Jello Cookies!

I did it!

I reinvented the Jello cookie! :D

So, before you ask, my mother used to make me Jello cookies every year for xmas. I love them. Like genuinely.

I hadn't had them in 20 years until last night. 

:D

before you start: these need a cookie press. I love mine. They're expensive, you can make cheese straws with them, and they're fun. :D This is the one I have: http://www.lnt.com/product/cookie-presses/171318-450/kuhn-rikon-kuhn-rikon-clear-barrel-cookie-press-with-storage-case-2461-cbl.html?utm_source=googleproductads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={keyword}

Preheat your oven to 375.

Sift together in a bowl:

4 c. all-purpose gluten free flour

2 1/2  t. xantham gum

1/2 t. salt

2 t. baking powder

Then, using a mixer, blend

1 1/2 c. butter

1 c. sugar

1 3 oz package of regular Jello (I used cranberry)

Once that's light and fluffy add:

2 eggs, one at a time

then 

2 t. vanilla and

1/2 c. heavy cream

Add your flour mixture slowly. When this is done, the texture is very much like really well played with PlayDoh. No, really.

Now use your cookie press and make cookies.

Now, let me tell you. Cookie presses take a little patience.

Patience, and a cold, ungreased cookie sheet.

If the cookies won't stick, wet your dough with a little more water. Try pressing harder. Try wiping off your cookie sheet with a paper towel. It's a process.

You cook these babies at 375 for 10 minutes. Take them off the pan immediately and onto a rack to cool.

They're yummy. Trust me.

Here they are with my spritz cookies (that recipe is for tomorrow). 

Sourdough Starter

So, I decided to start making my own bread again. It's an on-again off-again thing with me. I love the smell and taste of fresh bread and I love the cost (versus $8 a loaf pre-made), but you have to, especially with sourdough. Still, it's the holidays and I love baking and I loved my old sourdough recipe.

So, how did I do it?

First I started it. 1 cup of water, 1 cup of rice flour, 2 1/2 t. of yeast and stir before covering with a tea towel. If you don't like using the yeast, you can wild start with a couple of purple cabbage leaves and a few strips of apple peel, but I didn't have any cabbage. :P

Stir every 12 hours or so for 3 days, then you feed her.

1/2 c water and 1/2 c rice flour.

If you're going to use your starter, feed it at least 4 hours before cooking. 

That's it. Feed it daily. If you cook with it, you don't have to discard. If you don't cook, discard as much as you feed. :D

Simple simple. :D

Today, I used my starter to make sandwich bread, using the recipe from Gluten-Free on a Shoestring (which, if you don't have it? Totally worth the money).

Lemon Pound Cake

Here's my quick, weekday, not diet friendly lemon poundcake.

1 vanilla gf cake mix (I like Pamela's)

4 eggs

12 T. cold butter, cut into chunks

1/3 c. water

2 t. oil of lemon (or 2 T. lemon juice)

Zest of one lemon

Put your ingredients in a mixing bowl and whir on low for 30 seconds (the butter will still be lumpy, but the cake mix should be all moist). Bake in a loaf pan at 350 for 60-65 minutes.

I like to glaze mine with a mixture of powdered sugar, lemon juice and rum, but that's just me. :D

 

Peanut Butter Cookies of Joy!

So, I love peanut butter cookies.

Love them.

I have tested a dozen recipes, played and poked, cooked and tested and I finally figured it out.

My peanut butter cookies.

:D

Maybe they're not going to be your favorites, but they taste like my mom's, so I'm going with it.

Ingredients:

1 c. peanut butter

1 c. sugar

1 egg

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/4 c. chopped peanuts (optional)

Plop everything in a bowl. Stir. Bake in 2T scoops on parchment paper at 350 for 25 minutes. Makes 15.

Ta.

Da.

Also? Yay!

Texas Sheet Cake

So, I wanted to make Texas Sheet Cake. So, I pulled out my old recipe and got to playing. This version was very very dense and fudgy -- I'm going to add my suggestions for a lighter, cakier cake in parentheses, just in case you want to try them out. Also, I'm going to experiment with putting the recipe first, then the photos. That way you can just print page one.

Ingredients:

2 c. AP gf flour

2 t. Xantham gum (I would add 1 more teaspoon for cakey-cake)

2 c. sugar

1 t. baking soda

(1/2 t. baking powder for cakey-cake)

1/4 t. salt

1 c butter

1/3 c. cocoa

1 c. water

2 eggs

1/2 c. buttermilk (or sour milk or 1 T. vinegar and soy/almond/coconut milk to make 1/2 c)

1 1/2 t. vanilla

For frosting:

1/4 c. butter

3 T cocoa

3 T. buttermilk

2 1/4 c. sifted powdered sugar

1/2 t. vanilla

1/2 c. pecans

Directions:

Spray a 9x13 pan. Get your oven going to 350.

Mix your flour, xantham gum, sugar, baking soda (and powder), and salt in a big bowl.

Mix your butter, cocoa, and a cup of water in a saucepan. Stir constantly over medium heat and bring it to a boil. Remove from heat. Mix your wet into your dry with a mixer. Add eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and beat for a minute.

Pour your batter into your pan and cook for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make your frosting: mix your butter, cocoa and buttermilk in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat  and beat in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add your pecans.

Pour your hot frosting over the warm cake. :D :D

The Best GF Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER!

No, really. These are exactly what chocolate chip cookies used to be. :D

Ingredients:

2/3 c. melted butter

1 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. cane sugar

2 eggs

1 T. vanilla

2 1/4 c. all purpose gf flour

1 t. salt

1 t. xantham gum

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. baking powder

1 bag chocolate chips

1 c. pecans (optional)

Preheat your oven to 375

Put your dry ingredients in one bowl.

Cream your butter and sugars.

Add eggs and vanilla.

Dry stuff into the wet stuff.

Now, the chips and nuts!

Tada!

I use a 2 tablespoon scoop on baking sheets with parchment paper. This makes a lot of cookies. :D (Like 24). You bake them for 14-18 minutes, depending on humidity, etc.

Pretty cookies!

Here's the best part. We cook up a few, then freeze the rest in an ice cube tray. Once they're frozen, we pop them out and store in a freezer bag. You cook them in the toaster oven just like any freezer cookie. (Or chop it up and add to ice cream for cookie dough ice cream)

:D

Penuche Frosting

As promised! Almost impossible to screw up penuche frosting. I have done everything wrong to this recipe that you can do and it comes out. Yay!

Penuche Frosting

1/2 c. butter (or Earth Balance)

1/2 c. light brown sugar

1/2 c. dark brown sugar

1/4 c. cream (or coconut milk)

pinch of salt

2 t. vanilla

2 c. powdered sugar

Melt your butter, then stir in brown sugars and bring to a boil over med. heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring all the while.

Stir in cream and salt and bring back to a boil, still stirring. Then remove the pan from the heat and let cool to lukewarm. Now add vanilla.

Pop your goo in the mixer and slowly add your confectioners sugar. Try not to overbeat. If you get too thick, thin with hot water. If it's too thin, more sugar.

Ta Da. :D

Quick, Easy Salted Caramel Sauce

This is our go-to caramel sauce that we keep in the fridge. Simple, easy, and it keeps for 2+ weeks.

Ingredients:

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. light brown sugar

1/4 c. water

3/4 c. cream

3 1/2 T. butter

1 t. salt

Put your sugars and water together over low heat and bring to a boil, whisking every now and again.

When the boiling starts, stop stirring and let it boil for 6 minutes. Don't touch it.

When your 6 minutes is up, take off the heat, and stir in the cream.

Then add your butter.

And salt.

Put in a container and cool, then pop in the fridge. Ta da! Caramel sauce!

Weekday Nummy Turtle Cupcakes, Part 1

Okay, so today we were cleaning out the pantry and found a gf chocolate cake mix.

Now, let me be upfront, I'm trying to use let 'packaged' products in my life and I love exploring and doing from scratch recipes, but let's be honest. I have a life, hormones, and the periodic need for a quick cupcake that tastes like sin. My go-to almond flour chocolate espresso cake is grand, but doesn't lend itself to cupcakes.

So we looked in the fridge.

We had cream, pecans, some salted caramel sauce (part 2 will be how to make salted caramel sauce to keep in the fridge because OMG, you never know when in the month you might need caramel on hand.

So, make your cake batter according to the recipe. Mine took 3 eggs, a stick of melted butter, and a cup of water.

Then, if you're me, eject your beaters into your batter. *sigh*

Cook as per instructions. (this one is easy to type out)

Now, let them cool for just a few minutes and poke nice sized holes in the top with a chopstick.

Pour in slightly warmed up salted caramel in the holes. (And by slightly, say, 10 seconds in the microwave?)

This is what they look like filled.

Then, make penuche frosting and sprinkle with pecans  (penuche frosting will be part 3)

TA DA!

Look at the numniness...

These are absolutely delicious. I mean, like I Bought Them At A Bakery delicious.

:D

All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour, a GF Pasta review, and a Strawberry Cupcake Recipe Review

Ack.

APGF Flour.

It's maddening. It's expensive. It's a little tricky, but the good news is, it's getting better all the time.

;-)

The deal with gf flour is that you can't use just one flour to replace wheat flour. From what I can figure, you need at least three types of flour to replace wheat flour and even then, you have to sort of juggle.

For instance, garbanzo bean flour is great, but I find it *incredibly* beany. In some recipes, that rocks. In some... not so much. Some rice flour blends are too delicate for breads. Some blends need the 'teeth' of teff. Some need the lift of tapioca.

*shrugs*

All that said, I have 3 go-to flours that I tend to use:

Store-bought: I prefer Bob's Red Mill AP flour. I like the texture, I like the price (comparatively), and I like the taste. It is made with bean flours, so if you have a sensitivity or a distaste for beans, you might try Pamela's. Lots of people like it; I just don't think it tastes as good.

Quick-and-dirty (OMG, I'm out of the good stuff and Bobs and the stores are closed and I promised the yoga teacher I'd bring cupcakes): equal parts sorghum flours, tapioca flour, and brown rice flour.

The good stuff: This is for Gee, I'm trying something for a dinner party or Someone Not Gluten Free is Coming baking. 1 1/2 c. brown rice flour, 2/3 c. sorghum flour, 2/3 c. cornstarch, 1/4 c. potato starch, 1 heaping tablespoon tapioca flour, 1 t. xantham gum.  (makes 3ish cups)

Now, I use almond flour a *lot* -- I love the texture and flavor. I'm a huge fan of tapioca flour. I use buckwheat flour for crepes. I'm currently experimenting with coconut flour and how to lighten its texture. :D But those are for speciality recipes.

For a great GF 101 tutorial, I love Gluten Free Mommy's: http://glutenfreemommy.com/gluten-free-grains-101-the-best-flour-blend/

***

A quick pasta review -- Tinkyada Penne.

Made baked pasta tonight -- Tinkyada was absolutely stunning. Firm, it held up to both boiling and baking. I couldn't be happier. No one would know this was gf. We boiled the pasta for 5 minutes, added sauce and parmesan. Baked covered tightly for 45 minutes and then finished off uncovered for 10.

This ROCKED.

***

For my birthday yesterday we tried the strawberry cupcake recipe from Elena Amsterdam's Gluten-Free Cupcakes.

It wasn't bad. Coconut flour-based, they were a lot heavier than I'd expect and wet. Also, I think I'd cut the strawberries up a little finer. I think next time I'll whip the egg whites separately from the yolks and *really* macerate the strawberries and see if I don't like the results a little more.

***

Look for homemade ricotta on Thursday, and then we're trying gf cannolis on Saturday. Next week, look for homemade gorditas. :D

Happy week, y'all. Much love.

S.