Gluten Free Fruit Cobbler

This summer we were invited to a friend's block party and of course I offered to bring a dessert, partly to make sure there was a gluten free dessert for me to eat, and obviously because I love to bake.  Bonnie told me it was a southern theme so I was inspired by a peach cobbler recipe I found using bourbon.  I quickly converted the recipe, and set to work.  It uses a ton of butter and tastes fabulously velvety and moist, also I traded the granulated sugar for brown sugar giving it a more caramel taste.

I recently made an apple version of the same cobbler recipe, since my husband was unable to eat the peach cobbler (he is allergic to peaches, I'd rather have celiac).  The cinnamon, brown sugar, and bourbon made the apples amazing!  We also happened to have some caramel ice cream in the freezer that day, ohhhh my goodness!  If I had been home alone I would have dumped out the container of ice cream over the entire pan of cobbler and eaten all of it by myself.  I should also note that I ate a huge portion of it for breakfast one morning and it was delicious!!

Bourbon Fruit Cobbler

Fruit Compote

1/4   Cup of Butter
6-8   Cups of Fruit or Berries
1/4   Cup Bourbon (there is a special place in my heart for Jack Daniels)
1/4   Cup Brown Sugar
2      Tbs Cornstarch
1      tsp ground Cinnamon

Melt Butter in large sauce pan, add Fruit, Bourbon and Brown Sugar,  allow to warm through and sugar to dissolve, add in Cornstarch and Cinnamon.  Simmer on low heat until juice thickens, then transfer to a large casserole pan, set aside and begin work on the delicious biscuit topping.

Cobbler Breading

1/4   Cup Soy Flour
1/4   Sweet Rice Flour
1/2   Cup Brown Rice Flour
1/2   Cup Tapioca Starch
1/2   tsp Xanthum Gum
2      tsp Baking Powder
1/2   Cup Brown Sugar
1/2   tsp Kosher Salt
1 1/2  Sticks cold Butter
3/4   Cup Whole Milk

Blend flours, xanthum gum, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Cut  in Butter into small pieces and add to flour mix, using a pastry cutter or fork, blend together until butter and flours resembles pea gravel.  Pour in milk and mix until dough comes together, should be very wet and sticky.  Drop dough over pan of fruit by the tablespoon full.  This doesn't have to look pretty, gaps are fine, the dough will rise and puff together.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake in a 375 degree (F) oven for 40-45 min.  Serve warm with vanilla or caramel ice cream.


A big Thank you to Bonnie this summer for inspiring me to find this recipe because now we have another delicious dessert to bring to dinner parties with us.  I can't wait to try all sorts of other yummy fruits in this, maybe next summer we will try some sort of mixed berry application.

Gluten Free Grilled Pizza

You may have noticed I love to eat pizza, I think I must be making up for all the pizza I missed growing up, which was a lot.  Needless to say I have a good amount of catching up to do.  This weekend at our friends the Lockhart's house, Walt mentioned they had seen gluten free frozen pizza dough at the store and if he had time he would have made grilled pizza for us.  I realized I had that exact dough in the freezer and had been waiting to use it, for what I don't know, but now I knew.  Walt explained the basic details of how-to for grilling a pizza while my husband and I both started thinking, me about the ingredients I had in the house and what I would need to add to the grocery list to make this work.  And Tim was thinking about how to make all this happen, tools, grill temperature and such.  

Upon arriving home, I opened the freezer to find it was a package of Gillian's Foods Frozen Pizza crust, the instructions were pretty simple, defrost in the fridge over night and roll out on a floured surface.  Seemed pretty simple to me, and with Walt's instructions and the back up of a few online recipes we were ready to go.  I had picked up some mozzarella at the store to go with the tomato paste and pepperoni slices I had waiting in the fridge, we figured keep the toppings simple on the first time through the process to decrease the chance of failure.  

I used a mixture of cornmeal and tapioca starch to kneed and roll out the dough on my tupperware pastry mat (I love that thing!)  We transferred the dough to a cookie sheet for transport to the grill, and prepped cheese and pepperoni.  I put a few tablespoons worth of tomato paste into a bowl for Tim to season as he saw fit, I can tell you salt, pepper, dried oregano and dried basil went into it.  Tim grabbed his heavy duty griddle to use on the grill so that we wouldn't end up with a fire scorched slab of dough.  He used olive oil to grease the griddle before we put the dough on, and let it heat through until it started to bubble up.  At that point he oiled the uncooked side and we flipped the dough, which came out gorgeous!  Beautiful grill marks and it just looked crispy.  We then got to work spreading a thin coating of the tomato paste over the entire dough and I quickly placed the cheese and pepperoni on top.  After that Tim closed the lid on the grill to allow the toppings to heat up and melt a bit.  It was probably all of 10 minutes from the time it went on the grill to the time it came off, including oiling, and flipping.  

It was DELICIOUS!  The crust was perfectly crunchy and tender at the same time.  As I said earlier, the toppings were simple and reliable, nothing terribly notable there.  But the crust was fantastic, the grill was a perfect was to heat this up nicely, no more oven for us.  I may even forgo a few of my take out pizzas to have more grilled pizzas.  Now we just have to dream up some more exotic toppings for our next attempt.  Which if my pizza appetite continues it won't be long now.  I just have to remember where I got that crust from.....hmmmm.....  I'll let you know when I find it again.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bars

Fall has been trying to arrive here in NY, for the last couple of weeks, today was not it's best attempt.  But there has been a gladware of pumpkin in my freezer for a while now calling to me, and there is only one great way to start off my pumpkin baking season, PUMPKIN BARS!!!

I started baking them in college, for my roommates, and then for my coworkers in the Athletic Training room.  They were an instant hit, and never lasted more than 15 minutes when set down and uncovered.  I still receive requests for them, or the recipe.  For some reason I can't bring myself to make them during the spring or summer, so I wait for the fall to arrive, the temperatures to drop and the true craving for pumpkin products to surface.

I really love this recipe because it is moist and delicious and lends itself well to the use of gluten free flours.  It uses cinnamon and cloves to give it a little kick of spice, with the cream cheese frosting  I think these are darn near divine!  But that is just my little humble opinion.

Tonight we went to our wonderful friends the Lockhart's for dinner so I offered to make dessert, knowing I had frozen pumpkin and a brick of cream cheese in the house.  Being very inspired I dug out the two recipes and got to work.  I did have a little trouble with the cream cheese frosting, which I assume was because I used low fat cream cheese.  I'll have to experiment with that again later, I promise.
Ceci, my queen of savory food, who rarely eats any sweets even had three bites, I was impressed, and took it as a high compliment.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bars

1/4   Cup Soy Flour
1/4   Cup Brown Rice Flour
3/4   Cup Sweet Rice Flour
3/4   Cup Tapioca Starch
2      tsp Baking Powder
2      tsp Cinnamon
1      tsp Baking Soda
1/4   tsp salt
1/4   tsp ground Cloves

4   beaten Eggs
1 1/2  Cup Sugar
1   16 oz can of pureed pumpkin
1   Cup Canola Oil

In a large mixing bowl, blend dry ingredients until well mixed.  Place Eggs in a stand mixer and mix until beaten, add sugar, pumpkin puree and oil and blend on medium speed for 1 min.  Pour in dry ingredient mix into wet 1 cup at a time, mixing gently between additions.  Blend until fully mixed.  Spread batter in an ungreased 15"x10"x1" pan (jelly roll pan).  Bake at 350 degrees (F) for 25-30 min, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool for 2 hours and spread with Cream Cheese Frosting.


Mom E's Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz  Cream Cheese, softened
1/4    Cup Butter, softened
3 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
2    tsp Vanilla Extract

Blend Cream Cheese and Butter in mixer, add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, and run mixer slowly after each addition.  Add Vanilla Extract at end and mix in.   Spread over cooled cake or bars, and try not to take to many samples, like I do.

My sweet girl helping to model the dessert

Mommy, making pumpkin bars is tiring!

Glutino Chocolate Covered Pretzels!

I've waited a very long time for gluten free chocolate covered pretzels, and now Glutino has delivered!  I can't decide if I should hug or hate the evil genius who finally filled this void on the supermarket shelf.  They are unreasonably delicious, and are probably my new weakness, who doesn't love salty pretzels and sweet milk chocolate!  Now they exist together in all their gluten free deliciousness.  Quite simply they are the same Glutino gluten free pretzel twists that I buy bag after bag of for Ceci and myself to devour on a daily basis, coated in a sweet milk chocolate.  I should also mention that they make a yogurt covered gluten free pretzel too, which Ceci enjoys.  She has been sucking the yogurt coating off of them, and last night handed me the sloppy soggy pieces of left over pretzel from her mouth.  So gross!

My recommendation is to find and buy as many bags as possible, and send them all to me!  Insanely good, probably because it's one of those things I've wanted for about 10 years and now can find in the grocery store.  I think the most reliable place to find so far is glutenfree.com, otherwise I've had difficulty finding them at all.  Today I found the yogurt covered pretzels, but not the chocolate covered, had I found the chocolate I probably would have bought 10 bags.  I hope they can get their machines working overtime and keep up with my demand because they have a hit on their hands.

Chef's Gluten Free Pizza

Chef's Gluten Free Pizza

This weekend we ordered dinner from Chef's, which has become a habit for us lately, which is fine by me. My husband has been eating at Chef's for years and a few months ago saw they started serving gluten free pizzas.  We were happy to find out they are one of the least expensive of the local pizzarias to serve gluten free pies, a plain pizza runs about $8.95, where other places charge as much as $15.95 for the exact same thing.  One other simple reason we love Chef's is that my husband can pick it up on his way home from work.

As far as the actual pizza goes, it's good, I probably think it's better than it is because I can get a decent gluten free pizza, not far from home at a good price, that will make almost anything taste better.  Realistically the crust is a little cardboard like, I assume that is due to it being made off site, frozen, and shipped to Chef's.  I do really enjoy the sauce they use, it has a nice little kick to it, working well with the pepperoni and olives that I typically order.  I do wish they would offer some gluten free pasta dishes on their menu but I can be happy with the pizza for now.  I would like to acknowledge a few things that Chef's does correctly in regard to serving the gluten free pizzas.  The pizzas come on a little aluminum pan which they leave it in when the slide it into the oven so as not to cross contaminate the pizza with any thing that may be laying in the bottom of the oven previously.  Next, when I watched them cut my pizza into slices I saw that they thoroughly wiped down the pizza cutter before applying it to my pie.  Tim also over heard the manager speaking to the staff during his last pick up about the procedures of cooking and serving a gluten free pizza safely.  A few small steps that I appreciate them taking the time and effort to make a safer meal for me.

Overall I'm very happy to eat a Chef's gluten free pizza, hopefully as I said previously they can expand their gluten free menu to include pasta and entrees.  I'll let you know as soon as I do if that happens.

Gluten Free Devil's Food Cupcakes: Ceci's Birthday Treats

Gluten Free Devil's Food Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting, in shape of Mickey Mouse symbol

Ceci doesn't love sweet things, so I decided to make a cake that my husband and I prefer to eat.  I think Ceci would have been happy if I had served chips and pretzels with a candle in it.  We love chocolate in this house so it made perfect sense to have devil's food cupcakes with a rich chocolate frosting, and let me tell you!!!  Oh man!  I particularly enjoyed them out of the fridge when the frosting was nice and stiff.  I'm drooling just thinking about them, maybe next time I will freeze some left overs for just such a craving.

Gluten Free Devil's Food Cupcakes

1/4   Cup Soy (or Chickpea) flour

1      Cup Sweet Rice Flour

1      Cup Tapioca Starch

1      tsp Xanthum Gum

1/2  Cup Unsweetened Cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/4  tsp Salt

1/2  Cup Butter

1 3/4 Cup Sugar

1    tsp Vanilla

3    Eggs

1 1/3 Cups Cold Water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).  Line 22-24 cupcake pans with paper liners and set aside.  Mix flours, xanthum gum, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and set aside.  In a stand mixer beat butter on high for 30 seconds, add sugar and vanilla and beat until well combined.  Add eggs one at a time mixing well after each.  Add dry ingredients and water alternating and beating on low speed after each addition until just combined.  Be careful not to over mix the batter it will make the cupcakes tough.  Pour batter into cupcake papers, fill cups 2/3 full leaving room for the batter to rise.  Drop pans flatly onto counter to force out any air bubbles left in batter.  Bake in 350 degree (F) oven for 17-20 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Coll on a wire rack completely before icing.  Makes 22-24 cupcakes

Chocolate Frosting

1/2    Cup Butter
1/2    Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/3    Cup Milk
4       Cups of Powdered Sugar
1       tsp Vanilla

Microwave butter on high until melted (about 1 min.)  Stir in Cocoa until smooth; microwave on high until mixture boils (30 sec-1 min.)  Add milk and sugar and using a hand mixer or transfer to a stand mixer beat together.  Beat slowly while adding sugar so as not to throw it around the whole kitchen.  When sugar is fully incorporated add vanilla and beat on high until frosting reaches a spreadable consistency.  I placed this frosting in a piping tube and my wonderful friend Sheri swirled it on top of each cupcake for me.

Enjoy!

Ceci's Birthday Treats, Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

At Ceci's 2nd Birthday party I wanted to provide fun activities for the kids so I got some aprons for them to decorate with markers after I added Mickey Mouse designs to them.  Once the aprons were done and we had eaten some dinner I broke out the cookies for the kids to decorate with royal icing which I colored and we had sprinkles, marshmallows, and raisins.  The raisins were a huge hit that I didn't expect.

I previously used this cookie recipe last winter when I held a cookie swap at the house, everyone said it was so good and disappeared quickly at their own home.  So I figured it would be a good one for the kids to use, and it's deliciously plain and a good way to deliver icing and other treats to your mouth.  Because as far as I'm concerned that's one of the most important functions of a good cookie, how much frosting can it structurally hold and get into my mouth.

Gluten Free Rich Sugar Cookies


2     Sticks of Unsalted Butter
2/3  Cup Sugar
1     Egg
1/4  tsp Baking powder
1/8  tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/3  Cup Soy Flour
1    Cup Sweet Rice Flour
1    Cup Tapioca Starch
1    tsp Xanthum Gum

Cream butter and sugar together in mixer on med-high speed for a minute, add in Egg, Baking powder, salt, and vanilla, mix until combined.  Scrape down sides of bowl and mix again if needed to thoroughly incorporate ingredients.  In a separate bowl, mix flours and xanthum gum, add flour mixture to butter mix one cup at a time, with mixer on low.  Once flour is entirely mixed in, run mixer on medium high for about a 30 seconds to make sure everything is blended in.  Turn off mixer, remove bowl from machine, split dough into two portions and wrap each one tightly in plastic wrap.  Place dough in fridge for about an hour.
While waiting for dough to chill, collect desired cookie cutters, rolling mat, rolling pin, spatula, extra flour (I prefer Sweet Rice flour), cookie sheet, silpat (I can't live without mine), and wire cooling rack.  Yes, sugar cookies are a lot of work, but I figure they are worth it.
Remove one dough ball from fridge. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).  Generously flour rolling mat, and rolling pin with extra flour.  Press out ball of dough onto mat and roll out with rolling pin, rotating and flipping dough every few rolls.  Work until dough is about 1/4 inch thick, begin cutting out cookies and placing on cookie sheet (with silpat in sheet, if you have one).  Place cookies about 1 inch apart to accommodate for spreading in the oven.  Bake cookies for 6-9 minutes until golden brown around the edge.  Place on a wire rack to cool.  Scraps of dough can be combined and rolled out again for more cookies, be aware that continuing to add more flour for dusting can result in a tough cookie.  I usually only recycle my scraps 1-2 times before giving up on them.  Repeat the process for the other ball of dough until all dough is made and you have a bunch of delicious cookies.

Wait until cookies are completely cooled before icing, you can use either a royal icing if you like a thicker layer of frosting, or I like to use a powdered sugar icing with food coloring to make all sorts of fun designs.

Christmas cookies, Ceci had a blue cast at the time.

Powdered Sugar Icing

2   Cups Powdered Sugar
1 1/2 Tbs liquid (milk or orange juice, I like the flavor of orange juice with the cookies)

Mix in a bowl until smooth.  Adjust consistency as needed by adding more powdered sugar or liquid.  Add food coloring and place into a piping bag, or a zip top bag with a bottom corner cut off.  Decorate cookies as desired, and ENJOY!

Some decorating inspiration:  I warn you I am not very good at decorating perfectly.  Some of the really "interesting" ones were decorated by Ceci and her friends.

Blue duck with hidden sprinkles (Ceci's)

Can you tell Ceci loves sprinkles?

Raw cookies with colored sugar

Stained glass cookies, sort of