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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)

Posted in Recipes, baking, gluten-free | Comments Off

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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Apple Quark Streusel Cake

Sunday, January 9th, 2011

Over the holidays while grocery shopping I spied some quark, and decided I better buy it while the store had it. Exotic groceries are not as plentiful here in the winter. I like summer for many reasons, but one of them is that the deluge of tourists and cottagers to this area also brings better grocery shopping.

Why quark? Well long ago in Bracebridge there was a really scrumptious German bakery. My favourite item at this bakery was the cheese danish. They were made with a quark filling, very tart and lemony. On top of the filling was streusel. The bakery closed many years ago, and I have never found such wonderful danish anywhere else. So, I though maybe I could make something like that. After searching around on the internet I found a recipe for a quark streusel cake on the About German cooking blog http://germanfood.about.com/od/baking/r/streuselkuchen.htm. So, I made the recipe, then had to adapt it by making the dough work with a lot more liquid, and adding apple to the layers.

The taste of the quark layer was very similar to my memory from the bakery danish. The rest of the cake was quite good as well. Overall this is a make again cake. Although there are several steps, making the dough the night before using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method of just mixing the dough and letting is sit worked well and is very easy. The is not very sweet, and even though I like cakes that are only a little sweet, I might add some brown sugar to the apple layer next time. A slice of this is great for breakfast when you cant stand cottage cheese one more day (I try to eat a high protein and nutritious breakfast, but occasionally I fall off the wagon and have something like this instead).

Here is my adapted recipe. The quantities are pretty forgiving, so feel free to adapt or to use another fruit or no fruit at all, and enjoy the “quarky” goodness of the filling.

Apple Quark Cheesecake

(Adapted from recipe on About.com germanfood)

Ingredients

Method

Dough

2 c flour

1 tsp yeast (dry type)

½ cup milk

2 Tbl butter

1 egg

2 T sugar

½ tsp salt

Enough additional water to make a dough (around a ½ cup, but depends on your flour)

Melt the butter in the milk. Add the yeast and proof this until the yeast develops a foam.

Put the flour in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, add the milk, egg, and mix until this turns into a soft dough. You will probably need to add a little water, depends on the size of the egg and your flour.

Let the dough rise at room temp for about an hour or until it has risen and started to fall, then put it in the fridge or a cool place. (Basically this follows the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method)

The next day push the lump of dough into a greased pan, I used a pyrex pan just one size smaller than 9 x 13. You could also use a 10” springform pan.

Let the dough rise until it is doubled again (about 1 hour).

Quark Filling

1 ½ cups (about 1 container) of quark

1 tsp lemon zest

1 egg

2 Tbl cornstarch

Mix this all together as for cheesecake. Spread over the dough.

Apples

Peel, core, and slice about 4 apples. Granny Smith are good, needs to be a tart apple.

Layer the slices over the quark filling so they overlap each other and completely cover the filling.

Streusel Topping

1 ½ cup flour

2/3 cup sugar (use some brown and some white)

½ cup butter

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp cinnamon

Note: This was the original recipe. I ended up only needing about 2/3 of this, so I saved the rest and froze it for another apple concoction, but if you are using a larger pan you might need all of it)

Mix the incredients like pie dough so you have lumps of butter remaining.

Spread this over the apples evenly.

Bake at 350 for about an hour, watching that the crust gets slightly brown and the apples and streusel are cooked. This cake freezes well.

Posted in Interesting Ingedients, Recipes, baking | No Comments »

A Few Pics of the Real Ice Cream Challenge

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

We did finally eat the large size Ice Cream Challenge on the weekend when my newlywed nice and her hubby were here. It got rave reviews, and if you are ever crazy enough to spend this much time making a dessert, one saving grace of the time spent is that it can rest happily in the freezer until about 15 minutes before you are ready to serve it. The leftovers can also just be put back in the freezer (save that bowl that you molded it in!) and we finished them off last night. I confess I thought it needed a little something, so I made more of the the hot fudge sauce (with some tweaking to make it richer) and poured some over it last night…..peanut butter heaven, but I will have to go more miles on my new bike today to pay for the calories! Recipes in previous post.

Posted in Daring-Bakers, baking | 1 Comment »

A Couple Practical Ideas

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

I know I use a lot of flours in gluten free recipes compared to some of the popular cookbooks, but I do find I get the best results this way. My goal is not only the taste, but also to make the flour mixes as nutritional as possible. I avoid the use of rice flour as it is not only nutritionally inferior, but in my opinions creates dry and tasteless baked goods. Anyway, after trying all sorts of organizations, I have come up with this method using zipper bags, and it not only keeps the flours organized, it is really easy to scoop out amounts and just leave them in their organized row. I just pack this all up in its box and keep the flours in the freezer until the next time I bake. I use almost all flours I grind myself in a nutrimill, and freezing them is not necessary but does keep the flavour top notch.

I caved in to the use of spray grease several years ago when I found out that even my mother, a wonderful baker, was using it. It is so easy to use, and I have always hated greasing pans. However, I have really been trying to be more environmentally friendly, and the spray grease is not only expensive, it leaves a lot of waste cans polluting the environment. So, I did remember using a lecithin mix many years ago when I baked copius loaves of bread. The problem with my previous use of lecithin was that you had to use a brush, which inevitably got very grimy and difficult to clean and store. On a recent trip to the local bulk store I was thrilled to find a silicone brush that has the little holes that retain liquid better than the plain ones, and a jar of lecithin for only 5.99. After researching several methods on the internet, I ended up making my own version, and it works perfectly. The mix is 2 tsp lecithin, dissolved in 1/4 cup of vodka. Lecithin is an emulsifier, so this mix stays together. Grease the pans with the silicone brush before baking. I found the mix recipes had less lecithin, and the first batch with one teaspoon worked, but not as well as spray grease. The additional teaspoon solved this. The other method is to use oil instead of vodka. Oil is cheaper, so maybe I will try that when I run out of this. I remember the oil mixture I had used in the past was pretty gooey, so I wanted to try the vodka. Works like a charm, and no spray grease cans to worry about.

Here is a close up of the middle of the brush. This one was the good grips brand. These are easy to wash, you can even put them in the dishwasher.

Posted in baking, gluten-free | No Comments »

Split Personality Ice Box Cookies

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

We had a terrific weekend with our daughter and friends from Toronto, newlyweds Bhaskar and Farhanna. Farhanna and I had a blast cooking Bengali food (that’s another post coming soon) and we ate all weekend! After the weekend, the newlyweds went to a local resort for a couple days, but I asked them to come back for a care package from me before they headed to Toronto.

So, I wanted something special for the care package, and decided that some unusual butter cookies with different flavourings would fit the bill. I love lavender and also grow it in my Muskoka garden. I grow the English type and it flourishes even here in garden zone 4. The type I really love however is the French type grown in Provence. There are also lavender farms in Ontario that are experimenting with different types and their hardiness. My lavender was in full bloom, so thus my inspiration. Last year I had tried a lavender sable recipe in a Provence Cooking School Cookbook, and they were scrumptionus, with an unusual menthol taste from the lavender.

The ice box method of making cookies is really easy. The recipe I started with is adapted from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook, one of my favourite and most reliable cookbooks, I highly recommend it as one of the most comprehensive home baking books available.

When you make these, keep the logs very thin, I like about 1 1/2 inches. I like the cookies sliced very thin so the calories are also small, but I can tell you they taste just as good a little thicker. I must warn you that these are very addictive and that I have to ration them unless I want to walk several miles a day. They freeze very well, but like many shortbread cookies they keep a long time (like I have eaten them even a month old when I forgot them in a cookie can!) in a good tin cookie can). Experiment with other flavour variations. Another good combination is anise and orange.

Anyway, the newlyweds like the cookies, so Bhaskar and Farhanna this post is dedicated to you and thanks for such an enjoyable weekend.

Split Personality Ice Box Cookies

This recipe is adapted from a basic butter cookie recipe from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. They are very easy to make, and delicious. Here are two of my own favourite flavor variations, with the lavender being a somewhat different taste for a sweet cookie. If you don’t want to make two flavours, just double the ingredients and make one flavor for the whole batch.

Ingredients

Method

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp salt

2 ½ cups flour

1 egg

Cream butter and sugar, add salt.

Add egg, then the flour in batches.

Mix until small crumbly mixture evolves and all the flour is incorporated.

Divide the mixture into two equal size batches.

Flavourings (for ½ recipe)

Lavender Orange:

2 tsp dried cooking grade lavender (ie, don’t use lavender from a bath mix)

1 tsp orange flower water

1 tsp shredded orange rind, avoid a micro grater size, larger such as the type from a little zester is better.

Maple Pecan:

½ tsp vanilla

¼ tsp maple flavouring

½ cup coarsely chopped pecans

Add flavourings to each batch. Press dough together to form a long log about 1 ½ inched. Roll in parchment or wax paper and refreigerate (or freeze).

To make cookies, roll log in sanding or coarse sugar to coat surface. Then slice into rounds ¼ inch think. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.

Cool.

These freeze beautifully but also keep at room temperature for about 10 days.

Posted in Recipes, baking | 2 Comments »

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 Recipes, baking, gluten-free | No Comments »

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

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.