Tag Archives: dessert

Chunky Carob Cake – Ridiculously Allergy Friendly!

Chunky Carob Cake

There are few names I’d put on my “soul-mate” list.  Nina Simone.  William Shakespeare.  James McAvoy (did you SEE X-Men First Class?  Totally redeemed the franchise from Wolverine and washed the bad taste of Bridesmaids out of my mouth).

In all seriousness, while I am surrounded by so many loving, special people, I am particularly grateful for my dear friend Lyndsey – a soul-mate if there ever was one.  We met through my college boyfriend over a dozen years ago, and aside from the many things we naturally had in common, we shared a history of chronic illness.  There’s no way I could summarize our friendship – but let’s just say we’ve been an ear, a shoulder, a hug, the voice on the other end of the phone that won’t hang up… I don’t know where I’d be without this woman.

So on my quick days off I scooted my little blue car down to DC to visit her and her husband, two of my favorite people in the whole world!  

Lyndsey is still suffering greatly from her illness and deep digestive problems, and her diet completely eliminates grains, sugar, chocolate, fruit, any sweeteners, caffeine, alcohol, certain meats and fishes, fried foods, certain vegetables and is pretty much devoid of any sweet indulgences. I lived like that for several years but never as long as she, and don’t know how she hasn’t gone ballistic on a grocery store or restaurant by now.

But carob! Oh, yes, Lyndsey can have carob!

So the other morning she showed me how to make her “Chunky Cake”.

This cake is chocolate-free, sugar-free, grain-free / flourless, oiless, nut-free, low-carb, high-fiber, low-glycemic.  Really.  It does have ghee (clarified butter) so it’s not dairy free completely, but you can easily substitute with coconut oil or a fat of your choice.

And it’s incredibly easy – all ingredients mixed in a bowl and poured in a pan!

I was amazed at how light and airy the carob cake came out, while still packing a delicious aroma.  I’m going to have some fun experimenting with the recipe at home, using coconut products, tucking the batter around almond butter, soaking vanilla beans in almond milk.  But for now, here’s the original recipe.  Enjoy!

Moist and light Chunky Carob cake

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cup ground flax
  • 1 cup carob powder
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 1/2 cup melted ghee
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp cloves

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 325°.  Heavily grease a pie plate or single cake pan.
  • Mix all ingredients in a large bowl (in no particular order) with a whisk until thoroughly combined.  The resulting batter should sort of glop a bit off the whisk and not run completely smooth.  Because of the goopy result of using flax, Lyndsey describes it as “falling like boogers”.  One of the thousands of reasons why I love her so much.
  • Pour into prepared plate and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick or fork inserted comes out relatively smooth.
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Lemon Poppy Butter Cookies

Lemon Poppy Cookies

This is another version of buttery shortbread cookies I’ve adapted from the Rosewater Lavender Shortbread that went over very well at an event last weekend.  I altered the recipe just a tiny bit – adding fresh lemon juice and poppy seeds and altering the amount of flour, as well as used arrowroot starch instead of cornstarch, which I didn’t have in my apartment (SO nice to be baking in my kitchen again).

These cookies are incredibly easy and only require a few ingredients.  They’re delicate with a buttery crumb, a nice tang and a sweet finish.

Lemon Poppy Butter Cookies

Ingredients

  • 20 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 cup white sugar plus more for dusting
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup arrowroot or cornstarch
  • 6 Tbsp lemon juice
  • zest of two lemons
  • 1 Tbsp poppy seeds

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350°.  Line thick baking sheets with parchment paper.
  • In a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
  • Add eggs and beat until combined.
  • Add lemon zest and juice, beat to combine.
  • Add starch, 2 cups of flour and poppy seeds.  Beat at medium speed until combined
  • Continue to add flour until the dough comes together into a ball and does not stick.
  • Place dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes or until cool.
  • On a well floured surface, work with the dough 1/4 a batch at a time, lightly kneading flour until smooth and not sticky.
  • Roll into 1/4 inch, cut with cutters and use a spatula to transfer to baking sheets.
  • Dust with sugar.
  • Bake for about 20 minutes, rotating pans halfway, until just browned at edges.
  • Cool on racks completely before storing.

Makes 36 medium cookies.

Notes: This recipe can easily be made gluten free by substituting the flour and arrowroot with a gluten-free proportion of 1 cup white rice flour, 1/2 cup quinoa flour, 1/2 cup arrowroot, 2 Tbsp tapioca starch and 2 tsp xanthan gum.  This is the mix I have on hand for cookies, making enough for several recipes at once.

Rosewater Lavender Shortbread

When traveling to perform, I get to glimpse into the lives and the vibes of different homes and cities. I’m currently performing in The Enchanted April at the Hampton Theatre Company and living in the director and producer’s peaceful, beautiful house right on the bay. It’s filled with plants and artwork from all over the world.  I take their dog, Mia, on morning walks past fields of flowers and houses with perfectly manicured laws.  From my attic suite (which makes me feel a little Louisa May Alcott as I write and draw), I can see water. When I open the window, the scent of flowers fills the rooms.

I feel extremely fulfilled from working with this character and this incredible cast, who have been so warm in welcoming me into their lives. And with some time to spare during the day (with rehearsals coming to a close), I’m baking some cookies for concessions. I couldn’t quite put a gluten-free, allergy-friendly cookie out there (both to limit costs and appeal to the appetite of this particular audience), but knew my contribution had to be something special.

The show is about four women who escape from their troubles in rainy London to a castle in Italy, where “in April it is simply a mass of flowers” as “bushels and bushels of wisteria” flank the terraces.  Eventually, they all find their happy endings, their hearts warmed by the Italian sunshine, the “unusually fresh” sea air and facing their demons amongst the company of strangers who soon become friends.

So my contribution is a traditional English shortbread cookie, laced with rosewater and dried lavender.  Simple ingredients, a little time and patience, and a beautiful, garden-scented result.

Rosewater Lavender Shortbread

Ingredients

  • 20 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened (I used Kerry Gold for the higher fat content)
  • 1 cup white sugar plus more for dusting
  • 2 eggs (plus egg whites for brushing)
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup cornstarch
  • 2 scant Tbsp dried lavender flowers
  • 3 scant Tbsp rosewater

Directions

  • With a hand mixer (or in a food processor) beat butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy, about two minutes.
  • Add eggs and blend to combine.
  • Add flour, cornstarch, lavender and rosewater and mix just until a dough ball forms.
  • Remove from mixer, separate into two balls and flatten into disks.  Wrap in plastic and put in refrigerator for at least one hour.
  • Preheat oven to 350°
  • Line baking sheets with parchment paper and flour work surface.
  • If the dough is still too soft, knead in a little more flour.
  • Roll each disk into 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut into desired shapes (I made both 1 1/2 inch and 2 inch cookies with success, both with round and fluted cutters.)
  • Use a spatula to transfer to lined sheets, wash lightly with egg white and sprinkle with sugar.
  • Bake for 15-20 minutes (depending on size), switching racks halfway through baking, until slightly golden at edges.

Notes: I made two sizes (one to sell and smaller ones with the extra dough).  Other than rolling the smaller size a bit thinner and baking for a shorter amount of time, they came out with equally beautiful results.  The pictures above are of the larger ones that I brushed with egg white before sanding with sugar.  The picture below shows the smaller cookies that weren’t brushed.  To keep with the traditional sheen of a shortbread, I think from now on I will not egg wash the cookies before baking.

Smaller version of Rosewater Lavender Shortbread

My (Broken) Heart in a Pie

(Broken) Heart Pie

Broken hearts are messy.  As is this (Broken) Heart Pie.  In my mind my submission for Pietopia’s friendly competition which asks “what does your life taste like, in a pie?” was a bit more elegant, a bit more pulled together.  But I guess that’s the thing about a broken heart in a dusty kitchen.  Things aren’t always going to come out the way you had hoped.  And that’s okay.  Just like I will be.

So, “what does my life taste like, in a pie?” 

Red fruits, lots of them; rich and luscious and sweet and syrupy.  Candied nuts.  Ginger.  Cinnamon.  Molasses.  Warm flavors.  All things ripe and sweet and full of color and bursting with love.  For as much as my heart is very much broken, it is still bursting with love.  Both for the person who broke it, and for myself.  I’ve never been in such a humbled position.

So, the creation.  I decided to cut myself some slack and not make homemade ginger molasses cookies, as I’m not in my apartment with my arsenal of tools.  I picked up a box of Ginger Cookies with Sliced Almonds from Pamela’s Products.  They’re very moist and gluten and dairy free, so all I had to do was crush them, mix them with about 3 Tbsp of melted unsalted butter, press into a pie plate and bake for a bit.  I should have bought two boxes, to make a fuller crust, or gotten off my tush and made a pie crust as I have dozens for times before.  But again, dusty.  So the crust only covers the bottom and slightly up the sides.

I guess this is more like a (Broken) Heart Cobbler.  Same difference.

The recipe for the filling is below, and I suggest your favorite sweet crust – using a ginger snap or molasses cookie seems to suit these fruits perfectly.  And because of the cookies I used this pie was gluten-free.  And had I used Earth Balance instead of the butter in the crust, it’d be dairy-free too.

While I only had a small bite of the final product, I can promise you this pie (cobbler, whatever), is very luscious, very sweet, and almost sanguine.  The cast* gobbled it down after our run-through tonight and seemed pleased, saying they were fortified with the fruit and nut combination, and it disappeared quickly.

I didn’t tell them the name: (Broken) Heart Pie.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups fresh cherries, pitted
  • 1 1/2 cup fresh, sliced strawberries
  • 1 cup fresh raspberries, whole
  • 1/2 cup dried, unsweetened cherries
  • 1/2 cup candied almonds (I used sweet cinnamon almonds roasted from Whole Foods, but here’s a solid recipe from Food.com).
  • 1/2 cup sugar, honey or some form of sweetener
  • 4 Tbsp cornstarch, tapioca starch or arrowroot
  • 1 pie crust of choice

Directions

  • Prepare whichever pie crust you prefer, and blind-bake it (bake it without anything in it) until done.  Remove from heat while you prepare the filling.
  • Place the pitted cherries in a large, preferably non-stick pot or dutch oven.  Bring to medium heat and allow some of the cherry juices to reduce, around five minutes.
  • Add the raspberries and strawberries, and continue to cook until the mixture first bubbles with juice, and then begins to reduce, about 8 minutes.  You want the mixture to still have some juice, but not so much that it’s overwhelming the fruit.
  • Remove from heat.
  • Whisk together the sugar and starch, and pour over fruit.  Mix thoroughly until incorporated (if you’re using honey, add that first and mix in, and then the starch).
  • Return to low heat and continue stirring gently until the mixture thickens.
  • Remove from heat and allow to cool.
  • When almost cool, stir in dried cherries and almonds.
  • Fill crust.
  • Set in the refrigerator until completely chilled before serving.

*Shameless plug: I’m performing in Enchanted April at the Hampton Theater Company, running from May 26th to June 12th in Quogue, New York.  If you’re near the Hamptons, please come check it out. It’s a darling show with a lot of heart, and some really challenging and fulfilling moments for me onstage.  And I’ll be selling garden shortbread cookies at the concessions.

Gluten-Free Cutout Sugar Cookies

Cookies of my boyfriend's face! And gluten-free!

What’s better than flanking a birthday cake with cutout cookies of the birthday boy’s face?!? Nothing!  I had been worried that the cookies in reality didn’t match the brilliant ones in my head, but when my roommate walked into the kitchen and burst out laughing, I knew I had at least achieved the right effect.

This past weekend was insane: I managed to race back to Connecticut after my week of rehearsals to work in my family office, then flew to NYC and made some gluten-free cookies I’ll soon be supplying to a cafe, attended a beautiful dinner to cheers the 30 years of one of my oldest friends, ran down to cut the cake wrapped in the boyfriend’s face, danced my heart out in a club, ran down Avenue A in the rain at 4am and made it back to the Hamptons for our first run-through yesterday.  Yes, I dropped a few lines in this rehearsal.  But overall it was a very fulfilling weekend.

But, wait.  When did I make these cookies?!

A full week ago!

A few weeks ago I made Saveur’s Classic Sugar Cookies recipe, being able to cut and ice them easily for a Jesus Christ Superstar Benefit.  So I figured it was time to make them gluten-free for the festivities.  But I knew I wouldn’t be in my kitchen at all this week, being out of town in a show, and so would have to make them in one precious evening in my apartment last weekend.

They worked! Rather easily and with little alterations, I used Saveur’s recipe and piped them with royal icing.  Then they sat out overnight before being refrigerated for the week.  Yes, they were not as fresh as they might have been.  But after a soft thawing they were still firm and smooth.  Honestly, the hardest part was not sharing or posting these pictures until the celebration – they made me laugh all week!

To make the sugar cookies:  I used a very basic gluten-free blend that I make of 1 part quinoa flour, 1 part arrowroot starch and 2 parts white-rice flour.  For each multiplication I add 2 tablespoons of tapioca starch and 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum.  So, for this recipe I blended 1 cup of arrowroot, 1 cup of quinoa flour, 2 cups of white rice flour, 4 tablespoons of tapioca and 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum in a container and then shook to combine.  In general I find this to be a great basic flour and keep it on hand.

I then used Saveur’s recipe to the last note, replacing equals parts of the white flour with this flour blend.

For notes and tips on making consistent, beautiful cookies with royal icing, check out my Cookies For Jesus Christ (Superstar) post.

Happy Birthday Cookies!

Caramel Apple Cake Pops (gluten-free!)

Caramel Apple Cake Pops

This is my first recipe post joining Christianna and a delightful crew of bloggers for the Burwell General Store Recipe Swap!  The premise is that bakers/bloggers take a recipe that Christianna passes along and, changing at least three things about the recipe, adapts to their whim and fancy.  Fun, right?!?!  I’ve enjoyed many happy moments paging between the incredible foodies and they’re takes on an old, homey recipe.  It’s just inspiring to see how imaginative people who truly love food can be.  Please check them out at Burwell General Store!

This month’s recipe: Ozarkian Taffy Apples. 

The caramel apples I remember from my youth were sticky and delightfully, sickeningly sweet; a rare treat reserved for fairs and trips up north to quiet New England towns during the hot summer.

But now I’m an adult.  Living with gluten and dairy allergies, hypoglycemia and a waistline that has started getting smushy since this Dusty Baker thing entered my life!  For the sake of my digestive health, the way my body feels and how I feel in it, I needed to develop a recipe I can feel confident in.  And I did!

Caramel Apple Cake pops!! I’ve seen these floating around the internet food world and, of course, at Starbucks.  They look like a nap to me (as in, if I ever ate one I’d probably clean every apartment in my building, write a novel and then crash for two weeks in exhaustion).  But they’re adorable.  So, I made a healthier cousin to the caramel apple that retains the yummy-tastiness and the visual appeal.  Gluten-free, dairy-free, white-sugar-free, and delicious.

I used my gluten-free cake flour blend because (a) it’s blended already! and (b) it has a lot of starch so will hold together well and support a good amount of moisture.  If you don’t have the time or know-how to blend your own flours, use an already mixed blend like Bob’s Red Mill or King Arthur and simply add 1/2 tsp xanthan gum per cup of flour you use.

To cut down on the fat of basic apple bread/cake recipes, I used apple sauce instead of oil which provided moisture and upped the apple taste.  And to get rid of the white sugar completely, I used pure maple syrup in the cake and sucanat in the caramel.

Speaking of which: next big problem –  candy coating!!  I’m not good with candy.  I mess up “easy” peanut brittle.  My carob coffee and carob coriander candies definitely are yummy, but they don’t involve thermometers or “soft ball” stages.  And I had vowed against white sugar.   So slowly-caramelized sucanat was the best this Dusty Baker could come up with (made while I clicked my cowboy boots on my crumbling linoleum floors and danced to Michael Franti, Dusty style).

Apple Cake Bread

Honest results? My roommate and I loved the cake.  So much so that, while we enjoyed the pop of the caramel candy crunch, it was the cake that took such precedence that we agreed we just wanted to eat MORE CAKE!  It is incredibly moist, and the sweetness seems rich yet light and not overpowering.  If you choose to make the cake on it’s own, I recommend adding a drizzle of maple syrup on top of the cake while uncooked in the pan, and then swirling it with a fork.  This will give the top a great color and caramelization.

But if you want to continue on in making an adorable, caramel-apple miniature with a sweet crunch, continue with rolling this incredibly mushy bread into a ball and drizzling with sucanat caramel coating.

Oh, and according to the nifty nutrition converter at CookEatShare, these only have 57 calories a pop!! Take that, Starbucks, with your 300 calorie woppers!  Thank DOG I didn’t know that when they were sitting in my kitchen!

Caramel Apple Cake Pops

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups chopped apples (I used one Granny Smith and one Braeburn, which came out to a little more than two cups once they had been peeled, cored and chopped)
  • 2 1/2 cups gluten-free cake flour
  • 1/4 cup ground flax seed meal
  • 1/4 cup finely ground almond flour
  • 1 Tbsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup apple sauce
  • 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1 cup sucanat
  • 4 Tbsp boiling water
  • 1/2 cup finely ground walnuts (optional)
  • 18 candy sticks
  • A foam block or other way to keep the pops upright while cooling

Directions: Cake

  • Preheat the oven to 350°
  • In a large bowl, whisk together your flour, flax, almond flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
  • In a small bowl, whisk the eggs thoroughly until creamy.  Add the apple sauce and maple syrup and whisk to blend thoroughly.
  • Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a fork or spatula to combine.
  • Fold in the apples.
  • Bake in a lightly greased loaf pan for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  • Cool for 5 minutes in pan, then turn onto wire rack and cool until just slightly warm.

Directions: Assemblage*

  • In a small saucepan over medium/low heat, combine water and sucanat.  Slowly let this melt and combine until it forms a dark syrup.  It should trickle when you pull it from a fork, but in small clumps rather than a stream. This took me about 15 minutes.
  • Meanwhile, cut the cake into chunks in a large bowl and smush with your hands until broken.  Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls and place on a plate.
  • When the caramel is smooth, poke a candy stick into the center of a ball to make an indentation.  Then remove the stick and dip in the caramel, and reinsert.
  • Drizzle the cake pop with caramel and press into nuts, if desired.
  • Repeat until all the pops are assembled, or until you’ve eaten all the mushed up cake in the bowl and then blamed its absence on your roommate’s cat.  Wait, what?

*I’m glad assemblage is a real word

Apple Cake Pops

Check Out the Other Creations From The Recipe Swappers!

  • Lindsay puts amazing honesty and simplicity written into her recipes. She loves Oregon, its ingredients and Portland’s lifestyle, and it shows.
  • Chef Dennis is veteran chef in his own right.  The rest of his fantastic food blog can be seen at morethanamountfull.
  • Mari lives in Oregon wine country and is a budding wine connoisseur.  Visit her at The Unexpected Harvest.
  • Boulder Locavore’s  starting point for the recipe swap is always a local-seasonal-organic combination, though her love of international cuisine and cocktails often work their way into the mix!
  • Joy, holding down a dairy-intolerant household, doesn’t let that restrict her love of flavors and food, in fact, it inspires her to do what she does. When you visit her blog, be sure to check out her “ubiquitous about page” and the balcony gardening category.
  • Monique has been food blogging since 2007, and her first recipe was a BLT-inspired chicken pot pie!
  • Shari is our first International participant!  Writing from down under, we cherish her voice in the swap because she brings the results of additional recipe challenges; the seasons are flipped from where most of us are blogging.
  • Jennifer‘s tag line says it all: Life is too short to eat bad food.  At her blog, Adventuresome Kitchen, you will find a passionate food-type, feeding her family amazing meals and living to blog about it.
  • The Cake Duchess.  The name says it all, and Lora’s recipes are rock solid, creative, decadent, inspiring.
  • Pola is a new blogger from Italy, transplanted to the cold Midwestern plains. After years of calling mom to check on cooking times and temperatures of family Italian recipes, she started writing them down. In the process, she is hoping to help new friends discover how to cook simple and authentic Italian food.
  • Mary is a lifelong resident of the San Francisco Peninsula and was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2007. Her search for a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie that didn’t taste, look or feel gluten-free inspired her blog and she’s been happily baking ever since.
  • Jamie blogs at Random Acts of Food and has a love for food that only an Italian could! She enjoys cooking and baking in all cuisines for her family and friends.
  • Crissy and Lauren are two recent college graduates who are embracing their passion for all things culinary in the smallest yellow kitchen that ever was.  Their balanced diet of equal parts savory and sweet helps them add a little zest to what they do best!
  • Claire blogs with Texas pride from Dallas. She loves chicken fingers, Law and Order SVU and is left handed.
  • Nay blogs about food at Spicy Living from Portland, Oregon, and joined in on the Lemon Cake swap.  She incorporated lavender and lemon into cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.
  • Cindy, food lover, all-around awesome person and her knowledge about US restaurants is almost encyclopedic. Check out her quirky and fun blog.
  • Sabrina Modelle blogs at The Tomato Tart from the San Francisco bay area, and for her first swap (the Lemon Cake) she made a Brown Sugar Lemon Rosemary Cake with Rosemary Caramel.
  • Nicolle writes the joyful Rhythm of the Seasons from Boulder, Colorado and is looking forward to offering more recipes and menus as the spring, summer and harvest seasons heat up.
  • Linda is a saucy Texan with an encyclopedic knowledge of food. She’s published many cookbooks, won many awards, and has been the source of many belly laughs. When she’s not writing books, her latest creations can be found at Everybody Eats News.
  • Tricia is the founder of Pietopia, an annual pie contest that asks “What does your life taste like, in a pie?” and her beautiful work as an eating designer and blogger can be found at Eating Is Art.

Royal Wedding Pear and Coriander Scones

Royal Pear and Coriander Scones

Are you excited about the Royal Wedding?!?!I can’t particularly say I am.  Of course I do regress to my little nine year old self with the idea of tiaras and fancy dresses and a gal becoming a princess.  But that excitement quickly turns to nausea as Kate is continually snubbed for being a “commoner” and the haughty opinions of the aristocracy are tossed about.  I don’t believe in hierarchy between people, especially as we’re all thrust into a body somewhere on earth in a crazy lottery devised by that-I-know-not.

But I’m aware of this event through a grapevine situation – my roommate his hosting some friends to watch the wedding this weekend.   To neutralize the enjoyment factor between their differing desires to watch the wedding they’re making a drinking game of it – I think the repeated usage of the word “commoner” is a dangerous one to commit to drinking with in this case, but to each her own!

And, of course, any event makes me think about… food.

So today I found myself with a little time and a desire to make scones.

Continue reading →

Gluten-Free Portuguese Easter Bread (Massa Sovada)

Spongy, chewey, eggy delicious gluten-free Portuguese Easter Bread (Massa Sovada)

I miss my grandmother, my Avo, very much right now.  Today is Good Friday, and though I am not personally religious I grew up in a very Catholic family, with Easter being sacred.  And because I love and respect my family and this faith that led me to mine, I still feel strongly connected to this holiday.

Massa Sovada – Portuguese sweet bread – is always made in my family for Easter.  For as long as I can remember my mother starts on Holy Saturday, mixing dough and shaping loaves, and by the time we go to bed the house is filled with sweetness.  We then dig into the bread for breakfast, cracking the hard-boiled eggs baked inside.  That is, I enjoyed the bread until I developed an allergy to milk and gluten.  After that Easter morning meant either indulging and feeling very sick or abstaining and being jealous – neither a fun feeling on such a spiritually cleansing day!

Masa Sovada

Mom learned from her mother-in-law, my Portuguese father’s mother.  And though Avo didn’t teach me this recipe, I inherited several family recipes, skills and techniques from her through my mother and my Tia Vidalia.  I bake so much, so often.  But it’s when I’m baking these rare, sweet, simple family recipes that I feel that much more connected to my food, and to home.

Last night I began my second go at making this traditional Portuguese Easter Masa bread both gluten-free and with almond milk instead of cow’s milk.  Similar to the first batch I worried at the proportions, at the specific mix of flours, and if the yeast would rise.  But this batch came out even better than the last!  I mixed, kneaded, set the bowl on my radiator wrapped in towels and, less than two hours later, pulled out a beautiful mound of squishy dough.  I turned this dough out on my pastry board and kneaded it into loaves, marveling at the silkiness and elasticity.  This morning I awoke to the scent of lemon, almond, flour and yeast, and felt my grandmother with me.  This bread she’s made dozens and dozens of times.  Recipes she knew by touch and feel, not by book or blog.

I miss her so much.

Avo passed away in August.  And though we never shared a common language, and while I’ll always regret not spending more time with her in the kitchen when her mind and body were with her, I will always think of her when I bake during Easter, sitting at my table with a cup of tea, as my gluten-free massa sovada bakes and fills my NYC apartment with home.

This recipe is for her.  I am so lucky to have it.

Both light and dense, sweet and mild

Gluten-Free Portuguese Easter Bread (Masa Sovada)

Click here for my second go -they’re both delicious. The second batch was slightly less dense.

Notes: Like the best kinds of recipes that get passed down from one generation to another, this massa recipe requires time, patience, and an understanding that you might have to make it more than once to “get it”. My mother, for all her love and trying, never made massa the same way my avo did, despite using her exact recipe. It’s about feelings, and preferences, and working with your hands. So here’s how I could best articulate how this recipe works for me. xx

Ingredients:

  • 16 Tablespoons / 2 sticks unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cup unsweetened milk – I used almond, but cow’s or soy will work too
  • 10 cups of gluten-free flour with xanthan gum (I used a combination that made me ten cups: 2 cups sweet white rice flour, 3 cups brown rice flour, 1 1/2 cup quinoa flour, 2 cups arrowroot starch, 1 cup millet flour, 1 cup tapioca flour, 4 tsp xanthan gum)
  • 3 packets active dry yeast
  • About 1/2 cup of warm water
  • 6 eggs at room temperature or slightly warmed
  • 1 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 4 Tbsp whiskey (distilled liquor does not contain gluten, but omit if you’re cautious).
  • The zest of 2 lemons
  • 1 1/2 tsp lemon extract
  • 3/4 tsp almond extract
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Extra butter or egg, for brushing on the loaves before baking

Directions:

  • Make sure your flours are thoroughly blended, either with a whisk or sifter.
  • In a saucepan, start to melt your butter.  Heat the milk on the stove or in the microwave until at room temperature or warmer.
  • In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water thoroughly with a fork, until all clumps are gone.
  • In the bowl of a standing mixer with the bread hook attachment, whip eggs until creamy.
  • Add sugar and whip at medium speed until very creamy, about 3 minutes.
  • Meanwhile make sure butter is melted and slowly whisk in milk.  Turn off heat and but keep warm.
  • When the sugar/butter is creamy, add lemon zest, lemon and almond extracts, salt and whiskey and mix to combine.
  • Add 1o cups of flour and the butter mixture.  Mix SLOWLY until just incorporated.
  • SLOWLY add in yeast mixture (mine splattered everywhere! Oh no!).  Mix on low until incorporated, then increase speed slowly, eventually up to medium, until completely combined.
  • Mix until the dough becomes smooth and pulls together.  My visual is when the dough has “crawled” its way up the bread hook as much as possible, pulling together in a weird, tornado-looking thing.
  • Remove to a pastry board lightly floured withe some remaining bread flour and knead a few times until smooth.  Unlike gluten-full bread, gluten-free bread doesn’t need much kneading because there’s no gluten to develop! So just knead until the dough is smooth and silky.
  • Spray a large mixing bowl with non-stick spray / cover in a small amount of olive oil.  Move dough to bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and then wrap completely in a clean, large bath towel.
  • Let sit for about 1 1/2 hours or until almost double in size.  Because my radiator (for some reason!) was on, I wrapped the bowl in two towels and sat it right on top!  A nod to my grandmother and living in Queens with such radiators way back in the day.  Another option is to slightly heat an oven, then turn it off, wrap the bowl and set it in.  Or put it in the sun!  Any way, get it to a warm spot.
  • When almost doubled in size, punch down the dough to release air.  Return to pastry board and divide in half.  Knead dough a few times to pull together, and shape into loaves.  This time I shaped one half of the dough into two loaves, and the other half into four, for a total of two large and four small loaves.  But break this up however you like.  Just make sure you knead each loaf until smooth.
  • Place on thick cookie sheets and once again wrap in towels.  Let sit for about six hours or overnight.
  • When ready to bake, preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Brush tops of loaves with melted butter or egg whites (I use both! First butter, then egg whites)
  • Bake large loaves for about 50 minutes, smaller loaves for about 38.  They’re ready when just springy to the touch.
  • Serve warm with butter or let cool and eat with coffee, brunch foods or… oh my goodness, this bread is so good, just EAT IT!

Happy Easter!

My Avo, Armanda Oliveira Raposo

Cookies for Jesus Christ (Superstar) and rehearsing life

Cross Cookies for Jesus Christ Superstar Benefit

Weeks like this I love my life so very much.  But weeks like this also wear me down to the point where I run to Starbucks (gasp) and order a caffeinated Americano (double gasp)!!!

I’m currently in rehearsals for two productions – a benefit of Jesus Christ Superstar that’s happening this Saturday benefiting Smith Street Stage and a play in the Hamptons I started on this week.  I also am running / ran to my family’s in CT to celebrate the Easter holiday and am covering some writing gigs / an interview for a new gig.

So obviously I had to spend one day in the kitchen cutting, baking, piping and flooding 75 cookies in the shape of crosses.  I mean, what else does a gal do when she’s got an insane week?

Oh, and I’m also returning to the city tonight to prep my gluten-free Portuguese masa bread dough to be baked Friday morning for Easter on Sunday and collecting ingredients to drive to the Lower East Side and make malasadas (Portuguese fried dough / donuts) for a party after the Superstar benefit Saturday eve.  That is, the dough will somehow be made between rehearsal and dressing for the event and they’ll be fried after… in a small black dress and very high shoes.

Like I said, love and coffee.

But for now I can take a deep breath and look out at the water from my view in this beautiful house I’m staying in while rehearsing out in Westhampton – my director’s house is really one of the most beautiful I’ve seen, with an overflowing vegetable garden, art from all over the world, old furniture and rugs and an incredible energy.  I can be thankful, and quiet for a bit, and reflect on how much fun it was to cut, pipe and flood all these cookies before sticking them into bags.  I didn’t get to letter them as I had wanted to, as I literally just ran out of time in my week.  But I’m satisfied.

No recipe to post today, just links and tips for cutout cookies.

Cross cookies bagged and ready to go

Cookie:

Classic Sugar Cookies Recipe from Saveur Magazine

Tips for successful cut-out sugar cookies:

  • Get your butter soft, but not completely at room temperature.  I usually microwave mine for about 30 seconds, turning halfway through, to get it soft.  Too warm and it will practically liquify.
  • Cream the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy.  Not long enough and they won’t provide enough structure when baking.
  • Only mix dough until incorporated.
  • Refrigerate.  I know sometimes dough is firm enough that you could just roll and cut, but this will change the texture when baking and contribute to loss of shape.
  • After cutting, stick back into the fridge on cookie sheets and let sit until the oven is hot.  Continue rolling and fridging successive sheets – don’t let them sit at room temperature.  Keeping the butter in the cookies cold prevents spreading when they’re baking.
  • Make sure your sheets are cold between rounds: I wash and stick mine in the freezer for a few.
  • Refrigerate dough for a little bit before rolling again.  The Saveur recipe is great at having you split the dough up into four disks instead of two, so you can always have something chilling while rolling something else.
  • This recipe made me 80 cookies about 4 inches high!

Piping and flooding makes for a smooth and hard surface

Icing Tips

I used a basic royal icing recipe with Meringue powder.  If you haven’t used meringue powder or powdered egg whites before, I highly recommend them.  They make getting a stiff but workable icing so much easier, with greater room for dusty mistakes!

I used a classic proportion of 4 cups of powdered sugar per 3 tablespoons of meringue powder.  I whipped them in my standing mixer and then added about 6 tablespoons of warm water.  At about 6 tablespoons it was perfect for piping.

  • Keep the icing covered in a towel between separating / changing consistency
  • Don’t worry about over or under watering – add more sugar or water as necessary
  • Always mix this thoroughly – when it comes to stiff peaks and has a glossy shine, it’s ready.  For me this took about 7 minutes on medium/high speed.
  • I found my piping texture to be a little looser than recipes I looked at – loose enough that it flowed too much out of a pastry bag.  So I used a paintbrush with ease, glopping some on and then spreading it around.  It set and dried smoothly.

Gluten-Free Pressed Lemon Butter Cookies

Gluten-free pressed lemon butter cookies

Today I am thankful for my Bialetti coffee maker, my mother, and Jeanne from The Art of Gluten-Free Baking.  My coffee maker because it makes delicious espresso that I can sit with for a few minutes, pretending it’s caffeinated and will give me more energy when it’s really decaf and I just love the way it tastes.  My mother because she gave me a cookie press for Christmas a few years ago that only today saw the light of day (other than when it was moved to this, its third home).  And Jeanne because I just stumbled on her blog and love it!  I only slightly changed her Pressed Butter Cookie recipe, using my own gluten-free flour blend and adding a little lemon to make it more of a tart Spring cookie.  Her site is incredible and her directions are so clear and helpful.  Until I come up with my own tips and techniques I’m just gonna keep sending people to her.  And she has chickens!  If you read my posts with any sort of regularity, you’ll understand my delight with anyone who has chickens (I’m dying to make a little NYC rooftop garden and have a few of my own!).

Lots of cookies!

At this very moment my kitchen is a mess.  Gluten-full cookies in the shapes of crosses are ready to receive dark black royal icing and letters etched into them for a benefit I’m in on Saturday.  And now these little melt-in-your-mouth babies are cooling alongside to be tenderly packaged.  I’m covered in flour, there’s no surface not covered with something.  And I’m out the door in about 20 minutes!

Dusty, dusty, dusty!

I’ve just concluded that there’s no way I’m going to frost all these cookies before I go.  The boyfriend doesn’t know this, but he’s learning how to pour royal icing tonight and we’re getting take-out!

Dusty cookies!

Notes: Now, as you can see from these pictures these cookies are incredibly delicate – so, so delicate.  I found that my thick, industrial cookie sheets didn’t work well – the shape was perfect but they crumbled when I removed them.  Thinner pans gave the cookies more hold but because of that they were a tad brown on bottom. I’m not sure how I’m going to fix this next time.  Suggestions?

Also, they came out better when the dough was cooler.  My press recommended keeping them at room temp but once I stuck the dough in the fridge for a bit, they pressed better.  And then I stuck the prepared pans in the fridge until the oven was ready for them , and their shape held much better.

Suggestions?

Gluten-Free Pressed Lemon Butter Cookies

Adapted with thanks from Jeanne at The Art of Gluten-Free Baking

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 3 large egg yolks (I see macarons coming with the whites!)
  • 1 tsp lemon extract
  • zest of one lemon
  • 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 3 1/4 cups gluten-free flour (I used my gluten-free cookie flour.  Make sure yours has xanthan gum in it, and if not add 1 tsp xanthan gum)

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Make sure your flours are whisked / sifted well and add xanthan gum if not included.
  • In the bowl of a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter until fluffy, then add sugar and cream together.
  • Add egg yolks, one at a time, and beat to incorporate.
  • Add lemon zest, extract and juice and beat in.
  • Add flour and slowly beat in, then increase speed until incorporated.
  • Fill cookie press and press onto ungreased cookie sheets.
  • Bake one sheet at a time for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned.
  • Let cool on sheets completely before removing, gingerly, with a thin spatula.
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