GF Baking Bonanza: cookies and crisps and pound cakes, oh my!

For some reason, this week I was seized by the urge to bake. I have not really baked anything in about 5 years or more, so this was both pleasurable and novel. Having recently been given a copy of the NYC Babycakes cookbook from sis-in-law Megan, I may have been inspired by the glossy pages of too-good-looking-to-be-true baked goodies. I began stocking the larder with the ingredients required for some of those recipes, but also turned to my recipe collection for some treats which could probably translate well to a GF adaptation, emboldened by my earlier success with the pumpkin muffins.

I have not yet ended up baking anything from Babycakes cookbook, largely because I have not yet found a good local source for coconut oil, which is the stand in for butter in virtually all the recipes I'm interested in trying. So to the recipe book it was.

I actually have two recipe 'books', which are blue binders of clippings of all types of vegetarian recipes from the past 15 years or so. Needless to say, the 'dessert' book has not seen too much use so it was that one I hauled down to examine. I zeroed in on a few things to make: amaretti crisps, almond pound cake (yes, I have a major thing for almonds), sesame cookies and lemon pound cake. In all cases I substituted flour one-for-one with Bob's Red Mill GF Baking Flour plus a pinch of Xanthan Gum. I was able to find the links for these online and have included ghem below.

Here's what happened:

Almond Polenta Pound Cake
Almonds and corn, two of my favorite substances, together in a delicious baked confection? Bring it on! I eyed this recipe hopefully because it already had corn as an ingredient, and not too much flour. So, I got ready to make it, when I looked more carefully at the Almond Paste I'd picked up at Whole Foods....wheat paste? You've got to be kidding me! AAAUGH! I did not look at the ingredients before leaving the store and had to return the little log of almond paste because it most definitely contained gluten, bummer. (Apparently not all brands are made with gluten so read carefully, you may be in luck.)

So before I could proceed with the Almond Pound Cake, I had to detour and figure out the almond paste situation. I found a recipe online and it seems to have worked out well.

But first, a side trip for Almond Paste
I got the blanched almonds, egg white, confectioner's sugar and almond extract together, and the almond paste went together in a snap in the big food processor. I still have more to make something else with. I don't know if it's any more economical than buying almond paste, but a lot safer in that you know what is in it and where the ingredients came from!

now, back to the Almond Polenta Pound Cake
OK, I will confess that the recipe and putting-together of this cake was overly complex. Why so many separate bowls/piles of ingredients? Why not the simplicity of the Lemon Pound Cake? At any rate, I persisted. The first surprise was that there was way more batter than to fill a 9x5 pan (I filled two 8x4s). The big disappointment was that all the polenta sank to the bottom of the cake as it baked, so we were left with something in three layers - a cakelike fluffy top layer, a dense middle layer (where most of the almond paste stuck?) and a grainy bottom layer where the polenta went to live. Sigh. I was slightly crushed, I really wanted this one to work out. I may try it again as the flavor itself was good though. No photo of this one sorry.

Amaretti Crisps
Again with the almonds! This cookie is an italian classic. It starts out quite like the almond paste recipe, except that the almonds and confectioner's sugar are folded into beaten egg whites (rather than the unaltered egg white). I was most pleased with how these came out. I might experiment next time with a slightly lower oven temp, as they got a tad browner than I might ideally like. Chris liked these too. (NB: I did not pipe the cookies, but just dropped them from a spoon. That seemed to work OK but piping might be more elegant.) Bonus? These are easy and quick to put together (seemed to work well to toast the sesame seeds ahead of time, I whirred those together with the sugar one evening and then actually made the cookies the following morning).


Sesame Cookies
I like sesame a lot too, and had never gotten around to trying the non GF version of this recipe. I figured I'd give it a go as it had only one cup of flour in the recipe. The results were OK - the Amaretti Crisps were way better, but these were still good enough to eat. They ended up being rather doughy instead of crisp. Part of this I solved by making the cookies smaller in the later baking batches, but still, a reasonable experiment that won't be repeated. No photo of these.

Lemon Pound Cake
Finally, a real winner in the cake department after the disappointment of the Almond Polenta pound cake. This made a lovely light batter and a very tasty cake. We even brought it to brunch at our friends' house, they asked to keep the leftover pieces, they liked it so much. Delicious as a snack or with coffee. The real specialness of this cake and the POW lemon flavor comes from the glaze which is drizzed all over the cake top after it comes out of the oven. Yum. Oh - notwithstanding the notice about not rising, I found that my cake did.



What's next? Possibly a reprise of the Almond Polenta Pound cake, definitely a foray to french almond macaroons...stay tuned...

ChurchKey

We enjoyed an impromptu visit from our friend Heather this past weekend. We thought she would just be staying with us for an afternoon visit, but after consulting the Amtrak schedule, she opted for a morning train instead, and we got to enjoy her company over dinner. Chris suggested that we check out the new gastropub in the hood, ChurchKey.

I'm always game to go out for a bite, and have gotten used to toughing it out, GF-culinary-wise, at places where I can eat only a green salad. I anticipated ChurchKey was going to be one of these as we scanned the online menu at home. Brewpubs are not always known to be friendly to celiacs. Nonetheless, off we went.

The interior space (upstairs) is quite nicely done, with a feature point of a large window with lovely late afternoon light streaming in. We sat and scanned the menu. Heather could tell I was bracing myself for a salad kind of a meal, when all of a sudden, we spied something we hadn't seen online (turns out we did not read carefully enough!): "the above flatbreads can be made gluten free"! No way! Our nice server explained that there was a chickpea crust option. I ordered the grafton cheddar & broccoli flatbread, cheerfully ponying up the extra $2 for the GF option, and washed it down with a hard cider by Harpoon. How cool is that??

Everyone else fared well too. My dining companions liked their non-GF flatbreads (Heather actually preferred the flavor of the chickpea crust to her version) and quaffed some fine crafted brews. We heart this place and will definitely return.

So, ChurchKey is friendly, for GF and non-GF alike. I should also mention I saw 4 GF beers on the list when we were there, so you won't be thirsty if you have a yen for a brew. Sorry to not write more about it - I'm not a beer fan myself so I was happy to try one of 5-6 ciders on the menu.

ChurchKey DC website and their menu available online.

GF pumpkin muffins (cupcakes)

My neighbor recently knocked and asked to borrow some vanilla - she was baking something with friends. We gave her the vanilla and were pleasantly surprised a little later when she knocked again with the finished treat - pumpkin cupcakes. They were cute and smelled good, and were full of gluten. Chris enjoyed them. I enjoyed looking at them.

But I got the fever.

I went hunting for a pumpkin muffin recipe and made a shopping trip, stopping at Home Rule for a muffin pan and paper liners, then Whole Foods for Libby pumpkin mix (naturally gluten free proclaimed the label) and a few other necessities.

I made the recipe pretty much as directed, reducing the sugar to 1 cup (I was planning on making a frosting), putting in the whole 15 oz can of pumpkin, and omitting the cinnamon/sugar topping. I used Bob's Red Mill GF Flour one-for-one in place of regular flour. Finding I was out of pumpkin pie spice (and so was Whole Foods), I found a handy substitution engine for it on the Land O'Lakes website.

Baking, cooling...testing, icing...the result? Quite yummy I must say. I got an unsolicited and sincere "hey this is good" from Chris. I enjoyed both iced and non iced versions. They are moist and light; delicious without icing or with.


The icing is a simple confectioner's sugar, vanilla, dot of butter, milk deal. Tinker until you have the consistency you want.

Go forth and make these. Enjoy. Repeat!


Recipe here:
http://muffintop.wordpress.com/2006/11/03/pumpkin-muffins/

Pumpkin carving courtesy of Chris.

Made from scratch GF banana bread

I like bananas, but to eat them as they come, I'll admit that they have to be the perfect ripeness: not so green as to be chalky and not so ripe they become adorned with brown spots. Once that happens, I will shy away from bananas in the fruit bowl. And watch them get riper and riper (ah, ickier and ickier).

One day, my husband saw opportunity where I had carefully avoided looking (4 very overripe bananas!) and made me banana bread. I don't know why, but banana bread was never something I ate a lot, or would go out of my way to, even before my diagnosis. Needless to say, after this encounter I was drawn to its charms. See above; how could I not be?

The moistness of the bread is well suited to a GF friendly version, because gluten does not play a central role in its composition anyway. Chris found the recipe at Simply Recipes and substituted Bob's Red Mill all purpose GF flour for the regular flour in the original recipe. I think that when he made it last he had more bananas than were called for and deceased the sugar a but. We also decided that in the future we might try substituting applesauce for some of the butter. For the vanilla we use is from Penzey's.

A disappointing mix

We had a horrendous run-in with a prepackaged GF product from Whole Foods. The mists of time had fogged my memory of just how bad this stuff was and how it should be avoided at all costs. Now I know - and so do you! Below is the rant I sent to the Whole Foods customer service email. We'll see if I get a reply.

365 brand Gluten Free pizza mix

This is a very disappointing product. For starters, the directions are convoluted, overspecific and do not resemble any other pizza crust dough directions I know (GF or otherwise). Why beat the eggs 3 minutes? Why not put the yeast in the lukewarm water with the sugar? I could not discern any benefit from following the directions as written - too many steps. The directions should be modified to should just combine the dry ingredients then mix in the wet.

The dough, once you make it, completely unworkable because it is sticky beyond belief. The directions should at least warn of this, and provide some means or suggestions to handle the dough. It cannot be kneaded or really touched. The only way I could cope with it was to heavily oil my fingers/utensil to move it around - not good.

The result, when baked, hardly resembles pizza dough. At best, it could be said to resemble focaccia. The mix makes a crust which is flavorless and pouffy. At least it does not have a grainy mouthfeel, but that is its only positive factor.

I expected way better, Whole Foods, particularly as the frozen 365 gluten free pizza prepared crusts are fairly decent!

GF cereal option

It must be said that in the past four years I've really become a hot breakfast person. Earlier in life I was much enamored of cereals, but I eventually found that eating eggs in the morning kept me going longer, plus when diagnosed with celiac many of the egg accompaniments (and eggs themselves) are best enjoyed hot: potatoes, grits, GF toast, etc.

However, fast forward to this fall and trying to figure out how to feed myself in the morning whilst caring for a newborn! So I perused the local grocery aisle, looking vainly (at first) for a good GF cereal that was not a ginormous bag of corn flakes! Also, there are a number of wheat free cereals on the market that aren't gluten free...so those aren't an option for me either.

After some lurking and looking, I found this nice little box of Perky's Nutty Rice cereal. As promised, it does stay satisfyingly crisp to the end of the bowl. It reminds me of Rice Krispies, except this is a better, denser, more adult kind of version.

Check it out!

Perky's Nutty Rice cereal

http://www.perkysnaturalfoods.com/nuttycereals.asp

NY Times article on the cost of GF foods

Sent from my friend Elaine in NYC. Unfortunately, so true as those of us with the disease know. $5 for a bag of pasta? Yep.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/the-high-price-of-celiac-disease/