Tag Archives: Gluten-free diet

One Cocoa Cupcake and Lyme Life Lessons

How To Make One Cocoa Cupcake (gluten-free)

After a loooooong (lovely!) week and a loooooong (lovely! lovely!) Saturday, I found myself hobbling a bit while walking my dog last night, my aching hips and knees a reminder that I crossed a line somewhere in all the awesomeness of hard work and good people, and still have chronic conditions from almost 20 years of Lyme Disease and its related terrors.  I wanted to take a hot, Epson-salted bath.  Or break my legs with a hammer.  I know a few of you out there will recognize that sensation.

So instead of going out dancing way downtown, I cut my night short and parked it inside.  I was shocked to find myself drawn to a Josh Duhamel movie.  This made absolutely NO sense since I’m generally not a “chick-flick” or “rom-com” or any other horribly kitschy-named movie genre fan and don’t think I’ve ever actually seen this dude in a film before.  Why was I drawn to a film that would bring out my innermost, snarkiest criticizer but also bring me some weirdly cheap comfort?  Because I recalled that during my last serious bout of Lyme all my exhausted brain and body could handle were the most mindless shmather (it’s a word, now), movies that were nothing more than visual background noise (realize I’m taking too many liberties with language now… I’ll get to the point). 

One cupcake.  Along with my bad movie I just wanted one cupcake.  Not a bunch of cookies, not a batch of anything to have sitting around.

Just.  One.

So I made one.  Using Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio for sponge cake as a base, I made an incredibly dense, fudgy cupcake, perfect with a dab of the leftover vegan blackcurrant “cream-cheese” frosting haunting me from another recipe (posting soon).  I sloppily mixed weighing and measuring ingredients together and checked the timing on it occasionally while giving myself a good stretch on the floor.

And then I ate it while pondering Duhamel’s left eyebrow.  And mulling over the state of romantic comedies of my age demographic.  And willing myself to just change the channel!

You ever have nights like this?

When you just want one… here ya go.

Oh, and now that I’m rested and medicated, the sun is shining and I’m off to review a few incredible NYC food events… life is back to lovely.

Blackcurrant Cream Cheese Frosting – Vegan!

Ingredients:

  • 1 ounce unsalted butter
  • 1 ounce beet sugar
  • 1 ounce beaten egg
  • 1 ounce gluten-free cake flour
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp chocolate extract
  • 2 tsp cocoa powder
  • dash of kosher salt

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 350°.  Put a cupcake liner in a tin or ramekin.  
  • Add the salt and cocoa to the flour.
  • In a small bowl, beat butter on medium/high until creamy.
  • Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
  • Add egg and beat until pale and fluffy, and slightly expanded in volume.
  • Add extracts and beat to combine.
  • Add flour and mix on low until just combined.
  • Pour into prepared dish and bake for about 18 minutes or toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Gluten-Free Sponge Cake

Spongey, eggy and delicious

The other night a buddy of mine texted “got a killer gluten-free sponge cake recipe?”  I did not, and told him so.  To which he replied something very snarky, questioning my Dusty Baker title.  I snarked back.  We’re really mature.

I’m a proud lady, and quite stubborn.  So the next morning I headed into my kitchen and made this.

Pretty in pink.

I can’t take full credit, of course.  I’d made a gluten-free sponge cake before but never recorded it, not being quite content with the flour combination (quinoa made it too bitter, teff too dry for some reason).  So for this I went back to the basics for my flour blend: soft brown rice, arrowroot and tapioca.  Nothing else.

And then I went back to the Cooks Illustrated recipe I’d made glutenously for a friend a few years ago, adapting it only slightly and using the same method.  Perfect.  And incredibly easy.  A flawless cake that when I asked my roommate “could you tell that was gluten-free?” she chirped back, “no, I can never tell with yours that they’re gluten-free”.

I’m never moving.

So here ya go. Gluten-free  Sponge Cake.

Oh, and I topped it with Chardonnay Blackcurrant frosting (recipe posting soon). I’m not a huge fan of frosting in general, but was short on time and this vegan frosting whips up quickly.  But this light cake would benefit more from a custard or lemon curd, so if you have a killer recipe for one, I’d say go bonkers with it instead.

Spongey Cake.

 

Ingredients:

  • 3 Tbsp unsweetened almond milk
  • 2 Tbsp unsalted butter or Earth Balance (butter flavored)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 5 eggs, at room temperature
  • 3/4 cup granulated beet sugar
  • 1 cup gluten-free cake flour (I used my cake flour blend but used only brown rice, which I find less grainy than white rice.  It basically works out to 2/3 cup brown rice flour, 1/6 cup arrowroot, 1/6 cup tapioca starch)
  • 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
  • 1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp fine sea salt

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 350°.  Grease two 8″ cake pans and line bottoms with cut parchment.
  • Separate 3 eggs. Place whites in bowl of standing mixer, and add remaining 2 eggs to the yolks in a separate bowl.
  • In a small bowl, mix cake flour, xanthan gum, nutmeg and salt.
  • On stovetop, combine almond milk and butter, heat to melt, then add vanilla and remove from heat.  Allow to cool only slightly.
  • In the bowl of a standing mixer with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites until foamy, about 2 minutes.  Add 6 tablespoons of beet sugar one at a time and continue to soft, moist peaks, about 3-5 minutes (don’t over-mix to stiff, keep them soft and billowy).  Remove to a large bowl.
  • Beat remaining eggs with remaining sugar on high for about 5 minutes, or until pale yellow and creamy.  Add to egg whites (don’t fold yet).
  • Sprinkle flour mixture on top and fold in gently, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible, 8-10 folds.
  • Make a well and pour in milk mixture, continue to fold until egg mixture is combined.  Do not over-mix.
  • Pour evenly into pans and bake for about 22-25 minutes, until slightly firm and springy to the touch.
  • Use a small icing spatula or knife to loosen edges, then cool in pan for 2 minutes.
  • Invert onto cake plate to release, then back onto cooling rack.

These will cool very quickly, giving you just enough time to whip up an icing or a custard.  Because of the delicate nature of the cake, the lighter the accompaniment the better.

Gluten-Free Churros – a Family Holiday Recipe

Gluten-Free Churros

A few hours before posting this I had a huge panic moment: I’m still not quite sure how it happened, but while cleaning out unneeded photos from my hard drive collection I accidentally erased ALL OF THEM!!  These are the only two that survived as they’d already been dragged onto the desktop.  It was frustrating, to say the least.

I spend way too much time on little machines and it’s oddly refreshing sometimes to have them revolt against me.  It reminds me of what I love most about what I do: Words. Food. Art.  Not computers, DSLRs and smartphones. Simple, old-school.

Which is what this recipe is: simple and old-school.

My father is from Portugal, and my favorite recipes are ones that I’ve learned from my Tia or inherited through my Avo, my grandmother.  When I was 13 or so I remember walking into the garage at her house in Povacao (a small town on the island of Sao Miguel in the Acores) to see her plucking a chicken, with several others hanging from a rafter.  I also remember a sweet, dense bread she’d bake in a brick oven in that garage.  And fried sardines, spicy orange beans and creamy kale soup that she made magically with rustic cookware in her old kitchen.

One of my favorite family recipes, and one that was reserved for the holidays, are malasadas – a yeasted fried dough that she’d bring over, all puffy and risen, in a big bowl to whichever family was hosting.  As kids, we’d be given a ball of the dough to stretch out for ourselves.  After a quick fry (always stove-top, none of us had a deep fryer), we’d toss them in a paper bag of sugar and devour them warm.

My avo died last summer, and this is how I ended her eulogy which, of course, was a lot about food:

Avo loved to take care of all of us, and loved how we take care of each other.  As I learn how to make more and more of the foods that I remember coming from her, I thank her with all my heart for teaching us how to make a home, and bring a family to a table, to have faith that god loves us, and say those two precious words that I’ll never forget…

“Come, querida.”  Eat, darling.

I miss her the most when I’m in my kitchen.

A few years ago my Tia taught me several versions of the malasadas recipe.  It’s now one of my standards, and my favorite at-party trick.

This is how they usually look:

Malasadas

Light, fluffy, chewy and lemony, they’re little bites of heaven, especially when served warm and slathered with homemade jam.

The only problem I have with them – they’re not gluten-free!  Which means I haven’t eaten one in a long time.

So, finally, with a little nudging from FoodBuzz and Frigidaire’s Talk Turkey Campaign, I figured there’s no better time like the present.

I adapted my family recipe with gluten-free flours and the knowledge that gluten-free donuts  don’t always whip up with the same texture as their glutenous counterparts.  Instead of stretching and frying the dough, I was planning on piping it into churros.  See, I live in Washington Heights in New York City, which has an incredibly high Latino population.  And I love my neighborhood.  As I walk my dog around the area, down by the Hudson River during sunset and through Riverside Park, I inevitably run into neighbors who have now become friends.  We let our dogs romp, catch up on city news and almost inevitably talk about food: what we’ve made for dinner or to where our sweet teeth have taken us.

So this season I’ll be whipping up a few batches of these as my holiday gift: the perfect combination of my Portuguese heritage and my Latino location.

I created this post as part of Frigidaire’s Talk Turkey Campaign. Share your own recipes and tips at Frigidaire’s Make Time for Change site. For every recipe or tip that’s shared, Frigidaire will donate $1 to Save The Children’s U.S. Programs, which creates lasting change for children in need! Join me!

Happy Beginning of the Holidays!

– Jacqueline

Lemony, spicey and chewey! Perfect with a good espresso.

Notes about gluten-free churro-making love: because of the lack of gluten, you don’t need to worry about how long you knead the dough as there’s no gluten to develop.  The dough isn’t also necessarily going to rise as high as it would normally.  Don’t fret!  This dough shouldn’t be sticky, and should easily be scooped into a pastry bag. 

You also don’t want to fry them until golden – thirty seconds or so does the trick to keep them nice and light inside. I usually fry about 10 at a time, and just as I pipe the last one in the first one’s ready to come out.

Because I wanted to see which flavor combination I like the most in the sugar tossing, I added spices progressively.  This step you can suit to your taste – my favorite ended up being the all-four combo.

And they’re best eaten fresh – though a quick warming later makes them perfect for coffee dunking.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups gluten-free cake flour (my blend is HERE with xanthan gum)
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 3 eggs at room temperature
  • 2 packets of yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
  • 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 tsp lemon oil
  • zest of one lemon
  • 1 cup of white sugar
  • 1 Tbsp of strong cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
  • Large bottle of pure vegetable or canola oil

Method:

  • In a small bow, combine yeast and warm water, stirring with a fork to dissolve.  Set aside to sit and let get all foamy and homey-smelling.
  • In a Pyrex measuring cup or small bowl, combine butter and milk and microwave until butter is melted and milk is warm.
  • In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the breadhook, place flour and salt.  Make a well in the center and pour in eggs, lemon oil, lemon zest, eggs and milk mixture.
  • Start mixer on low and progressively increase speed until the ingredients combine.
  • Turn off mixer, add yeast mixture, and slowly increase speed until at medium/high (6 on a Kitchenaid).
  • Mix until the dough is thoroughly combined, and pulls away from the side of the mixer in light air bubbles, about five minutes.
  • Place about 1 Tbsp of oil in a large bowl.  Move dough to bowl, tossing in oil to coat.
  • Cover with thick towels and place in a warm spot.
  • Let rise for about an hour, punch down to release air, and let sit to rise again, about another hour.
  • In a large heavy-bottom pot (I used a 7 quart Creuset dutch oven), heat oil on medium/high heat.
  • Pour sugar in a doubled small paper lunch bag (or use a large paper grocery bag).
  • Move dough to pastry bag fitted with a large star tip.
  • Pipe dough directly into hot oil, snipping ends with kitchen scissors.
  • Fry for about 30 seconds (it should take about 30 seconds for you to pipe 10 churros in, and then you can start removing them one by one), then toss into the paper bag.
  • Toss in sugar and remove to a plate.
  • Add cinnamon to paper bag, and repeat frying and tossing a batch.
  • Add ginger, repeat.
  • Add nutmeg, repeat.
  • Serve warm to people you love, maybe with strong espresso or a glass of red table wine.


Rosemary Lavender Apple Galette

Rosemary Lavender Apple Galette

I was a very lucky little Dusty Baker in that I spent the majority of this past weekend surrounded by fancy food and scrumptious cocktails.  The Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival definitely didn’t disappoint in either of those categories.

But, hey, I’m not a pastry chef.  Yes, I spend most of my time dreaming about alternative flours and wishing I were in a kitchen and not on a computer.  And maaaaaybe I find the things actual chefs do with pastry incredibly sexy.  But fancy-pants, personally, I am not.

So I was particularly at home when attending the Beekman Boys’ demo at the Grand Tasting on Sunday.  Farms?  Goats?  8-minute pastry?  Put the kettle on, boys, I’m stopping in.

The Fabulous Beekman Boys – otherwise known as Brent and Josh – own a farm upstate.  They bought it as weekend retreat before they both lost their jobs and needed to turn it into a mortgage-paying enterprise.  NYC foodies by nature, they turned their inherited goats (80 of them) into a soap-making machine.  Then cheese.  Then the rest is history.

Now they’ve got a new book out, following their documentary-like show on Planet Green, and are cornering the heirloom recipe market in all that’s old-school and tasty.

Which is exaclty what their demo was – old-school and extremely tasty.  With casual banter and a genteel charm, they made a galette with nothing more than a heaping cup of flour, a stick of butter, a fistful of sugar, a splash of milk, a rough chop of rosemary, some drizzled honey and some apples.  A recipe so easy you don’t need to write it down.  Which I didn’t.  Until this post.

What I shared with them (as I sat with a happy smile in the front row) was a love of lack-of-recipes-recipes.  Many that I’ve inherited from my family contain “a soup-spoon of butter” and “enough water to dissolve the yeast”.  I’ve made pastries alongside my Tia that may be two eggs and a cup of flour away from the original… and seem to work as amounts are remedied during the eye-ball process.  I love the feeling of just throwing things in a mixer, and the intuition that comes from just knowing how a basic pastry works.

It was also fitting that they described this as the perfect thing to whip together when a friend calls to say they’ll be stopping by on their way home from church… in about ten minutes.  Because as I wrapped up an article this morning I was just about to strap on my apron when an out-of-town friend asked if she could stop in… and that she had just parked her car down the street.  We had inherited some apples from my neighbor.  I always have flour, butter and the like on hand.  And I still have rosemary growing in my window-boxes.  I could throw this together in eight minutes.  So I did.

So this recipe is yours for the adaptation.  I used my standard gluten-free cake blend as my flour, palm sugar as my crust sweetener, and the rest of the leftover lavender-honey that I had on my shelf (from my current prosciutto-cheese-basil-melon-honey obsession that’s sadly going out the window along with the summer rain).  Use whatever fruit or savory ingredient you have on hand.  Add or omit sweetener as you see fit.  Grab whatever herbs from your garden or window box that sound exciting.  And enjoy the simple, homemade creation that is truly yours for the baking.

My piece... consumed with relish...

Ingredients:

  • 1  heaping cup flour (a basic gluten-free / gluten-free cake blend works perfectly)
  • A handful of sugar (I used palm sugar)
  • A dash of kosher salt
  • 1 stick of unsalted butter
  • Milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk)
  • About 4 apples, peeled, cored and sliced (or comparable amount of fruit or savory veg)
  • Lemon juice (optional)
  • 1 Tbsp finely chopped rosemary
  • 2 Tbsp honey or however you want to sweeten the fruit
  • Dried lavender florets, optional
  • Egg white, yolk or milk to wash

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 400°.  Line a baking sheet with Silpat if desired.
  • In a large bowl, mix flour, salt and sweetener.
  • Cut butter into thin slices and toss in.
  • With a fork, blend flour mixture and butter until flaky.  They pointed out that most recipes say “pea-sized”, but with the fork method it’s more flake than pea.
  • Add enough milk, slowly, pulling together with fork until the dough just comes together.
  • Roll on a floured surface until thin, either into a round or somewhat rectangular shape.
  • Transfer to baking sheet.
  • Sprinkle the center (leaving about an inch on all sides) with rosemary.
  • Optional: toss apples with about 2 Tbsp lemon.
  • Fill crust with apples, leaving a lip around the edge.
  • Drizzle with honey or sugar.
  • Fold the ends in to make a rounded crust, making sure there are no holes in the dough, and press to meet.
  • Wash with egg or milk.
  • Bake about 25-30 minutes, until lightly browned.
  • Serve warm, preferably to drop-in guests.

Picture perfect.

Boyfriend Breakup Beer Brownies (gluten-free)

Last week my lil sis went through a breakup.  A relatively sane one, sans drama, and she’s rolled with it very well.  But a breakup is a breakup, with highs and lows and unanswered questions.  A few months ago I went through a very hard breakup (see My Broken Heart in a Pie) and my siblings were there for me as soon as I was ready to talk to them.  Upon my first trip home, they threw me a night of gluten-free beer (well, for me), board games, a bunch of bad jokes and “socials” and “waterfalls”, and the freedom to wander alone in my thoughts when I needed to.

So when Lil Sis texted me the news, I threw all the gluten-free beer I had in my fridge into a bag and headed to Connecticut.  And after one or two drinks and some quiet conversation, I knew what she needed: brownies.

We rummaged through hers and my dad’s kitchens and got together some basic ingredients (including the gluten-free flour blend I stash there) and I went to work, whipping things together and giving her a little baking lesson as I went.  I love brownies because of how few ingredients they require, how fast you can make them and how versatile they are – purely for emotional purposes we poured some of the dark Green’s Gluten-Free Sorghum beer I had been sipping, which did wonders in intensifying all the flavors and giving the brownies lift without and baking powder/soda.

The result?  Incredibly moist, fudgy, dark cocoa brownies. Just as I want them.  Easy to slice, packed with chocolate and with a slight zing from the beer.  Incredibly easy to make, and from start to finish we had the brownies in about a half an hour.

She plopped a little vanilla ice cream on her slice to balance the chocolate.  I love dark chocolate, and savored my sweet little piece (normally I never eat refined sugar, or much sugar in general, but desperate times…).  We sipped our drinks, enjoyed some telly and as she worked things through in her head, we talked about it.

And don’t worry, both Lil Sis’ and my heart are doing just fine.

Check out my My Gluten-Free Brownie Video for eHow.com!

Ingredients:

  • 12 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 10 Tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup gluten-free beer (try to get a dark one)
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour with xanthan gum (I use my cookie blend when I make these. If using a blend that doesn’t contain xanthan gum add 1/4 tsp, please and thank you.)
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350°.  Grease a small 8×8 or so glass baking pan.

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter.  Slowly whisk in cocoa and whisk until dissolved.  Then slowly whisk in beer (it will foam a bit) and whisk until smooth.  Set aside to cool.

In a standing mixer with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer on medium/high speed beat eggs, brown sugar and white sugar together until the sugar has completely dissolved and the mixture is very smooth and creamy.

Reduce the mixer to low speed and slowly add the chocolate mixture until combined.

Toss the salt and xanthan gum into the flour and fold into the chocolate mixture.

Pour into the pan and bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out smooth.

Cool for at least 15 minutes (if you want them soft and fudgey) or completely before cutting.

As lil sis pointed out, these would be great with a dairy/gluten-free ice cream or with some fresh fruit.

Vintage Recipe Swap – Sweet and Spicy Blueberry Molasses Jam Cookies

Ginger Molasses Cookies with Blueberry Ginger Lime Jam

I love the food-blogging community.  For the past few months I’ve been taking part in a Vintage Recipe Swap with Burwell General Store.  We’re sent a recipe and have to alter at least three things about it, then blog our creations on the same day.  I am always incredibly impressed with what the other bloggers post.  They’re truly inspiring, culinary masters that I have so much to learn from.  Please check out their sites (links at the bottom of this post).

This month’s swap is a Jelly Cake.  Check it out:

After my disappointment with last month’s Baked Potato Cakes I knew I wanted to make something decadent this month.  Something that would take some planning and patience and love.

This recipe is wonderfully simple in theory – two cakes sandwiched with jelly.  And I loved that the second cake was spicy with cinnamon, cloves and allspice.

So I decided to make only a slight variation on this classic idea with an easy blueberry jam nested in the middle of gluten-free ginger molasses cookies.  I love how versatile and mobile cookies are.  And while lying in bed, sleepless, one night, I thought how I could try the jam between two round cookies and also try it with the raw dough pocketing it before baking, much like an Italian or Polish pastry cookie.

It took three days in short bursts to make this recipe, which actually made it more relaxing of a process.  One morning I made the Blueberry Ginger Lime Jam.  I loved the fresh, organic blueberries I found at the market and figured I’d spice them up with a bit of ginger and fresh lime juice and zest.  I also made a smoky blueberry sauce with paprika that I then made into a martini.  Delish.

Smoky Blueberry Martini

The second day I made the cookie dough, then stuck it in the fridge and rolled and baked the next morning.  Fully refrigerating dough is a crucial step when making cutout cookies, especially when they’re gluten-free, in order to keep a clean shape and consistent texture.  In my earlier days I thought I could get around a few steps and still have incredible cookies.  Now I know that refrigerating dough, using parchment paper, keeping my gluten-free flours cool and rolling evenly are important keys to mastering this.

The result is a rich, spicy ginger cookie sweetly flavored with dark molasses.  Making them into pocket cookies yields a softer, pastry-like cookie, whereas the rounds have the perfect amount of gingery jam between.  They have a soft mouth feel, and hit you in two stages – first the spicy ginger cookie, and then the rich jam.  I love them.  Love love love.

Note: In this recipe I’ve measured out my preferred gluten-free flours and added some flax seed meal for fiber (it also helps baked goods gel a little bit more too).  All that’s important is that you have three cuts of gluten-free flour.  I recommend keeping your flours in the fridge as they stay fresher longer – it also helps when making a pastry like a cookie that needs to stay tight.  I also usually refrain from mixes that are high in potato flour or starch and only use one kind of flour – usually white rice.  Check out my gluten-free flour blends page for more ideas.

Another note: I used two types of molasses and maple syrup because I had small amounts of each and like using what you’ve got instead of purchasing excess.  Just make sure you have 3/4 a cup of molasses.

Buen provecho!

Sandwich and Pocket cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cup white rice flour
  • 3/4 cup quinoa flour
  • 1/2 cup millet flour
  • 1/4 cup ground flax seed meal
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
  • 1/4 cup unsulfered dark molasses
  • 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1 egg

Directions

  • In a small bowl, sift together the flours, flax seed meal, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and xanthan gum
  • In a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  • Add molasses and maple syrup and beat to combine.
  • Add egg and beat to combine.
  • Slowly add in flour until combined.
  • Divide in half, flatten into disks and individually wrap in plastic.  Set in refrigerator at least two hours or (preferably) overnight.
  • When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°.
  • Line 4 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  • Flour work surface with rice flour and roll disk to 1/4 inch thick, rotating dough regularly to prevent sticking (re-flour board as necessary). Cut into circles about 1 3/4 inch in diameter.
  • Bake for 12 minutes or until still slightly soft on top.  If you prefer crispy cookies, bake for 16 minutes.
  • Remove from oven and flip upside-down on a cool cookie sheet or flat work surface.  With the bottom of a shot glass or a small spoon, press a small circle into the bottom of each cookie.  Allow to cool completely.
  • When cool, fill 1 cookie impression with about a teaspoon of your favorite jam (mine was Blueberry Ginger Lime Jam) and use a second cookie to sandwich, repeating until all are done!

Store in an airtight container (preferably in the refrigerator) until ready to serve.  Alternatively, you can cut squares of dough, fill with jam, and make pocket cookies.  These will be a little softer and cake-like. 

Jam-filled sandwich cookies

Check Out the Other Creations From The Recipe Swappers!

  • CM is our Burwell General Store leader.  A food producer and writer, she’s based out of L.A. and has worked with the Food Network and Saveur, amongst many others.  Those are just my two favorites :)  Her site is, of course, divine.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Jaclyn is a writer, baker, perpetual daydreamer and the author of the cooking and baking blog Food+Words. She has a degree in Creative Writing and is currently studying Baking and Pastry at Le Cordon Bleu. Jaclyn has a panchant for baking, laughter, a nice glass of Riesling and anything lemony.
  • Merry-Jennifer is a physician, a writer, a wife, a mother of two, and the author of the food blog The Merry Gourmet. She focuses on family-friendly original and adapted recipes – with an occasional cocktail recipe thrown in for balance.
  • Alli has a master’s degree in Nutrition and blogs at An Open Cookbook from Seattle, Washington. We met recently at BlogHer Food in Atlanta, and immediately hit it off. A warm welcome to her!
  • Rachel Saunders is the owner of Blue Chair Fruit and author of The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook. She produces all of her jams and teaches classes from her space in Oakland, California.

Blueberry Ginger Lime Jam and Smoky Blueberry Sauce with the cookies

Nutritional breakdown from Cook, Eat, Share

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Baked Potato Cakes – Gluten and Dairy Free Recipe Swap!

Baked Potato Cakes

This is my second contribution to the Burwell General Store Recipe Swap. And it’s a very, very dusty recipe.  Lately I’ve been busy baking for various things, doing shows, keeping sane, and visiting with friends from out of town.  So I put this recipe off to the last minute, and when it (obviously) didn’t come out perfectly the first time, I just sorta shrugged and went on with my day.  I’m definitely a very dusty person in general right now :)

Not the best way to start out a post on “check out my recipe!”.  Keep reading, it all works out in a way, promise.  And next month I’ll have more time in my own kitchen to contribute something stellar.

Quick fill-in: Every month CM sends a group of about 30 bloggers / bakers / chefs a recipe from a charming old cookbook and we have to change at least 3 things about it and post our creations on the same day.  It is incredible to see the variety that comes from this swap – sweet things made into savory (and vice versa), gluten-free, health-conscious, fully-fatted.  Please support the other bloggers (and check out their responses to this swap) by going to Burwell General Store.

Honestly, I wish I had a bit more time with this recipe!  The recipe itself is rather simple – mashed potatoes are blended with donut basics and then fried to perfection.  But I’ve (a) been extremely busy (b) wanted to keep the donut idea of the recipe intact (c) LOVE making donuts (d) didn’t want to have to fry anything and (e) didn’t want to buy a donut pan.

The original recipe

So I found a recipe for donuts baked in muffin tins from Mrs. Field’s Secrets and hoped for the best in the procedure.  Now, mine did not come out as beautifully as the ones in their picture, which were smooth and perfect on top and light enough that they could be filled with jam.  And these neither look nor really taste like donuts (though I could see the original recipe working quite well).

But that doesn’t mean these aren’t tasty.

And as they’re made with (primarily) potato flour and contain NO dairy or oil, they’re not half bad for you.

Served with lemon curd

Last year a cooking buddy thrust the term “rustic” on me, and I now place that on most of my creations that are scrumptious but make me laugh when I look at them.  These are one such recipe.

I’d suggest serving these as a dinner side as they’re rather savory (they sort of remind me of a cornbread).  They’re really dense and chewy, slightly sweet and with a light and crusty top.  I had made some peach jam to pipe inside of them but they were so dense I couldn’t pipe it in!  So I slathered a bit of lemon curd on and they were even more tasty.

And, these are gluten and dairy FREE!  So there.

Here you go.  Baked Potato Cakes.  Swapped.

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup potato flour
  • 1/4 cup starch (I used tapioca, but arrowroot would work too)
  • 1 1/2 cup gluten free flour with xanthan gum
  • 1/2 extra tsp xanthan gum
  • 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1  cup unsweetened milk of choice (I used almond milk)

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly spray 12 muffin tins with cooking spray.
  • Beat eggs in mixer with paddle attachment until slightly frothy.
  • Add sugar and beat until smooth.
  • Slowly add in milk and beat to combine.
  • Add all dry ingredients and beat to combine.
  • Fill 2/3 way up in 12 greased muffin tins.
  • Bake for 18 minutes or until lightly brown on top.

The Little Red Velvet Riding Hood Cupcakes – Gluten and Dairy free!

Little Red Velvet Riding Hood Cupcakes

These cupcakes are amazing. I just wanted to start with that.  You can’t tell that they’re gluten AND dairy free.  My roommate’s eyes lit up when she took her first bite, and after her third she proclaimed it her favorite of my creations.  Even I am wowed by how good this cupcake is.  I can  confidently say this is the best gluten-free red velvet cupcake recipe.  AND the best dairy-free red velvet cupcake recipe.  There.  I said it.  But I should know.  I’ve eaten about 12 of these little guys.  Including two this morning, before breakfast.

Three things contributed as inspiration for the best gluten-free red velvet cupcake I have ever eaten.

Brainstorming first came when I online-met Kelli of Ingested Read.  I love her new blog, and her recipes are created for a specific book she’s pouring over.  I’m a big fan of this idea, and this blog.  So she opened up her site for guest-posts with Intercaketuality.  Brilliant.  I’m sending her a big high five across the pond.

I knew I wanted to make some sort of red-velvet cake.  In my gluten-free food crawl with a few friends I learned that the three bakeries in the city that boast gluten-free offerings disappointed our taste buds in the red-velvet department.  Either too dry or too moist, none contained that classic cocoa flavor.

A few months ago my cousin Daniella played Little Red Riding Hood in her high school production of Into the Woods and, as I predicted, was stellar, stealing the show.  In this musical version Little Red has a slight obsession with baked goods, eating all the bread and sweets she is supposed to take through the woods to granny.  Daniella herself is very allergic to dairy, so over the years we’ve commiserated at the dessert table as treats were passed around.

So when thinking about a new cake I wanted to work on, these three elements blended perfectly into The Little Red Velvet Riding Hood Cupcake!

But a few challenges arose when making this both gluten and dairy free.

First, how to replicate cake flour?  According to my interweb research, cake flour is distinctive because (a) it is very finely milled, (b) it contains a low amount of protein which develops gluten and (c) it has a higher amount of starch as a result.  So, how to make a gluten-free version of cake flour, which obviously lacks gluten to begin with?

Several sites including Gluten-Free Bay, WikiHow and Gluten Free Naturally Blog use the same ingredients in the same proportions.

  • 3 cups brown rice flour
  • 1 cup potato starch
  • 1/2 cup tapioca flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

I don’t really use potato starch, as it’s a nightshade and not good for people with arthritis and digestive issues, so instead I used arrowroot and crossed my fingers.  I also used 2 cups of brown rice flour and 1 of white rice flour, and sifted twice.  This worked wonderfully in the cake.  I’ll have it on hand from now on.

I then had to replace buttermilk with a non-dairy ingredient.  Normally I’d just use almond or soy milk, but as the consistency of buttermilk is a bit thicker and tangy, I had to improvise.  So I used tofutti sour cream and diluted it with unsweetened almond milk, then threw in a tablespoon of white vinegar.  It worked!

I can honestly say that this recipe is better than the two bakery ones we tried.  The cakes are that perfect combination of being both moist and crumbly – they’re not dry at all, so they won’t fall under the pressure of a fork.  The cocoa is definitely present, but in no way do they taste like chocolate.   And I cut back the sugar aspect by a half a cup and substituted with 1/8 a cup of light agave syrup.  I’m not at all a fan of using either of these things, but for experimentation purposes I had to go with it.

Vegan "cream cheese" frosting

For a frosting I whipped up a tofutti / Earth Balance spread from Mama Sophia’s Soul Kitchen.  It’s a very tasty recipe, tangy and sweet without being overpowering nor tasting like soy.  But as you can see in this picture, it’s more like a pretty, thick glaze.  It has a gorgeous sheen, but even when refrigerated overnight it was far too loose for piping.  So I glazed the minis with these and then found an incredibly light and fluffy vegan frosting that I whopped on the big guys.

Fluffy Vegan Frosting

The Little Red Velvet Riding Hood Cupcake

Notes: Make sure you have all your ingredients are room temperature or slightly warm.  Make sure your oven is properly heated.  Don’t over-mix the dough when you’re stirring in the last batch of dry ingredients.

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups gluten-free cake flour
  • 3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/8 cup light agave syrup
  • 1 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 2 large eggs at room temperature
  • 3/4 tsp. red gel/paste food coloring
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 rounded tablespoons Tofutti “sour cream” – at room temp
  • almond or soy milk (directions below)
  • 1 Tbsp plus 2 tsp distilled white vinegar, separated
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda.

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350º
  • Line 24 cupcake molds (I did an even 12 cupcakes and 24 minis)
  • Add Tofutti cream cheese to a liquid measuring cup and fill to just shy of one cup with almond or soy milk.  Whisk thoroughly with a fork until smooth.  Heat in microwave until warm but not hot.
  • Add 1 Tbsp white vinegar and stir in.
  • In a small bowl, whisk flour, cocoa and salt thoroughly.
  • In the bowl of a standing mixer, mix sugar, agave and oil thoroughly on medium speed until thoroughly combined.
  • Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well between additions.
  • Add vanilla and coloring and mix in.
  • Turn speed down to low.  Add the flour in three additions, alternating with 1/2 of the “buttermilk”.  Make sure to mix thoroughly between additions.
  • Mix baking soda and remaining 2 tsps vinegar until foamy.  Add and beat for 10 seconds or until incorporated.
  • Bake for 14 minutes (small) or 22 minutes (large), rotating pan halfway through.
  • Cool in pan for at least 5 minutes before removing to cool on a rack, or cool completely in pans.
  • Definitely cool completely before frosting.

These can be kept in a refrigerator for 3 days in an airtight container.  Bring them down to room temperature before serving.

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