn over and bake again for 15 minutes. Watch like a hawk at the end because they overcook easily.

Posted in baking, Daring-Cooks, gluten-free, Recipes | 2 Comments »

Piece Montee (Croquembouche) Daring Bakers Challenge

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

The recipe is here http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/43_Croquembouche_-_DB_May_2010.pdf I have to thank Cat because I really had a blast making this, and it tasted great as well!

The best part of Daring Bakers is that is makes you actually try things that you have read about but not actually made.  The May challenge was to make a croquembouche.  I am not that crazy about cream puffs, but I had never tried to make gluten free pate a choux. So, that was my personal challenge.  I tried the recipe included in the link above from daring bakers but with gluten free flours,  I also tried a batch with an adaptation of a recipe from Bette Hagmans Gluten Free Goumet.  Both turned out good, but the adapted Betty Hagman recipe has the best inner holes in the puffs, so I used them to make the piece montee.  I will post my version of the gluten free pate a choux shortly.

I also tried to make a spun sugar coating which is traditional in Croquembouche, and giove it the needed crackle when you eat it. I used a recip from Dessert Circus, one of my favourite baking books for French baking.  Well, I made an absolute mess in the kitchen, but I had a ball doing the spun sugar decorations.

This is the first time I have treid to make spun sugar, and it is a little challenging and takes practice. What I learned is that you have to let the syrup cool a little before using.  Also, you have to hold the fork up really high until the sugar stretches, that is what makes the fine threads.  I used one of my little experiments to top the croquembouche, and added pansies (I have warned my husband not to weed up all the pansies, they have come in very handy for decorations lately).  Overll, this Daring Bakers challenge was really interesting and expanded my culinary repetoire.


Posted in Daring-Bakers, Eye Candy, gluten-free | 2 Comments »

Beets that Bleat – an Appetizer!

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

I love beets and find that they are really versatile and can blend flavours in many different directions.  This appetizer is wonderful and eye candy as well, so I hope you will like it as much as all my testers have.

My most recent rendition of this recipe was for my parents friends on my recent trip to PEI.  So, this post is dedicated to Mum and Dad, Shirley, Verna, Ted, and Ray.  I really enjoyed our lunch!


I saw a picture of an appetizer like this while browsing the internet, so I had to try it because not only was it beautiful, it sounded delicious.    I roasted the beets with their skins on.  Rather than the usual practice in recipes of wrapping them in tin foil, which is really wasteful, my method is to wash them, oil them in the surface, then cover in a pyrex dish and bake them.  They are soooo much more flavourful that boiled beets, but do take a long time to cook.

My version of this recipe is at the end of this post.  The SAVEUR link is here, look at their picture, it is really nice as well.

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Beet-and-Goat-Cheese-Napoleons

Layered Beet Appetizer

I tried this recipe from the SAVEUR magazine website and have adapted it with a variation on the filling and dressing.  This is a wonderful appetizer or addition to a salad as a first course.  I have made it several times now to rave reviews even from people who are not keen on the individual ingredients.

Ingredients Method
Roasted Beets:

4 medium beets  with tops cut off

1 Tblsp  vegetable or olive oil

(Note:  this method of doing beets creates much more flavor  and better colour than boiling. The method of oiling and baking in a pyrex pan is better than the usual instruction of using aluminum foil, and also better for the environment!)

 Use fresh beets, not the type that come in a bag.  Cut off tops and leave about a ½ inch of the leaves.  Wash each beet, dry it, then but oil liberally around the whole beet.  Place in pyrex pan with maybe a teaspoon of water, and roast at 350 for as long as it takes to make then fork tender.  This is usually at least an hour, and can sometimes a fair bit more.  Keep tabs at the end because they go from not done to really done quickly.

When beets are cooled enough, peel off the skin and clean off bits, but do not rinse them.

SAVE the remaining oil and juices for the dressing.
Filling:

1 pkg (about 170g or 4 ounces) of chevre, the type that breaks apart

About 2 Tblsp yoghout or sour cream to soften the cheese

1 clove garlic

½ tsp Herbes de Provence

Salt to taste – a few shakes

pepper

 Place all these ingredients in a food processor.  If you don’t have one then do it by hand and use a garlic press.  Don’t try to use a blender, it makes it too runny.
Assembly:

Cut the beets into slices about ¼ inch thick.  Spread about 1 tsp on each slice, you don’t want it too thick or they will topple over.  Press each new slice on to the cheese enough to stick but not to push out the cheese.  You can assemble the pieces  in whatever order will make a flat sitting mound.  The first time I made them I then cut the stacks into perfect circles with a pastry circle, then you get perfect sizes.  Since then I just cut the stacks into quarters and live with a ragged edge.  Let you degree of anal fixation be your guide.
Dressing:

2 Tblsp orange juice concentrate or boil some orange juice to reduce it

1 shallot chopped very finely

1 TB juice from the roasted beets

2 T olive oil

1 TB balsalmic vinegar

¼ tsp Dijon mustard

A little garlic

 These are approximate quantities.  Play with it.

Boil the shallots in the orange juice for a minute to soften them, then add the rest.

Spoon a little dressing over the beet stacks.
These keep for about 2 days in the fridge.  They are best if they have been allowed to cool in the fridge until solid, at least a couple hours.  The cheese does take on a pink colour, but they taste great.

Posted in gluten-free, Recipes | 7 Comments »

Daring Cooks Challenge – Brunswick Stew and a Gluten Free Cornbread

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

I have seen recipes for Brunswick stew in some of my more traditional cookbooks but had never been inspired to make it.  So, this is often where Daring Cooks and Bakers is good for pushing your envelope a bit.

The stew is basically a mixture of meats, including chicken and ham, with vegetables similar to succotash.  I made the shorter recipe that was in the challenge.  The stew is a tasty meat and potatoes stew.  The spicing is poultry seasoning.  It was fortuitous that I had just made a large roast ham o the weekend, so the rest of the stew was easy to prepare.  When I finished the stew that night it was good, but not really awesome.  So the next night I decided that a gluten free cornmeal topping would jazz it up a little, and it did.

My version of a gluten free cornmeal batter was placed on warmed bowls of stew, then baked for about a half hour.  The cornmeal soaked up some of the liquid, and made a very tasty top to the stew.  My hubbie liked it, but said it was not on his definite make again list, and I feel the same.  Anyway, it was a fun challenge and I thank wolf for the challenge.  Gluten Free Cornmeal Recipe follows here.

Sorry there is a problem with permission on my site tonight, so I will add the pictures tomorrow.

Gluten Free Cornbread

I use this basic recipe for cornbread but often cut back the cornmeal to about a cup and add other strong gluten free flours.  If I want a strong corn taste, I use the full 1 ½ cups cornmeal. Use real buttermilk, it really makes a better product, ignore the advice that vinegar and milk works the same, it doesn’t.  This is a very dependable gluten free recipe for me.

Ingredients Method
Dry Ingredients:

  • 1 ½ cup or cornmeal or( 1 cup cornmeal plus total of ½ cup GF flours)
  • ¼ cup tapioca flour
  • ¼ cup buckwheat flour
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp guar gum
  • ½ tsp xanthum gum
  • ½ tsp salt
 Instead of 1 ½ cups cornmeal I used:

  • 1 cup cornmeal
  • ¼ cup garfava flour
  • ¼ cup amaranth / quinoa

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
1/4 cup butter, cut in like biscuits Cut butter into small pieces and cut into the batter like in a piecrust.  You can use ¼ melted butter or oil, but I like the texture better done like the piecrust method.
2 eggs

1 ½ cup buttermilk (use the real stuff!)

 Add eggs and buttermilk.  The batter will be fairly runny but thickens up quickly.

Bake at 350 until done, the time depends on the size of your pans.  I also make this into muffins.


Posted in baking, gluten-free, Recipes | 2 Comments »

Orange Tian – Gluten Free

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.  I had to do this one very fast after getting back from our trip to Spain, so I made all the stuff today on the reveal date.  I also decided to make it gluten free so I would not have to eat it all myself.

The recipe is on the daring Baker’s site now:

Although there are a lot of components to make (especially in one day!) it was worth it, and the tian came out very well, and was delicious. Greg (my husband) and I devoured the small size tian that I used for the pictures here as soon as the photo shoot was over.  Because I had let some sauce dribble down into the sable layer, and it would have been soggy if we waited, what else could we do?  Besides, remember the quote “When life seems uncertain, eat dessert first.” Who said that anyway, was it the Duchess of Windsor?

I am very pleased with the gluten free pastry I developed for this.  I used the recipe from Jennifer, but changed it to use gluten free flours.  The resulting sable pastry was the best I have made yet, and tasted almost like it was made with wheat.  I want to try this pastry again as a base for sugar cookies, I think it would work very well and could be decorated.  What was probably good about the original recipe was that is had less butter than is usually in sable dough.  I find that gluten free flours cannot absorb as much butter or fat as wheat flour.

Gluten Free Sable Pastry


This recipe was the result of  adapting a Daring Bakers challenge recipe for Orange Tian to make it gluten free.  It has the best flavor and texture of any gluten free butter type pastry of cookie I have developed so far.  A note regarding flours – I grind all my grain and bean flours fresh using a Nutri Mill (except the corn starch and the potato starch).  If you are using bought flours, you may want to change the buckwheat flour to be replaced by half corn starch and half potato starch.  Bought buckwheat flour is much stronger tastingand often bitter than fresh gound (in my opinion the mill was worth it just for the flavor difference in bean and buchwheat flours, they taste so much better than bought), so may not result in as tasty and delicate a pastry.

Ingredients

Method
¼ cup garfava flour

¼ cup amaranth flour

¼ cup potato starch

¼ cup corn starch

½ cup buckwheat flour1 ½ tsp xanthum gum

6 Tblsp sugar (about 80g)

1 tsp baking powder

½ scant tsp salt

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (I used a convection oven at 350, use whatever you usually use for shortbread type cookies.)

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Put in food processor.
3.5 oz ( or 100g) unsalted butter Cut butter into 1” pieces and mix in food processor with dry ingredients until a fine crumbly texture results.
1 egg

1 egg yolk

1.2 tsp vanilla

 Add to food processor and process until grains stick together. At this point it is a bunch of  sticky crumbs, not a dough yet.
Place wax paper or dough sheet on counter.  Empty dough crumbs into the sheet and press together until a pliable dough develops.  Because there is no gluten in this dough, you can work it right away and roll it.  I use a bottom of wax paper or parchment, shape the dough into flat rounds, then place plastic wrap over the dough and roll.  A trick is to nit try to lift the cookie cutouts, but rather to lift the waste dough, then turn the wax paper over to place on cookie sheet (see picture of this).

This dough worked beautifully and was about the texture of playdough.  I was able to reroll it easily, and by using the plastic on top there is no added flour to mess with.

Bake on silpat or parchment until lightly browned on the edges.  This dough works well for cookies similar to French sables, and as tart dough for little pastries.

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

Risotto – Daring Cooks Challenge

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

I am in Spain right now and had access to a rental apartment kitchen where we are staying with friends, so I had to make do with a few less kitchen implements and spices than at home.  I wanted to make something with more than rice, so I chose spinach for the added flavour.   I followed the recipe from Daring Cooks, with the addition of cooked spinach, garlic, and also I added some brandy to the stock.  I was able to have the help of my friend J. as sou chef, and she stirred the risotto the whole time while I worked on the spinach. For the garnish we added “jamon de serrano” and “queso” (dry cured ham and cheese). Having a sous chef is definitely a plus for risotto, and J. did an exemplary job.

The resulting risotto received good reviews from my friends here in Spain. When I get home I will make this again since it was actually better than I remembered from my previous efforts.  Because it takes a lot of attention to stir the rice I usually get fed up and just throw in the stock all at once. However, I have to admit the texture is better when it is made authentically, so I will try to be pure with the method in the future.

While here in Spain I have seen many plates of paella, a cousin to risotto in terms of the rice method, so I hope to try the Spanish paella while we are here.   I am including a picture of the restaurant we ate in tonight that had a sea of Jamon de Serrano hanging overhead while we ate.  I was hoping they were all well attached to the ceiling! Hasta luego.

Posted in gluten-free | 1 Comment »

Tiramisu, Daring Bakers Version

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

The recipe has an interesting twist in which it uses zablignone as one of the creamy components.  I tweaked the recipe for the lady fingers to be gluten free but for me the overall dessert did not turn out to be a huge success to my palate but it is a Daring Baker’s challenge so I am making myself post it.   Having said that, my husband really liked it and he usually detests creamy desserts, so go figure. The good news is that I tried Lady Fingers (Savoirdais) for the first time, and I will make them again.  The other bakers who posted pics had really great looking Tiramisu, so maybe it was just the conversion to gluten free that didn’t work out for me.

I made the lady fingers gluten free, and they came out quite well.  After checking the Daring Bakers recipe and looking at some ideas from my gluten free goto book – The Gluten Free Kitchen,  I used a combination of corn starch, potato starch, and freshgound buckwheat flour.  They tasted quite good and looked like postergirls, like a nice vanilla genoise.  They did not get too crisp despite a much longer baking time than the recipe.


The Tiramisu is another story.  I followed the recipe, but overall I did not really like the taste, and the texture was too soft.  I have made glutenfree tiramisu before from a recipe in the  Low Carbohydate Gourmet  by Karen Barnaby.  It uses almond flour for the cake, and a mixture of half  whipping cream and half mascarpone, and is really delicious and has just the right texture.

Sorry for the lack of details on this post, I am in Spain right now and doing this post from memory.  I will do a better post with the recipe I like and the ladyfinger recipe I used when I get back to Canada.



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

Daring Bakers Challenge: Nanaimo Bars

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

My family never baked anything called “Nanimo Bars”, but my mother did make something that was really similar called Chocolate Coconut Squares.   ( I prefer my mother’s version and I’ll explain why in the next paragraph, followed by her recipe.) She only made them at Christmas, and we loved them and looked forward every year to a batch of these little lovlies being in her secret stash that she hid from us six hungry children until company came. When I was working on this challenge, I called Mum in PEI and asked her where the recipe had come from.  We also lived in the US when I was young, but mum said the recipe had come from her mother she thinks.  She was sure it was not one of her American recipes because she recalls she had to bring Bird’s Custard Powder from Canada to make these when we lived in Chicago and Detroit.

The Daring Bakers gluten free recipe for graham crackers was something I looked forward trying.   I altered the Daring Baker’s recipe to substitute a combination of garfava flour and buckwheat flour rather than rice flour.  The crackers came out great, you could hardly tell they weren’t the real thing except for the ugly duckling form. As the recipe says, the dough is really sticky, but if you follow the instructions it all works.  The January Challenge recipe is at Daring Bakers http://thedaringkitchen.com/

I basically deconstructed the squares a little.  I made the base, cooled it overnight, then cut out circles with a cake cutter.  After that I played around with the custard part in an icing bag, and eventually figured out a couple designs that I liked.  Because the squares are Canadian, I made chocolate maple leaves out of unsweetened chocolate.  The bars tasted fantastic, you would not know they are gluten free unless someone told you (and usually I can tell!)

How is my mother’s recipe different?  It has a little less sugar,  more graham crackers, no butter in the custard, and unsweetened chocolate on top.  I like them better; they are a little less rich and not quite as sweet. The part I especially liked in the squares was that she drizzled unsweetened chocolate on the top, and the contrast of bitter chocolate and sweet custard was sublime.  Because there is no butter in the custard it does not behave like icing, so I couldn’t have made the decorations as well.  These are so decadent that let’s face it they are not health food, so I will make the butter version custard again if I am crazy enough to do these decorations again.

Here is the recipe, and I asked my mother’s permission to post it.

Chocolate Coconut Squares

Ingredients

Method
Base:

  • ½ cup butter
  • ¼ cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 4 Tbl cocoa
  • 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 1 cup coconut
  • ½ cup walnuts
  • ¼ tsp salt (optional)
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
 Lightly grease a 8×8 pan, then line with parchment or wax paper.  (This makes it much easier to get the squares out, since cutting is easier when done out of the pan.)

Melt butter, then add vanilla and mix this with other dry ingredients. Beat egg well, then use a double boiler to warm to just before becoming scrambled eggs.  ( The original recipe just had a raw egg, but it is probably safer to do this warming step.)

Refrigerate until firm.
Custard Layer:

  • 2 cups icing sugar
  • 2 tsp custard powder
  • Enough milk to moisten (approximately a  couple tablespoons, but add slowly because it gets too liquid fast.)
 Mix all together with a whisk or mixer.  The original recipe has no milk quantity.

If you want to decorate and make these really rich, then add 1/2 cup butter like the daring bakers recipe.
Chocolate Topping:

1 square melted unsweetened chocolate (1 oz)

 Melt chocolate in double boiler, then drizzle on the cold squares in a swirly pattern.  Depending on taste, you may want to add another square of chocolate.
Refrigerate the squares overnight if possible, then remove from pan and cut into squares with a sharp knife.  You can also “deconstruct” these and cut the squares with a circle cutter (this sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it!), and add chocolate cut outs.

Here are a few more pics of the process.

I spread the chocolate mixed with a little butter, let it harden, then cut out with little leaf cookie cutter.

The top is a variation of the regular square.  The bottom shows the circles in progress.

Posted in baking, Daring-Bakers, gluten-free | 18 Comments »

Buttermilk Buckwheat Gluten Free Pancakes

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

Pancakes are one of the easiest and most successful gluten free treats, so I have been experimenting.  I tinkered with different recipes, and after several batches with various flour mixtures, I have settled on the recipe posted below as delicious, dependable, and a good keeper.

Since getting a nutrimill and making my own buckwheat flour, I have found it to be very versatile and it also behaves a lot like white wheat flour. This buckwheat flour has a very mild flavour and seems to bind well, making the addition of guar or xanthum gum unnecessary.  I have made the recipe with all buckwheat flour (so use 1 cup buckwheat flour and skip the garfava), and they worked vvery well.  In the version I am posting of the recipe I have used 1/4 garfava flour to increase the fiber and protein content.  These pancakes keep very well after making, and can be kept in the fridge for a few days or frozen.  Adding blueberries into the wet batter on top when they are on the griddle is my husband’s favourite way to eat these.

When recipes use buttermilk, (which is not necessarily in everyone’s regular pantry), I used to just use milk with vinegar in it, however what I have learned over the years is that buttermilk is really superior.  So now I do try to keep it as one of my standard fridge items.  Buttermilk seems to add a subtle flavour dimension, and also seems to produce baked goods that age a little better.

Gluten Free Buttermilk Pancakes Recipe

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients Method
Dry Ingredients:

  • ¼ cup garfava flour
  • ¾ cup buckwheat flour
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp baking soda
  • 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
  • 1 Tlbs sugar
 Mix dry ingredients in a bowl , preferably one with a spout.  I use a 4 cup pyrex measuring cup and make all the batter in it ready for pouring.

You can stop here and make this a mix to add the dry later. I bag them up with the wet ingredients noted on a label. I often make one batch to use, and one to save for later.
Wet Ingredients:

  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tlbs oil or melted butter
  • 1 cup buttermilk
 Add the wet ingredients and blend all together with a whisk or spoon. The batter will be thicker than you are used to, but try one pancake and see if the batter spreads out enough to make a thick pancake.  You can add more buttermilk if you want, but only a little at a time. This makes very thick fluffy pancakes with the thick batter, and you can make thinner ones if you prefer that consistency.
Pour batter on to griddle. If you like fruit additions (frozen blueberries work very well) add them when the batter is just starting to firm up on the griddle.  This works better than adding the fruit to the batter, especially for blueberries.  These work best if you use a little lower heat than usual and a flat griddle.  I use a French crepe maker that is very flat.  Turn the pancakes when you see bubbles opening up on top and the sides look like they are cooked about 1/3 of the way up.

I have found these pancakes to cook very evenly, with no raw batter inside, which can be a pancake trouble spot. These are light, thick, and fluffy. Thin the batter if you prefer thinner pancakes, but trust me, try one thick, they are great.

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