Lemony Cranberry Almond Muffins

Cranberry Almond Muffins

We have company this weekend and I wanted to try a new muffin for breakfast.  I chose this recipe from PCC's latest monthly newsletter (PCC is a local Seattle-based food co-op).   The recipe is not gluten free so I made some adjustments.  They came out heavenly.

The recipe called for whole milk and whole milk yogurt and since I had either 2% or nonfat versions in my fridge, I added some shortening to the recipe and then held my breath to see if they came out ok.  They did!



I also used coconut palm sugar in place of the recipe's brown sugar. Here is what I did:

Cranberry almond muffins

1 1/2 cups Jules almost Normal Gluten Free Flour
2/3 cup corn meal
1/2 cup sugar

muffin batter

1/2 cup coconut palm sugar
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1  1/2 cups roughly chopped fresh cranberries
2/3 cup plain nonfat greek yogurt
1/2 cup or less coconut oil or other shortening
2/3 cup 2% milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 T lemon juice
1T lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sliced almonds (for garnish on top)

Preheat oven to 375° and line muffin tin with paper or silicone cups.

Whisk together dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, toss two teaspoons of dry mix over chopped cranberries.   Blend together wet ingredients, adding shortening or oil (I used a stand mixer for this part).  Add dry ingredient mix to wet mixture, then fold in cranberries.  Divide evenly between muffin cups and sprinkle almonds on top.

Bake in oven until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, 20-25 minutes.  Let muffins cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack.

Makes 14 muffins.
Karen, herself

Gluten Free Vanilla Pudding Cake with Lemon Filling

Vanilla Pudding Cake with Lemon Curd and Buttercream icing

I threw a bridal shower for a friend on Sunday.  The food was all gluten free and all delicious.  I made red pepper hummus as an appetizer and surrounded it with a variety of gluten free crackers.  I tossed some brown rice pasta with homemade pesto sauce and parmesan cheese (olives on the side), and I made a fresh corn and shrimp salad with a vinaigrette-like marinade.  Another friend brought a green salad and I added some cheeses to go with the crackers and hummus.  But the shining star of the party was the cake.

I wanted to make a white cake and put lemon curd in between the layers and finish it with a silky buttercream icing.  The thought was to make it like a wedding cake and decorate it with white pearl like sugar pebbles.  I decided to use XO Baking Company's gluten free white cake mix.  I have used it before.  It is one of the few white cake mixes out there that are gluten free.  Betty Crocker's mixes are great and taste like the real thing, but they only make a yellow cake mix.  I have used XO's mix before so decided on that one.  Everything I have tried from XO Baking Co. has been outstanding, by the way.

The only problem was that the only time I had used this mix before, I used it for a cake that had the mix as one of several ingredients, including instant pudding, extra eggs, and ginger ale instead of milk or water.  So, not wanting to try it without these extras, i chose a vanilla pudding mix and charged ahead.  It turned out great.  So moist and delicious.  The funny thing is, with all the eggs and the vanilla pudding mix, the cake turned out yellow in the end!  No need to have looked for a white cake mix!

The decoration was a combination of the sugar pearls and lemon gummy pandas as I could not find the larger white sugar pearls, only really tiny ones and I wasn't sure they would show up on the icing.





Vanilla Pudding Cake with Lemon Curd and Buttercream Icing
1 gluten free cake mix (white or yellow)
1   3 1/2 oz. pkg instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup ginger ale
1 tsp vanilla
1 jar prepared lemon curd
1 recipe buttercream icing

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two 8" cake pans.  Cut a round piece of parchment to fit in the bottom of each pan and grease the top.  Combine first 6 ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat well.  Pour into prepared pans and place them in the oven for 30-35 minutes.  Cake is done when tester comes out clean.  Cool in pans on a rack for 10-20 minutes, then run a knife around the edge, invert each pan and remove the cake onto the cooling rack.  Peel off the parchment paper.  Completely cool before frosting.

Place one layer on a cake plate.  Spread lemon curd on top.  Place second layer on top of first and spread icing over top and sides.  Decorate as desired.  Refrigerate overnight for the best flavor and moistness.  Bring to room temperature before serving to let the icing soften.

Buttercream Icing
1/2 cup shortening (I used Earth Balance Coconut Spread)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup scalded milk
2 cups powdered sugar
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla

Bring milk to boil twice.  Cool.  Cream butter and shortening together in a mixer.  Add milk and keep beating, add powdered sugar, then egg white.  Add vanilla last.  You may have to continue beating for awhile if you use the coconut spread.  It took a few minutes to thicken.

Elimination Diets and Almond Flour Pancakes

Almond Flour Pancakes with Maple Syrup

Yes, I know it has been a long time since I have posted.  I spent most of the Winter months going cold turkey off my migraine medication and doing an elimination diet (the Dr. Buchholz of "Heal your Headache" fame one).  The long story short of the thing is that it seems to have worked.  I tried it once before and gave up after about a week and a half, but this time I stuck it out the whole three months and never took an Amerge...or an Excedrin to stop a headache.  The first week was tough, the second tougher.  I chose to start it when my husband was out of town and I had no real work to do and could just hunker down and deal with the pain.  The caffeine withdrawal was bad, even though I tried to taper off gradually.  But after a few weeks I had fewer headaches and the ones I got were tolerable with Tylenol and aroma therapy.  I made my own oils and put them on my temples and my neck where I had stiffness.  It did help enough that I could watch tv or do something else mindless until the headache went away.

The weird thing is that after the three months ended, my migraine with aura headaches reappeared.  I did have to take Amerge a few times since the end of the elimination diet but I have not gone back to the every other day headache existence.

What did I do?  I eliminated caffeine, chocolate, alcohol (with a few exceptions), onions, citrus, anything fermented, lentils, and the whole list of things on Dr. Buchholz's list.  It was hard, especially giving up chocolate and yogurt.  When it was over, I went out and had a cup of strong coffee and a chocolate gluten free cupcake to celebrate.  I didn't feel very well afterward so I am back to being very careful with those two items.  Small amounts, not everyday.

In addition to the aroma therapy, I found that making myself exercise a little before breakfast helped to keep me from getting a headache, even if I kind of felt one coming on when I got up in the morning.  Since the elimination ended, I have been trying a few foods slowly.  Onion seem to be ok, although they and the coffee seem to be the cause of my heartburn.  Ginger in large amounts is not ok and I think that is what brought on one of my migraine with aura headaches.  I tried a detox ginger kale juice drink that made my head feel funny as soon as I drank it.  Never again.  Just say no to Kambucha too.  Same deal.

So anyway, I am pretty much ok now.  I have my life back again.  When I feel tempted to have a glass of wine while cooking, I just think of how horrible life used to be and I drink a big glass of water instead.  I save the wine for dinner and only once a week, if that.

This morning I tried a new recipe for gluten free pancakes with almond flour.  They were a bit tricky (wait longer than usual before flipping and be very careful) and they were too mushy, but ok if you want to try them.  Next time I make them I will use only half almond flour and use an all purpose GF flour as the other half.  The maple syrup helped the taste a lot.

Here are some photos of them in the works:

The recipe I found online at The Roasted Root

1 3/4 cups almond flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup almond milk

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, the eggs, almond milk and vanilla in another.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and combine.  Use about a quarter cup for each pancake (or less).  Makes 9 pancakes.

Enjoy.
Karen, herself

Gluten Free Piroshki

Piroshki with mushroom and rice filling

What are piroshki?  They are a baked pastry  that have a variety of fillings from jam (sweet version) to cabbage (savory version).  In Russian cuisine, they are a traditional accompaniment to soup.  When I was studying Russian in St. Petersburg (many, many years ago when the city was still called Leningrad) I used to have piroshki for breakfast in the university dining hall.  They had sweet ones filled with jam (my favorites), egg and rice filled ones,  and the cabbage filled ones.  I alternated between the egg and rice and jam filled.   The little old ladies who worked in the dining hall in Leningrad tried to get me to take the cabbage filled piroshki, but I wasn't having any of that.  A few years later I discovered this mushroom and rice filling recipe in The Best of Bon Appetit, published in 1979.  The full pastry recipe is quite large and the book has three different filling recipes.  I have tried two of the three, the mushroom and rice, and the smoked salmon and kasha.  There is also a cabbage filling that I have not yet tried.  I seem to steer clear of cabbage-filled piroshki, but I bet they are good too, just not for breakfast! 

 I used to make piroshki as an appetizer at parties but haven't tried making them since going gluten free.  I figured if I could make pirogi gluten free than why not piroshki, right?  Right.  I cut the pastry recipe down to one third and substituted Jules Gluten Free All Purpose Flour for the flour, but left the recipe alone after that.  The dough is very short and a bit difficult to work with, but they still turned out great.  I made them all the day before my dinner party and reheated them in a convection/microwave oven at 350° for ten minutes before serving.  Here is the recipe:

Gluten Free Piroshki

(makes 20-24)

1 stick butter, room temperature

4 oz. cream cheese

2 T whipping cream

1 1/4 cups Jules GF All Purpose Flour

1/2 tsp. salt

Mushroom and Rice Filling

2 T butter

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1 large garlic clove, minced

1/4 lb mushrooms, finely chopped

salt and pepper

1/2 cup cooked rice

1 T chopped parsley

Cream the butter and cream cheese together in a large bowl using a stand mixer.  Beat in cream, then mix in flour and salt.  Form into a ball, place in a zip loc bag, flatten into a disc and seal.  Chill.

Melt butter in skillet over medium heat .  Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is soft but not brown.  Stir in mushrooms and add salt and pepper to taste.  Increase heat to high and cook until all moisture is absorbed. Remove from heat, add rice and parsley.

Preheat oven to 400°

Grease baking sheet or line with silpat.  Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface to 1/8" thickness. Using a 3" round biscuit or cookie cutter, stamp out rounds.  Place 1 tsp of filling in the center of each round and brush edges with beaten egg.  Fold in half and pinch edges to close.  Place on baking sheet and make small slash with knife in each to allow steam to escape.  Brush again with egg.  Bake 15-18 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.  Serve warm.

—adapted from The Best of Bon Appetit, The Knapp Press, New York, 1979.  pp. 16-17.

Enjoy!

Karen, herself

Gluten Free Syrniki (Сырники) Russian Cheese Cakes

Just got back from a trip to Moscow where we had these wonderful little cheese cakes at the breakfast buffet at the Moscow Marriott Tverskaya.  I was doing a gluten challenge at the time, but have gone back to my gluten-free life since returning.  More about that later...

We loved the cheese cakes so much that I found a recipe online and made them this morning with Jules' All Purpose Gluten Free flour.  They tasted just like the ones we had in Moscow.  It's like having cheesecake for breakfast.  You serve them with powdered sugar and sour cream.  The cheese inside is slightly sweetened tvorog ( a soft cheese like Farmer's Cheese).  You can get the real thing at international markets.  The one I used was salt-free and unsweetened.  I added sugar to make the cakes.  Recipe follows.  The name Syrniki comes from the Russian word for cheese "Syr' (Сырь)".

Syrniki

500 g Tvorog or Farmer's Cheese
3 egg yolks or two whole eggs
4-5 Tablespoons sugar (to taste, I used 4 T and a pinch more)
1 tsp vanilla (original recipe called for 1 tsp vanilla sugar)
100 g flour ( I used an all-purpose gluten free flour)
mixture of Canola oil and butter (about a tsp of each for frying)
pinch of salt

Stir the cheese well with a fork or use a blender or stand mixer.  Add the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt and mix.  Sift the flour and add to the mixture and mix again.  WIth a spoon dipped in water, spoon out tablespoons of dough, roll them in flour and form into patties.  Heat oil and butter in a non-stick skillet and add syrniki when oil/butter starts to bubble.  Cook over medium heat until browned on both sides.  Remove and place on a platter.  Serve with powdered sugar and sour cream.

Enjoy!
Karen, herself

Gluten Free Toll House Cookie Trial

First off, I have to confess that I haven't blogged in awhile because I have either been too busy unpacking, working, or trying to stay away from gluten-free goodies.  The chaos of our move and downsizing had the effect of putting the weight back on I lost after my jaw surgery.  But over Memorial Weekend I had the worst chocolate craving and I happened to have a package of Nestlé's Chocolate Morsels in the pantry.  I decided to try making the Toll House Cookie recipe with Jules' GF flour.  After all, I have substituted her flour in all my other baked goods without a hitch.  Until now.  Gluten free disaster.  Well, not total disaster.  The taste was heavenly.  It was a disaster in every other sense.

First of all, they spread until there wasn't any definition between them, just a cookie sheet of massive, thin, crumbling, soft mess.  Maybe I put too much dough on the sheet per cookie.  Maybe we didn't wait long enough to try one (and had to peel them off the cookie sheet as they fell apart).  Maybe it was the silpat (so I tried some on an ungreased sheet like the directions said (big head slap here!).  No difference.  Bottom line is that after they completely cooled, they weren't too bad, except for the crumbling.  But I am still disappointed. Jules! I had so much faith in you.  What happened?

Anyone else had this experience?  I did some quick perusal of the topic on Google and found that other people bumped up the flour by a half cup in the recipe to get it right.  Maybe that's it.  Or maybe I should just go back to making the oatmeal-teff chocolate chip cookies that always turn out well.  They still made a great photo.  Love my Nikon D5000.

Karen, herself

Red Robin Serves Udi's Gluten-Free Bun

Hamburger on Udi's Whole Grain GF Bun

The hamburger chain Red Robin has been a favorite of mine for years.  They are one of the big chain restaurants that have a gluten-free menu.  It is not so much a special menu as a road map of how to eat there without consuming gluten.  They cook their fries in a dedicated fryer, so no cross-contamination.  Reason enough to give it a try.

Before going gluten-free I loved their salads with the crispy tortilla strips on top.  Since going gluten-free my go-to menu choice has been the lettuce wrapped burger.  It comes with a salad with balsamic dressing.  Lately, my "gluten anger" mood (being angry because I can't eat what I want) drove me to substitute seasoning-free fries instead of the salad.  Also, I can't really chew lettuce well right now since my jaw surgery, so giving in to the fries was more of a survival thing.  A girl's gotta eat some carbs, right?

Anyway, to my great surprise, the last time we were there the server asked if I wanted a gluten-free bun with my burger.  I was so shocked that I was speechless for a moment.  The funny thing is that I didn't really want the bun.  I have been trying to lose weight and with my jaws still unable to bite into a hamburger with bun, it was better to choose the lettuce wrap with fries.  But, I could not resist trying the bun and I always try to encourage stores and restaurants that make the effort to provide as normal an eating experience as possible for the gluten-free.  So I ordered the hamburger on the GF bun. I could have nixed the fries to keep my carb count down, but what fun is that?  I had to cut the burger with bun into small pieces to chew it, but it was good. It was darn good.  It was also somehow familiar.  When I got home I did some research online and discovered that it was an Udi's Whole Grain Gluten-Free Bun.  Needless to say, Red Robin is still one of my favorite lunch spots. And a big thanks to Udi's, while we're at it.

Karen, herself